Typical Chinese music impression comes from dizis, xiaos, erhus, pipas, guzhengs and other Chinese instruments. In contrary, ruans are less known, Read More
Ruans a.k.a. Chinese guitars are Chinese lute-family instruments with mellow and warm timbre, capable for both solo and accompaniment.
There are five ruan variants currently - gaoyinruan (高音阮), xiaoruan (小阮), zhongruan (中阮), daruan (大阮) and diyinruan. Among them, zhongruans and daruans compose a part of Chinese Orchestra Ensembles. The other ruans seldom appear on music retailers because they are not standard components in those ensembles.
Virtually all ruan learners start with zhongruans.