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Hey all, so glad to have found this community :)

I guess first off, I should say that I'm a cellist, and that I've been playing for almost 11 years now. I've always been interested in music of all sorts with a soft spot for Chinese and Japanese classical music. When I was about 10 years old and had just started to play the cello, my orchestra performed in a concert in which we had several parents play as guest performers; one of them performed several songs on his erhu for us. I was fascinated and have always wanted to play since then.

I just got back yesterday from a two-and-a-half month trip to China. I was studying Chinese at Shanghai International Studies University (上海外国语大学) and while I was there I made friends with a Chinese student who had been studying erhu as long as I've been studying cello. She let me play on her instrument a bit and I knew I had to have my own. I am fortunate in that I have parents who are extremely supportive of all of my (classical) musical endeavors, and when I told them that I wanted to pick up erhu they immediately offered to provide funds for an instrument. Not that they're that expensive, especially when compared to Western classical instruments, but on a college student's budget it's still quite a bit. Anyway, my friend came with me and helped me choose an instrument. Without her help I don't think that I would have been able to choose such a lovely instrument or get such a good price (I am white and therefore tend to get overcharged by Chinese people in China).

I have so far been teaching myself, though I plan to get a formal teacher starting this December. I've been really surprised at how quickly (read: several weeks) I was able to get comfortable and get a nice tone out of my erhu. It really, really helps that the erhu is tuned exactly the same as the top two strings on the cello, and that it is also played in an upright position. I have a etudes and song book that I bought at the same time as my instrument, and while all of the explanations and such are in Chinese, I know enough to get by... for example, songs labeled 民歌 (folk song) are more fun to play than the others. The fact that it's all written out in jianpu notation helps me keep erhu playing and cello playing separate, which is something I can see becoming a problem.

Sorry I wrote such a very long entry! I'm just glad to be sharing my experiences with others who share this interest.