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Support for Chinese plucked instrument playing techniques
Split from #172 from @nathsiu0202:
Chinese plucked string articulations
Articulations for Chinese plucked string instrument is very well standardised and established since PMPH started publishing with them in Chinese orchestra and Chinese instrumental music. I think assign a block to them, like how guitar and percussion has their own blocks, would be a good way to do it. (Again, I'm not familar with how implementation actually works so I might not be making sense here.) Anway, here are some pictures. I will pair a potato-quality scanned version with my copied version here:Example A:
Example B:
Example C:
That's pretty much it! Thanks for the time reading this!
@nathsiu0202, could you please provide English names for these symbols, so I can be sure of giving them appropriate names?
Hi, Daniel @dspreadbury. I would recommend naming these symbols directly using the pinyin (Latin transcription system for Mandarin Chinese) of their Chinese names, the same way The TENG Guide To The Chinese Orchestra does, as the English descriptions of some of the techniques can be too wordy.
The symbols used in @nathsiu0202's proposal are:
- A. Sao (Pluck four strings in quick succession outwards with index finger, lit. Sweep)
- B. Lun or Wuzhi-lun (Five-finger tremolo, lit. Circular movement or Five-finger circular movement)
- C. Sizhi-lun or Ban-lun (Four-finger tremolo, lit. Four-finger circular movement or Half circular movement)
- D. Sanzhi-lun (Three-finger tremolo, lit. Three-finger circular movement)
Below are the relevant references in The TENG Guide To The Chinese Orchestra.
(The TENG Guide To The Chinese Orchestra, p.280)
(The TENG Guide To The Chinese Orchestra, p.283)
It is important to note that in addition to the above symbols, there are a VERY LARGE NUMBER of other symbols specific to Chinese plucked string instruments, some of which are listed below:
(The TENG Guide To The Chinese Orchestra, p.278)
(The TENG Guide To The Chinese Orchestra, p.280)
(The TENG Guide To The Chinese Orchestra, p.283)
Together, these symbols form a complex system and can be found in many pieces, as in the example below from 春江花月夜 (A Moonlit Night on the Spring River), published by PMPH in 1981.
Therefore, I strongly recommend not just adding the four symbols @nathsiu0202 mentioned, but to add all the symbols that need to be used (The TENG Guide To The Chinese Orchestra can be a reference) to avoid expansion in the future. This is to allow the symbols to have a proper coding order and to avoid extensions blocks in the future.
P.S. In addition to plucked string instruments, Chinese wind and bowed string instruments also have their unique symbol inventories. It would be great if they could be placed in adjacent code blocks, though this would certainly require more effort.
It is important to note that in addition to the above symbols, there are a VERY LARGE NUMBER of other symbols specific to Chinese plucked string instruments, some of which are listed below:
(The TENG Guide To The Chinese Orchestra, p.278)
Seems that the string numbering for Pipa uses Suzhou numerals (苏州码子, wiki: https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E8%8B%8F%E5%B7%9E%E7%A0%81%E5%AD%90). It's clearer in the following picture (p. 5, 琵琶曲集 第一集, PMPH, Aug 1985):
yes i do agree that TENG's list is good, but i don't like how they look. do feel free to create the sample/template/standard symbol based on mine.
as for the english names, @dspreadbury do you prefer a phonetic transciption or a meaning translation? for chinese user i think phonetic would be best, but for more international usage perhapes translating would be best. however there are no standard english translation for the techniques/symbols
as for bowed string and wind instruments @LupusCaeruleus i'm not familiar enough with those. i have never really seen them use in orchestral music.
as for the english names, @dspreadbury do you prefer a phonetic transciption or a meaning translation? for chinese user i think phonetic would be best, but for more international usage perhapes translating would be best. however there are no standard english translation for the techniques/symbols
I think it's okay to use phonetic transcription for specific techniques due to simplicity. There's no need to give it a "standard translation".