my Baby

yes this is the Liu Qin, 柳琴, the instrument that i played in my secondary school.. and this is 1 song that i used to practice alot.. really brings back memories..

i own 1 of this instrument at home.. but it cannot replace the Baby in my heart.. played that for only 2 years, but it was with me as i went through the peak of my Chinese Orchestra "career" (which lasted for a total of 8 years) the name "Baby" is actually quite apt as i literally had to cradle it in my lap everytime i played it, as you can see from the video.. heh..

unlike the one at home, my Baby's tone is very nice..its notes were melodious and bright.. it also looked v nice, having gold platings on its "pin"s 品, which are basically the ridges seen on the front of teh instrument.. the more you play the instrumetn, teh more friction the ridges experience, the more it is polished. hence it is brighter.. so that was part of the reason y i practiced so frequently, so that the gold can shine brightly haha. the flower on top and teh 2 "windows" 音窗 at the front(like in the teh video) also were made of elephant tusk, and it had a "ruby" (basically an oval red plastic stone) in teh centre of the flower, which made it so pretty.. and its "zhou"s 轴 which is basically teh 4 things you see sticking out at the top which are for tuning the instrument are supposedly made of jade.. possibly its inferior quality jade, cuz otherwise the instrument would have been freaking expensive. haha. but its still jade, cuz i rem they were cold to teh touch.. and it DID cost slightly more expensive, at $1000 then, compared to the $500 one i have at home.

after i graduated from sec school, i returned it (as it was my school property) with its gold brightly polished, and yielding strings.. but a few years later when i went back to visit, the gold was reduced to a rusty hue.. and it felt so hostile to me.. the strings dun yield as easily as it did to me like before.. haiz.

now as i write, i have a mind to buy it back from my school. probably it would cost me between 1 to 2k.. hmmm if i have the money, i will definitely do tat.. now the question is, when will i have teh money?