Ancient Chinese Ruan - Pan Jingjing plays Ruan for the Lyre Academy Challenge

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This is a series of homemade videos by musicians all over the world, curated by SEIKILO YouTube Channel!

The Lyre Academy Challenge is on! Pan Jingjing from China plays on her Ruan (阮), an ancient Chinese string instrument with history of more than 2000 years! This is her response to the first-ever ancient music challenge, titled Lyre Academy Challenge, an online gathering of great ancient instrument players around the world, showing what these amazing ancient instruments have to offer.
The Lyre Academy Challenge was initiated during the 2020 February-May lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and it keeps on since then!

The goal is to inspire and be inspired by skilled players around the world, to practice and create ancient-inspired music. Our first challengers already inspired many, as we have received numerous emails for participation. But, it is not our choice, you have to be challenged by someone! :)

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// Pan Jingjing was challenged by Wang Long. You can listen to her composition at    • Ancient Guqin - Wang Long plays Chine...  

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// What is a Ruan?
The ruan (Chinese: 阮; pinyin: ruǎn) is a traditional Chinese plucked string instrument. It is a lute with a fretted neck, a circular body, and four strings. Its four strings were formerly made of silk but since the 20th century, they have been made of steel (flatwound for the lower strings). The modern ruan has 24 frets with 12 semitones on each string, which has greatly expanded its range from a previous 13 frets. The frets are commonly made of ivory or in recent times of metal mounted on wood. The metal frets produce a brighter tone as compared to the ivory frets. It is sometimes called ruanqin, particularly in Taiwan.
Ruan may have a history of over 2,000 years, the earliest form may be the qin pipa (秦琵琶), which was then developed into ruanxian (named after Ruan Xian, 阮咸), shortened to ruan (阮). In old Chinese texts from the Han to the Tang dynasty, the term pipa was used as a generic term for a number plucked chordophones, including ruan, therefore does not necessarily mean the same as the modern usage of pipa which refers only to the pear-shaped instrument. According to the Pipa Annals 《琵琶赋》 by Fu Xuan (傅玄) of the Western Jin Dynasty, the pipa was designed after revision of other Chinese plucked string instruments of the day such as the Chinese zither, zheng (筝) and zhu (筑), or konghou (箜篌), the Chinese harp. However, it is believed that ruan may have been descended from an instrument called xiantao (弦鼗) which was constructed by labourers on the Great Wall of China during the late Qin Dynasty (hence the name Qin pipa) using strings stretched over a pellet drum.