For those made in north China where in most cases it is dry, if the guqin made there is shipped to humid area, it takes a long time for the guqin to fully “recover” from such transition, and in the first year, the Guqin sound may sound not deep and far-reaching as it should be.

Another thing you need to pay attention to is the style, there are a lot of style available, Jiaoye style (Banana Leaf), together with Zhongni (Confucius) and Fuxi (Namde after the man who invented the 8 primary elements, so-called Ba-gua in Chinese), they are among the most prefered styles.

Of course, the wood material is of much importance, you would find that most instruments for the beginner are made of paulownia wood, while those made of aged China fir wood are the better choice for the professional players. Of course, the craftsmanship would have final say over the sound quality,  those paulownia wood instruments can have an excellent quality when crafted by the top makers.

If the flutes are to be played with other instrument, then such tuning joint can be of help as it can change the valid length of the flute body which in turn makes the flute tunable to some extent.

While if the flutes are not for such playing with other instruments, then I think one made of a piece of solid bamboo block is better as the air flow in the flute body is smooth without such joint and the vibration of the sound is better, so the sound quality would be better too.

Traditionally, the xiao flute is configured to 6 holes (5 front and 1 back), so the finger holes’ distance is something large, while the modern flutes are configured to 8 holes instead (7 front and 1back), which in turn makes it easier to control. So for the beginner, a 8-hole one is a better choice.

The reasons behind can be easily understood that the erhu instruments is used to express the feelings people have and in some cases used to emulate people’s sound, while tune D is the lowest and A the higest in most people’s singing.

For the beginner, those made of rosewood/redwood by most Chinese makers would be enough, while such an instrument may cost something between usd100 to usd200 (not exactly the same) without the shipment cost being included. And it is absolutely not necessary for the beginner to have a premium instrument as it is not easy to maintain for them, and it may one day loose the value it should have without proper maintainance.

Another thing is, most beginner (in fact also the experienced) would like to have sound and video clip of the instrument model they prefer before going ahead, indeed it is totally not necessary as the fact is: even the instrument itself is a basic one, while if played by the master, still one can achieve a fairly good result, so, it is indeed confusing for such clips, isn’t it?