Ethnic Instrument Making Craftsmanship

Ⅷ-124Traditional CraftsmanshipMinxing, ShanghaiBatch 3 (2011)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

At the beginning of the 20th century, several dozen instrument workshops clustered around the Old City God Temple Street (today's Fangbang Middle Road), Fifth Horse Road (today's Guangdong Road), and Sixth Horse Road (now Beihai Road). In July 1958, the cooperative was reorganized into the collectively owned Shanghai No. 1 National Instrument Factory.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Shanghai's national instrument-making craft can be traced back to the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns of the Qing dynasty. In 1956, Shanghai's entire national instrument industry adopted cooperativization; 86 instrument-making workshops merged to form the Shanghai National Instrument Cooperative. The national instrument-making craft incorporates elements of history, color, and aesthetics, and combines multiple techniques such as shaping, carving, painted decoration, and inlay, giving it outstanding cultural and artistic value. The No. 1 Factory engaged renowned figures in the national music community as consultants to provide guidance and appraisal on product craftsmanship and sound quality, substantially raising the product grade. The exquisite craftsmanship has also brought Shanghai's national instruments numerous honors, including multiple awards for high-quality products from the national light industry sector and the Shanghai Municipality. Because instrument-making is technically demanding, requires a long apprenticeship, and is fairly arduous work, it faces an aging workforce and a shortage of successors. Some protective measures have been taken, but further efforts are still needed.

Adjusting the zheng plate and bridge

Plate, bridge and string spacing are adjusted together, the basis of the modern guzheng form.

Improving the strings

String gauge, winding and tension decide the tone and touch of the zheng.

Inverted-V sound bars

A pair of inverted-V tone bars set inside the pipa panel raised its acoustic quality.

Cutting the pipa face

The face is cut from straight-grained stock, its thickness planned around the later tone bars.

Carving, painting and inlay

History, colour and aesthetics enter through carving, painting and inlay, turning the instrument into an ornament.

Review by musician advisers

Practising musicians were retained to judge craft and tone; renowned pipa players used the workshop's instruments.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The making of Shanghai national instruments originally scattered among dozens of small workshops around the Old City God Temple Street, Fifth Horse Road, and Sixth Horse Road, with shops in front and workshops behind. On a single street, woodworking, lacquering, and carving each took charge of one stage—who made the body, who applied the lacquer, and who strung the instrument was clearly defined. By the early 20th century this area was already the center of Shanghai's instrument trade, and the craft can be traced back to the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns of the Qing dynasty. In 1956 the whole industry adopted cooperativization, and 86 national instrument workshops merged into the Shanghai National Instrument Cooperative; in July 1958 it was reorganized into the collectively owned Shanghai No. 1 National Instrument Factory, bringing the scattered artisans' skills together in one place. The factory then engaged renowned figures from the national music community as consultants to guide and appraise the craftsmanship and sound quality of each piece, thereby establishing the product grade.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Xu Zhengao (from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Representative inheritor of the fourth national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage item "Instrument-Making Craft" (Shanghai National Instrument-Making Craft). Senior technician. He entered the Shanghai No. 1 National Instrument Factory in 1958. Continuously exploring and innovating—from the decoration of the guzheng, the adjustment of its bridges, to the improvement of its strings—he realized a transformation in guzheng-making. The twin-cranes-facing-the-sun guzheng design he created has become a classic modern guzheng style. Male, Han, born November 1933, died April 2019, from Shanghai. He cultivated a large cohort of new guzheng-making talent and was named a Shanghai Municipal Model Worker by the Shanghai Municipal People's Government four times in a row. Gao Zhanchun (from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage item "Instrument-Making Craft" (Shanghai National Instrument-Making Craft). Senior technician. In the early 1960s, the pipa R&D team he led installed a pair of inverted-V sound bars inside the pipa's soundboard, raising the acoustic quality of the pipa to a new level. The pipa he makes are beautiful in shape and comfortable to handle, with bright, crisp, full, and resonant tones. Renowned pipa performers such as Wei Zhongle, Lin Shicheng, and Liu Dehai have all used pipa made by him. His article "Pipa Making" was the first professional treatise published in the history of Chinese pipa-making. Male, Han, born February 1937, died October 2021, from Jingjiang City, Jiangsu Province.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回英文名录。