[Ruan] Introduction

Typical Chinese music impression comes from dizis, xiaos, erhus, pipas, guzhengs and other Chinese instruments. In contrary, ruans are less known, which can be observed by the lessons in private music schools.

Though unpopular, ruans are important accompaniment instruments in Chinese Orchestra ensemble. There are more and more ruan solo and concerto. We introduce the series of instruments in this article.

Diyinruans cease to exist while other ruans are available in music retailers. Zhongruan and daruan are most common because they are standard members in Chinese orchestra ensembles. Gaoyinruans are replaced by liuqins, uncommon in music stores.

Xiaoruans and pipas overlap in pitch ranges; however, the former are less expressive than the latter, contributing is rarity on the market.

In the early days of ruan modernization, ruans are tuned as mandolin-family instruments (in Chinese). The tunings of ruans are changed to 5th, 4th, 5th intervals. Ruan repertoire are virtually based on the latter tuning. Therefore, it is unlikely that the tunings of ruans will change again.

NING Youg (寧勇), a ruan educator and virtuoso, wrote an article to discuss the tunings of ruans, which is not accessible on the Web.

If you don’t care about ruan repertoire, you may tune your ruan to a non-standard tuning still. Refer to my previous article (in Chinese).

The pitch ranges of ruan-family instruments can be visualized with a piano keyboard:

There are 24 frets on zhongruans and daruans. Nevertheless, the frets beyond the 19th fret are seldom because of their narrow widths and high string tensions. Besides, there are merely 19 frets on gaoyinruans and xiaoruans. Hence, their pitch ranges are calculated till their 19th frets.

If you plan to buy merely one ruan, buy a zhongruan. Most ruan textbooks are based on zhongruans.

However, if you won’t attend a Chinese music ensemble, it is okey to buy a gaoyinruan or a xiaoruan instead. The core skills to play ruans are same while the two ruans are more portable. To play zhongruan pieces on other ruans, transpose the piece to play it in the same solfege but different key.

Daruans are not recommended to non musicians because they are heavier and wider between frets. Their pitch is as low as that of cellos, maybe too low to play pop songs.

Ruans are relatively expensive because they are uncommon compared with guitars and ukuleles. Entry zhongruans are about $340 USD. Most zhongruans for exercises are between $680 USD and $1020 USD. More expensive models exist as well.

Some patented zhongruans are with sound holes on the side instead of the front, which tones vary from other zhongruans. They are not adapted by most professional musicians because they are so dissimilar in timbre.