Hector Arturo Llamas Orenday: >Hi List members: Next week our symphony orchestra will play Z. Long's >"King Chu doffs his armour" for p'ipa and orchestra. Do you have any >information about the author and instrument? Thanks in advance. I'm not familiar with long, but I have a p'ipa on the wall (that I bought in Hong Kong in 1984), it is a shallow lute instrument with high tension strings that are wound from silk. The finger board has fret funktioning ridges all along. I belive it is semi hollow, but have no soundhole. The sound is very percussive, very direct. Outside china, the two best (still Chinese) players seem to be: Wu, Man and Ya, Dong. peter lundin, gothenburg.se - Counting the days: DSCH 100 (1906-2006)