When Pop Music Meets Chinese Traditional Instrument--Part Two

First of All,Happy Chinese Spring Festival!This is the 5th year I spend my spring festival in Amsterdam, I'm pretty homesick right now. In Shanghai, we usually stay up late and set off fireworks on New Year's Eve. By the first day of first lunar month, people are wearing festival dresses and begin to visit or welcome family, friends and loved ones.Anyway,I hope I don't have boring projects next year and then I can be with family to celebrate this amazing festival. Well,I'll continue the part two of the topic.

Guzheng--The guzheng, (Chinese: 古箏) or zheng (箏) (古 means ancient) is a traditional Chinese musical instrument. It belongs to the zither family of string instruments.The instrument is rich in playing techniques. The performer plucks the strings with his right-hand fingernails (either real or simulated), while his left-hand fingers apply pressure to the strings to execute vibratos, glissando, other embellishments and occasional plucking techniques. Sounding melodious and elegant, it is as important solo instrument now, and often in accompaniments as well.


Zheng is also used in pop music composition.Here is a good example and you can see the singer is playing Chinese ancient zheng in this music video.


Xiao--The xiao (traditional Chinese: 簫; simplified Chinese: 箫) is a Chinese end-blown flute.Dizi is the transverse flute while xiao is vertical one. It is used to play classical Chinese music and solo music.


Sheng--The Chinese sheng (Chinese: 笙) is a mouth-blown free reed instrument consisting essentially of vertical pipes, in the Chinese orchestra.It was traditionally used in court music, and there are many depictions of the ancient sheng on the wall paintings of the Dunhuang caves from the 7th and 8th Centuries. It was during this period that the sheng traveled to many of the courts of Asia and according to some references, possibly even Persia in the 10th century. It is documented that it didn't reach Europe until middle of the 18th century, and its influence was so strong that it resulted in the invention of the reed organ, concertina, harmonica and accordion.

This beautiful song is about Yueya Quan(月牙泉), also known as Crescent Moon Lake which is located in the Gobi Desert, Dun Huang. The song combined Sheng, banjo and India Sitar to portrait the dreamlike picture of the scenery in northwestern China.


Suona--The suona (Chinese:唢呐); also called laba (Chinese: 喇叭) is a Han Chinese oboe. Owing to its large volume and strident, penetrating tine quality, the suona is most appropriate for the ardent and lively style. The instrument is commonly used in the accompaniment to local theaters or singing and dancing, in combination with sheng mouth organs, gongs, drums, and sometimes other instruments. Such wind and percussion ensembles are called chuida(吹打）.