Presentation of Noise Elements of Chinese Plucked String Instruments in Electronic Music

Abstract

Traditional Chinese music highlights the linear beauty, or the melody. In addition to the presentation of melody, traditional Chinese music tends to create rhythmic beauty with a broad sound language of different attributes, which is realised by controlling the sound variation with its rich playing fingerings and techniques. Instead of evading noises, traditional Chinese music even applies noises intentionally to meet certain demands, as is very commonly found in plucked string instruments. Many typical noise languages used in plucked string instruments, while in the context of electroacoustic music, demonstrate their features in multiple dimensions of sound, such as the basic form, colour, dynamics and longitudinal gradation structure, which are gained by changes in parameters such as sound pitch, frequency, time and space information. Therefore, they imply both the basic timbre characteristics of the musical instrument and the technical characteristics of the electroacoustic music.