Jane Pierce writes:

>You have whetted my curiousity.

And I have tried so hard to do so!  Although there is a certain amount
of relatively simple "black note" Chinese music known in the West, many of
the most sophisticated repertory areas are quite unknown.  I admire Indian
music also, and have several discussions on the topic available online, but
I think it is clear that given China's population and historical cultural
status it would have rather more compelling musical styles than those for
which it is currently given credit.  That is only a point to ponder, and
perhaps some incentive to dig further.

>I have researched chinese instruments on the internet, and have
>come up empty.

I am genuinely sorry to hear that.  My own page on the topic should appear
on searches.  Most of my world music pages were first written in 1991.  For
guqin, let me suggest two other sources:

   http://www.iohk.com/UserPages/thompson/02b0qin.htm
   http://members.aol.com/CCEvans42/gq-intro.htm
   http://members.wbs.net/homepages/g/u/q/guqin.html

These are the pages of a friend of mine in Hong Kong, his friend, and the
North American guqin association of which I am an honorary member of some
sort.

Guqin is not a bamboo instrument, although the vertical bamboo flute xiao
is one of the instruments with which it can historically be performed in
combination.  Guqin was one of the "required" endeavors of the true scholar
in Chinese history, although the Cultural Revolution has obviously modified
that position.  It is quite a compelling instrument, if one can make the
mental leap to following what is going on.  It is not simple music.  I hope
my enthusiasm will be contagious.  We need a better guqin following in
North America and elsewhere in the West.

Todd McComb
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