Watch Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” Performed on a Guzheng, an Ancient Chinese Instrument

The guzheng was born in Chi­na over 2500 years ago. Orig­i­nal­ly made out of bam­boo and silk strings, the instru­ment became very pop­u­lar in the impe­r­i­al court dur­ing the Qin peri­od (221 to 206 BCE), and by the Tang Dynasty (618 CE to 907 CE), it was per­haps the most pop­u­lar instru­ment in Chi­na. Accord­ing to the San Fran­cis­co Guzheng Music Soci­ety, it remained pop­u­lar through the late Qing dynasty (1644 A.D. — 1911 A.D.) and into the 20th cen­tu­ry, when, in 1948, “the renowned musi­cian Cao Zheng estab­lished the first uni­ver­si­ty lev­el guzheng pro­gram” in the coun­try, and the “old silk strings were replaced with nylon strings, which are still being used today.”

That’s not the only thing that’s hap­pen­ing today. Young musi­cians like Michelle Kwan are tak­ing West­erns hit and per­form­ing them adept­ly on the Guzheng. Above, we have a pret­ty remark­able per­for­mance of Guns N’ Ros­es’ 1987 hit “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” It just gets bet­ter as it goes along. In the past, we’ve also fea­tured the Talk­ing Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” Per­formed on Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Instru­ments, includ­ing the Guzheng. Plus we’ve shown you Jimi Hen­drix’s “Voodoo Chile” and Ste­vie Ray Vaughan’s Ver­sion of “Lit­tle Wing”, both played on the Gayageum, a Kore­an instru­ment direct­ly relat­ed to the Guzheng. They’re all worth watch­ing.

via Devour

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter and Google Plus and make us part of your dai­ly social media diet.