About Me

Hello! My name is Yisu, founder of Austin Guzheng Studio. I named my studio after the city I live in, Austin Texas. I figured that makes it very clear where my location is, and if anyone from around Austin needs help with guzheng stuff, they can drop by my place and get the help they need. It is a home studio located near Lakeline Mall area, close to Hatch Rd and FM620.

Why I started Austin Guzheng Studio

With a deep passion for guzheng, I've been searching for good guzheng resources ever since moving to the U.S. during middle school. I've switched different teachers, researched different websites for instruments and tutorials. While there are a lot of great resources out there, I feel there are still gaps to be filled. I started Austin Guzheng Studio mostly for these purposes

• transparent and official pricing on instruments. I believe if the retail price of these instruments (especially the big brands) is transparent and heavily regulated in China. It should be the same outside China. 
• awareness on up-to-date guzheng skills. Although there are a lot of good teachers who did guzheng majors. Not a lot are making English tutorial videos on how the guzheng skills are currently being taught in China. I believe there's no right or wrong on how one executes guzheng skills, but I would like to at least raise some awareness on how the techniques are currently being played. 
• a good selection of accessories. All the accessories we sell are the ones that work really well for me. I would like to bring the diversity to guzheng communities around the world and find the cool guzheng gadgets that work well for you as well. 

I officially started my studio in 2021. Before that I’ve always been doing some guzheng stuff here and there. Life’s been busy and I never got a good stretch to get anything officially launched. After covid hit, I had more time to plan my studio, and I was able to dedicate more time on talking to other guzheng teachers, putting together better teaching materials and started to sample the products I wanted to share with everyone, including guzhengs, picks, tape, strings, bridges, etc. 

How my guzheng journey started

I was born in China, and I first got my hands on guzheng in my last year of elementary school.  My school was trying to do some innovative curriculum in order to stand out in the school district, and it started a guzheng class. Guzheng looked like a very busy/interesting instrument because it had so many strings, so I thought it would be a cool instrument to play. I have very little memory of the detailed stuff I learned back then honestly, but I know that I had a very good teacher, because now that I think about it, some guzheng habits I got into were very correct and up-to-date, including plucking skills, hand shape, etc. That helped me a lot in judging and finding good resources later down the road.

I’m not a music major

I always get the question of if I studied music in college. And the answer is no. I graduated with my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. I do not think that hinders me from being a great guzheng player or a guzheng teacher. I definitely don’t study my engineering topics very often after college. However I still play/practice guzheng pretty much everyday. I talk to a lot of guzheng teachers in and outside China. I also talk to a lot of guzheng factories and ask guzheng making questions. Even on my busiest days, I practice guzheng for like 5 minutes before going to sleep. Large amount of practice and exposure to a wide variety of resources (both professional and amateur) helped me gain a lot of unique insights and effective practice tips on guzheng skills.