I did my research before I bought this. There are YouTube videos of people playing it, and Amazon has mp3s. I wanted to know what I was planning to get myself into--make sure I'd be able to tolerate the sound once I began playing it.
I bought it [from a different seller] at a very cheap price (though, after shipping, was a couple more dollars than on this page). I wanted something cheap in case I decided to abandon the endeavor after a short while. No point in paying hundreds of dollars on something I won't be playing months, hopefully years, from now.
It came in a huge box, and when I opened it discovered the actual instrument was in a small box (at least four times smaller than the box it shipped in). It deceived me into thinking it had come already put together. Nope. When I opened the [small] box, there was an assortment of sticks...Thankfully the stringed bamboo bars didn't come disassembled. Otherwise I may have given up then.
There were instructions on the outside of the box, but I didn't understand them, so I just began sticking legs into the holes of the main part of the stand. It wasn't until after I got it together that I realized dots were painted on the sticks to match the hole with the stick...
"-_-
Don't worry--if you can't understand the instructions, either, it's all right. The sticks will not fit into the holes in which they were not designed to be. I got a couple of the legs mixed up when I was fumbling around, and when it stood on its own, it was lopsided, and one of the legs fell out.
The strings have to be taut, otherwise the sound quality isn't as rich--the bottom bar shouldn't lay against the base or touch the base whatsoever. At first I was afraid to break the back part of the stand by pulling the string taut (the back stick feels much weaker than it really is), but I've actually had to tighten it a couple more times since I first put it together.
It plays very well. I don't play very loudly so as not to disturb the other members of the house. Even when I barely strike the bars a decent sound comes out. It can get pretty loud, though. When you strike it hard enough, the entire instrument bounces around--may want to take that into consideration. It doesn't do that so much on carpet.
There was a nail polish-like residue which began forming on the bars I played most often. My friend told me was because the instrument was new or handmade or something...
There are some songs I can't play on it, mostly because the notes in the song drop down lower than the lowest bar on the instrument. The notes of the bars are indicated on both the instrument and the box in which it came, which is very thoughtful of the makers. The notes are as follows, from the lowest bar to the highest: C D E F G A H C D E F G (not sure why there's no B note).
I was looking for a portable instrument, and because this is relatively small and lightweight, I assumed it would be easily portable. However, after disassembling/reassembling it twice (once to go to my friend's house for the weekend, another time when I arrived back home), I found out the strings holding the bars don't hold the same. This meant when I came back home and set it up, the bottom bar was somehow resting on the stand, which it hadn't done since before I tightened the strings. Most of the strings holding the bars together had shifted, and I have yet to get it back to its original state. This doesn't affect the playing too much, but it does bother me because when the strings shifted and I set it up, the alignment was off (the bars didn't ascend in a normal staircase fashion, rather some were lopsided).
Overall it's a wonderful instrument. It's relatively sturdy (I've let my year old brother play it, and he bangs on it and tries to grap hold of the bars). I've had it for about a month now, and it's endured quite a bit of abuse. I'm happy with my little t'rung.
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