In general, string instruments music are from the plucked and the bowed category. For traditional Chinese music, the is one more category, we called it the hammered category. Let’s start with the plucked category.
Plucked Instruments Music
What do you see when you are asked to visualize sounds from the plucked instruments? If you would to focus solely on the traditional point of view, then music from the guitar will not be included. You would only include a harp, a violin and a lute. Yes, a violin can be plucked but the sound would be very soft. In the traditional Chinese world, allow me to introduce to you, the Chinese lute or we called at as Pipa. The Pipa or the ancient Chinese guitar has 4 string is an alluring instrument. Legend said that during the turbulent era of Romance in 3 Kingdoms, one of the kingdoms, Wei sends a player in the front.
She played the Pipa so well, stirring the hearts of the soldiers and weakens the joints of the enemies. Her team fought valiantly and conquered the city. Another traditional plucked instrument musical not to be missed is none other than the GuZheng. The GuZheng looks like a typical harp shape but it has to be played horizontally, has 21 strings and each string with a bridge that emits different sound. When you think of GuZheng, the traditional music that could be beautifully produced is none other than “The Sea that Laughs” which is the Swordsman theme song. When the master of Linghu Chong was dying, he took out his GuZheng and played the last song with all his might. Ignoring his previous injuries, he played on, singing to his last dying breath and he lit his small boat, surrendering to the open ocean.