Plucked Strings | In-depth
Plucked Strings | In-depth
Construction and acoustics
Liuqin
The instrument is made of wood, with a pear-shaped body. The four strings are tuned a fifth apart, with frets running down the flat soundboard.
Pipa
The pipa is also a wooden instrument with a pear-shaped body and four strings. The top six frets are called xiang and they are constructed in a different way from the other twelve frets. Unlike the other plucked string instruments, the strings are not tuned a fifth apart which may result in different resonances with the open strings. This also means that possible fingerings for triadic and chordal playing are different.
Yangqin
The yangqin is a hammered dulcimer instrument with a wooden fan-shaped sound box. It has rows of bridges, and each string may be divided by two to four bridges. The lower notes have two strings each and there are up to five strings for the higher notes. The tuning pegs are positioned on either side of the instrument.
Ruan
The ruan has a round body and a long thin neck with 24 frets. The relatively large sound box gives it a good resonance.
Sanxian
The sanxian has a membrane, usually made of snake skin, over its sound box, and vibrations from the strings are sent through the bridge onto the membrane before being amplified by the sound box. This membrane gives the sanxian its very unique sound, quite different from the rest of the plucked strings which has a sound board made of wood.
Zheng
The entire zheng is a long elongated soundbox with movable bridges arranged diagonally across the face of the sound board. The 21 strings are usually tuned to the pentatonic scale, although alternative tunings are not uncommon, depending on the works to be performed.