"True love is a silent language only the heart can speak and only the soul can understand."
“The Wedding Series” of Xuan Guang has pioneered the idea of employing a variety of colors and shades of wood in the design. This allows customers to convey their unique love story with a custom made guzheng using their own color palette. The collection mirrors the concept of true love, which comes in many shapes and designs.
This masterpiece stole the limelight at the Music Shanghai Expo in 2019. The all-white zheng body is matched with a surface veneer featuring 100% hand woven Japanese nishijin-ori fabric made of gold and silver yarn. White is the color of purity and flawlessness. Just like the white wedding gown, this masterpiece is the perfect symbol for pure, selfless love.
Japanese paulownia grows in cold climates and has a slower growth rate than its Southeast Asian counterparts. As such, Japanese paulownia wood has more compact tree rings which, when used to make guzhengs, consistently results in a beautifully layered, well rounded sound. This is a gift from Nature that each and every Xuan Guang guzheng is blessed with.
Wood grain is yet another feature that breathes life into Xuan Guang. Tree rings are the testimony of a tree’s growth, year after year. They evolve slowly into a pattern that is unique to the tree as it ages, which is why every Xuan Guang guzheng is one-of-a-kind.
The use of top grade 40 year-old Japanese paulownia wood is part of our premium configuration for Xuan Guang. Due to the slow growth rate of Japanese paulownia, it takes at least 40 years for the tree to grow before its wood becomes suitable as material for guzheng production.
Top grade 40 year-old Japanese paulownia wood is typically located on the outer rim of the tree trunk. The passage of time leaves precious traces on this part of the wood, as can be seen in its ultra fine, dense wood grain. The all-natural wood grain takes the shape of water ripples and undulating mountains to give the sound extra finesse and greater penetrating power that moves people to the core.
The all-white zheng body is matched with a surface veneer featuring 100% hand woven Japanese nishijin-ori fabric made of gold and silver yarn.
The front bridge is carved out of an integral piece of Indian red sandalwood. Its flawless arc is the result of numerous adjustments by the craftsman such that the tenon fits perfectly on the zheng body to facilitate optimal sound projection.
Decorative Fringe on the Zheng Body
Mounting the fringe by tenon gives the zheng body a more three-dimensional, classy look. Yet, the process is more painstaking than it seems. To ensure the wood has a smooth and lustrous surface, it needs to be polished manually over and over again, and no gap should be left between the tenon joints so as to avoid any disruption to the sound transmission. The ultimate destination of this process is beauty in both form and substance without coming across as trying too hard, and this happens to be one of the signature traits of Xuan Guang guzhengs, whose one-of-a-kind beauty can hardly be replicated.
These Zheng Art zheng bridges are made of aged Siamese rosewood, and are manually polished by our craftsmen according to the contour of the zheng body. The bridges are meticulously crafted one after another in accordance with the wood grain by the deft hands of the same craftsman. This greatly enhances the consistency and stability of the bridges, helping to produce well controlled, nicely layered waves of sound on the instrument.
Zheng Art zheng bridges are extremely durable, and do not wear easily despite repeated usage, which helps strengthen the stability of the sound and prevents the bridges from shifting during usage.
The use of top quality materials coupled with a sophisticated production process implies that Zheng Art zheng bridges cost several times as much to produce than ordinary zheng bridges. Nevertheless, we spare no expense when it comes to pursuit of the perfect sound quality.
The zheng head interior features the art of yosegi-zaiku, a type of traditional marquetry originated in Hakone, Japan. Natural timbers of different colors and textures are cut into thin plates of wood, and then inlaid into the inner surface of the zheng head to create mosaics of geometrical design patterns. Yosegi-zaiku gained popularity in Hakone during the culturally rich Edo era, and has been designated as the official traditional Japanese woodcraft by the authorities since 1984. Regrettably, there are only a handful of yosegi-zaiku masters nowadays, which has led to artpieces of the craft becoming ever more precious.
The all-white zheng body is matched with a surface veneer featuring 100% hand woven Japanese nishijin-ori fabric made of gold and silver yarn.
The string holes are cast in 18K gold, which is durable and does not fade easily.
Triangular engraving is used on the interior of the zheng body, a design that demands meticulous calculation and precision. As the interior of the zheng body is a curved surface instead of a flat one, the craftsman needs to take into consideration the contour of the body as well as the way sound is transmitted during playing to ensure sound coming out has a well-defined sense of layers. The use of triangular engraving in lieu of straight-line engraving also gives the sound a more refined, sustained quality and an all-encompassing presence.
The sound hole on the backboard panel is also cloaked with red sandalwood to ensure that the sound comes across as solid and well rounded, rather than diffused and scattered.
