Chinese music Flashcards
What are the 2 types of Chinese ensemble music?
- Jiangnan Sizhu (Region is Jiangnan)
2. Guangdong Music (Region is Guangdong)
What are the instruments present in Jiangnan Sizhu?
Erhu Pipa Yangqin Dizi Sheng Sanxian
Describe the Erhu and how it is played
It is a two-stringed bowed spike fiddle with a cylindrical or hexagonal resonator covered in snake skin. It has a cylindrical neck without a fingerboard. Players stops the string with pressure from fingers of the left hand, which do not press the string all the way down to the neck facilitating pitch slides and bends.
Describe the Pipa and how it is played
The Pipa four-stringed pear-shaped fretted lute held nearly upright. Players use artificial fingernails to pluck the strings. Its frets are raised high above the fingerboard so that it is possible to obtain both fixed pitches and sizeable pitch bends.
Describe the yangqin and how it is played
The yangqin is a trapezoidal hammered box zither(dulcimer). Modern yangqin’s have 144 strings made of steel alloy, and each string is stretched over an intermediate bridge, but the strings alternate on the right and left side. The strings are struck with light and think bamboo sticks.
Describe the Dizi and how it is played
The dizzy is a transverse bamboo flute with 6 finger holes, 1 membrane hole and 1 blowing hole. The membrane hole is covered with thin rice paper membrane that buzzes when the flute is played, giving it a distinctively rich, reedy timbre.
Describe the Sheng and how it is played
The Sheng is a mouth organ with multiple pipes, each with a single reed connected to an air chamber.
The player blows into and sucks air from the mouthpiece, and allows air into the various pipes by uncovering the holes.
The Sheng plays single melodies, not chords although Melodie are usually played in parallel fourths/fifths, thickening the texture.
What does heterophony mean?
It refers to instruments decorating the same stock melody simultaneously in different ways according to the idiom and technique of the instrument.
What are the instruments commonly found in Guangdong music?
Sanxian
Xiao
Gaohu
Yanqin
Describe the Gaohu and how it is played
It is a two-stringed bowed spike fiddle with a cylindrical or hexagonal resonator covered with snake skin or hide
It has a cylindrical neck without a fingerboard
The Gaohu is a higher-pitched and smaller-sized erhu with a bright timer.
The player stops the strings with pressure from the fingers of the left hand. which do not press the strings all the way down t the neck, in order to facilitate pitch slides and bends.
Describe the Xiao and how it is played
The Xiao is a vertically played bamboo flute.
The Xiao has 5 finger holes in the front and 1 in the back. Sound is produced by blowing directly against the sharp edge of the notch at the top end of the instrument.
Describe the Guzheng and how it is played
The Guzheng is a curve board zither with approximately 21 metal/nylon strings. The strings are supported by intermediate bridges that can be moved to tune the strings to the desired mode.
Plectra are taped to 3 fingers of the player’s right hand and the left hand effects pitch bends and vibratos by pressing down on the string behind the bridge.
