Chinese music will never catch on

Here's a few reasons why the Chinese instruments are inferior to instruments of canonized western music. Firstly, Chinese instruments do not offer much flexibility. I am not sure who invented these instruments, or how they have been modified over hundreds of years. However, at a performance I noticed that a lacked the wide a range of pitches and volume like western instruments. Maybe the reasons why western instruments are so good is because France, Germany, Italy, and more (almost all of Europe) made and modified them for years, while only China makes erhus and pipas, etc. Even China makes good violins now (pretty cheap too!)

Something that bothered me about the erhu: there is no fingerboard. That makes intonation very difficult because the string can be bent quite a bit, making the pitch of the string fluctuate inconsistently (maybe unless you're a pro). Also, only two strings, A and D, small range of pitches... All western stringed instrumets have four strings. Additionally, the bow on the erhu is stuck inbetween the two strings!! You cannot remove the bow, nor can you bounce it. This lacks control. Furthermore, the bow must either be pulled toward the body or pushed away to contact either string (the bow being in the middle). I see a problem with consistency here. Lastly, the sound box, the resonator where the sound comes from, is so incredibly small, that you must move the bow aggressivly to vibrate the string and be heard. You have to amplify the box with mics in bigger halls. A final thought: you can imitate a chinese violin with a western instrument, but not vice versa.

The sound is quite beautiful though. Except I can't stand the sound of Chinese brass instruments. They sound really stupid, uncontrolled, annoying, and very loud. The music all sounds the same too (NWEE NER NWEE NER NER NER NER HONK HONK BEEP BEEP).

The end. I'm a player hater.