In 1977, NASA placed a golden record aboard Voyager 1 and launched it into space — not toward any particular destination, but outward, into the unknown, in search of other civilizations. Among the sounds chosen to represent humanity was a piece of music played on the guqin: Liú Shuǐ — Flowing Streams — performed by the master Guǎn Pínghú (管平湖).
That recording is now beyond our solar system. It may travel for fifty thousand years. It may never be heard. Or it may one day reach ears — or whatever serves as ears — that we cannot imagine. No one can say. The future of that music is entirely beyond human prediction.
This is what the guqin has become: not just an instrument of Chinese civilization, but a voice of Earth itself, carried into cosmic time.
Human civilization stretches back tens of thousands of years. The written and pictorial record spans at least five thousand. In that vast span of creation, countless people have made contributions that deserve to be remembered and honored by those who come after. The guqin alone has a known history of two thousand years — born as an instrument of the Chinese-speaking world, carried forward by those who write in Chinese characters and speak the Chinese language, and alive to this day. In those two thousand years, the names of those who gave their lives to this tradition are beyond counting.
We will not attempt to name them all here.
Instead, we choose a node — a point in the long thread where we can take hold. We begin with a single artist, born in 1929 and gone in 2003, through whom we can trace the two thousand years that came before and the future we have yet to face. Like the golden record itself — carrying the civilization that already exists, reaching toward the civilization that has not yet been found — this man's life holds both ends of the thread.
His name was Méi Yuèqiáng (梅曰强). His studio was called Yíyún Zhāi — the Studio of Moving Clouds.
This is where our journey into the guqin begins.
The guqin was born within the Chinese-speaking world and has been developing for two thousand years. It is still widely played and deeply cherished today — a vessel carrying the mysteries of Eastern civilization. And yet, it remains largely unknown to the English-speaking world and to speakers of other languages.
With this blog, I invite you to step inside.
A Life of Transmission
Mei Yueqiang did not belong to a single school. Over the course of his life, he studied under five masters, absorbing the distinct qualities of four great traditions — and spent his life synthesizing what he had received into something entirely his own.
He began under Wāng Jiànhóu (汪建侯) of the Zhejiang school — a tradition known for its clarity and ancient simplicity. He then studied with Xià Yīfēng (夏一峰) and Zhào Yúnqīng (赵云青) of the Jinling school, absorbing their quality of refined stillness and classical restraint. From Xū Tónghúa (胥桐华) of the Sichuan school, he received the tradition's boldness and power — a sound that moves like a river in flood.
But it was his final apprenticeship that defined him. He sought out Liú Shǎochuān (刘少椿), the great master of the Guangling school from Yangzhou, and studied under him for three years — immersing himself in Guangling's signature qualities: ornate and delicate, dramatic and shifting, balancing strength with tenderness.
From these four rivers, Mei Yueqiang forged a single current. He became the tenth-generation heir of the Jinling school and the eleventh-generation master of the Guangling school — and something more: a synthesist whose playing transcended any single lineage.
His style came to be known simply as Méi Qín (梅琴) — the Mei sound. Its qualities: yīn zhèng yùn hé, qīng yuǎn gǔ mù, kuān yù wēn páng — correct in tone, harmonious in resonance, clear and distant, ancient and solemn, broad and warm.
The Studio of Moving Clouds
The name Yiyun Zhai came from his early years in Nanjing, where his residence looked out onto open sky. To open the window was to see clouds. To sit at the window and play was to move them — or so it seemed. The clear tones of the guqin rose through the window, and the clouds, unhurried, drifted with the music.
Yí yún (移云): clouds in motion. Not driven, not commanded — simply moved, the way music moves what cannot be forced.
The Return to Yangzhou
After retirement, Mei Yueqiang carried a debt he felt he could not ignore. Everything he knew of the Guangling school had come from Liu Shaochuan, a master from Yangzhou. The Guangling tradition itself had its roots in Yangzhou. It was only right, he believed, that what he had received should be returned to the place it came from.
And so he left Nanjing and moved to Yangzhou. He sold his Ming Dynasty guqin, Hǎi Yuè Qiū Chéng (海月秋澄), and used the proceeds to purchase two small rooms at No. 29 Jiǎndāo Lane, East Gate Street, Yangzhou.
In those two small rooms, Mei Yueqiang taught for more than ten years, accepting no tuition fees from any student. He taught freely, completely, holding nothing back. Students came from near and far. None were turned away. None were charged.
His purpose was singular: to ensure that the Guangling lineage, in its authentic form, would remain alive in the city where it belonged.
After his death, the two rooms at No. 29 Jiǎndāo Lane were restored by the Yangzhou municipal government and designated as the Mei Yueqiang Former Residence — a cultural landmark commemorating the master and the living tradition he left behind.
The Lineage Continues
Mei Yueqiang's son, Mei Shijun (梅士军), inherited the tradition — father to son, a transmission that carries particular weight in Chinese musical culture, where lineage is not merely biographical but spiritual.
It is through Mei Shijun that this lineage reaches Seven String Qin. Our founder, William Xu, studied under Mei Shijun, making Mei Yueqiang his teacher's teacher — three generations, one unbroken line, from the Studio of Moving Clouds to the instruments we make today.
What the Clouds Carry
Mei Yueqiang died on his birthday. A life that began and ended on the same day, as if the circle had been completed with intention.
What he left behind is not a monument — though one now stands in a quiet alley in Yangzhou. It is a sound: passed from his hands to his son's, and from his son's to ours.
Yiyun Zhai still stands. The clouds still move.
Listen
Mei Yueqiang's recordings have found new life in the digital age. His performance of Pèi Lán (佩兰) is available on Apple Podcasts, where listeners around the world turn to his playing for meditation, sleep, and quiet contemplation — proof that a sound shaped two thousand years ago still reaches people today, across languages and borders.
At Seven String Qin, every instrument we make carries this lineage. We build for players who understand that the guqin is not simply an object — it is a practice, a transmission, and a responsibility.
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