The playing techniques of the guqin, sometimes called fingerings, are more numerous than those of any other Chinese or Western musical instrument.
These are harmonics, in which the player lightly touches the string with one or more fingers of the left hand at a position indicated by the hui dots, pluck and lift, creating a crisp and clear sound Listenⓘ.
This forms the bulk of most qin pieces and requires the player to press on a string with a finger or thumb of the left hand until it connects with the surface board, then pluck.
According to the book Cunjian Guqin Zhifa Puzi Jilan, there are around 1,070 different finger techniques used for the qin, with or without names.
[2] There are eight basic right hand finger techniques: pi 〈劈〉 (thumb pluck outwards), tuo 〈托〉 (thumb pluck inwards), mo 〈抹〉 (index in), tiao 〈挑〉 (index out), gou 〈勾〉 (middle in), ti 〈剔〉 (middle out), da 〈打〉 (ring in), and zhai 〈摘〉 (ring out); the little finger is not used.
Techniques executed by both hands in tandem are more difficult to achieve, like qia cuo san sheng 〈掐撮三聲/掐撮三声〉 (a combination of hammering on and off then plucking two strings, then repeating), to more stylised forms, like pressing of all seven strings with the left, then strumming all the strings with the right, then the left hand quickly moves up the qin, creating a rolling sound like a bucket of water being thrown in a deep pool of water (this technique is used in the Shu style of Liu Shui to imitate the sound of water).
There are now new books that have begun to be published about these fingerings and notation as qin culture and study gains momentum.