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Physical modeling of the guqin - a Chinese string instrument

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 1st Nordic Music Technology Conference (NoMute 2006), Trondheim, Norway, October 12.-14., 2006.

PHYSICAL MODELING OF THE GUQIN A CHINESE STRING INSTRUMENT

Henri Penttinen, Jyri Pakarinen, Vesa Välimäki Mikael Laurson, Mika Kuuskankare
Laboratory of Acoustics and Audio Signal Processing Centre for Music and Technology
Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, Finland
[email protected] [email protected]

Henbing Li, Marc Leman

Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music
Department of Musicology, Ghent University,
Ghent, Belgium
[email protected]

ABSTRACT various ways. It does not have to exactly reproduce an existing in-
strument, but the quality should be good enough to be acceptable
This paper discusses acoustical properties and proposes a sound in musical use. This implies that similar sounds should be heard
synthesis model for the plucked stringed instrument called guqin. from the synthesizer as from a real guqin, when traditional play-
The guqin is an ancient Chinese musical instrument with seven ing styles are used. The synthesizer does not have to be physically
strings. The strings are plucked with the right hand while the left valid either, but the physical modeling approach is a good way to
hand pushes the strings against the top plate of the body. In the generate realistic sound in response to control events. An alterna-
playing of the instrument, slides and flageolet tones are an im- tive to the model-based approach would be a sampling synthesizer,
portant part of the expression of the instrument. The instrument which is based on a large database of recorded samples. It appears
disappeared almost completely during the cultural revolution, but that it may be easier to develop a model-based synthesizer that
it has began a revival and now there are already thousands of play- gives a sufficiently realistic and practically unlimited sound output
ers. A database of tones was recorded in anechoic conditions. The than to sample the sounds corresponding to all possible types of
acoustic signal analysis and the model is based on these signals. gestures that guqin players can produce. The rule-based physical
The sound synthesis model is based on the digital waveguide tech- modeling synthesis gives the opportunity to create an incredible
nique. The physical model takes into account the most vital parts amount of variations based on a relatively simple algorithms de-
of the characteristics of the instrument. scribed in this paper. The ENP system [1] developed at the Sibelius
Academy enables the accurate control of the synthesizer from no-
1. INTRODUCTION tation seen on a computer screen, which is a useful and familiar
tool for musicians.
This paper discusses the acoustics and proposes a sound synthe- The guqin synthesizer proposed in the this article is based on
sis model for the plucked stringed instrument guqin. The guqin the commuted digital waveguide synthesis technique [2, 3]. The
is an ancient Chinese musical instrument with seven strings. The digital waveguide technique has been used successfully to synthe-
instrument disappeared almost completely during the cultural rev- size a broad range of traditional and ethnic instruments [4, 5, 6].
olution, but it has began a revival and now there are already thou- Previously, a neural network based synthesis model for the guqin
sands of players. It is still used in modern music. has been proposed [7].
The starting point of the guqin synthesis project was the need To conclude, the main goal has been to develop a system,
to play guqin music with a computer. Prof. Marc Leman and one which allows a user to create Chinese guqin music without having
of his PhD students in systematic musicology, Ms. Henbing Li, to own the instrument or even to be able to play it. The details of
contacted researchers of Helsinki University of Technology to col- the acoustic analysis and sound synthesis model will be presented
laborate with them to develop such a system. Ms. Henbing Li’s in [8].
doctoral research consists of the development of performance rules The remaining parts of this paper are organized as follows. In
for guqin music. To verify the rules it was necessary to implement Sec. 2 the construction of the guqin is discussed. Section 3 shortly
them in a computer-based system, which provides accurate control presents the signal analysis made and Sec. 4 proposes a synthesis
of temporal events, dynamics, and special gestures used in guqin model based on this. Section 5 discusses the implementation with
music, such as vibrato and pitch glides. The system developed by some musical examples. Section 6 contains a short conclusion.
researchers at Helsinki University of Technology (TKK) in collab-
oration with researchers at the Sibelius Academy seems to be a 2. DESCRIPTION OF THE GUQIN
suitable environment for this application. This paper reports the
results of this collaboration. Guqin (pronounced ku-ch’in), also called Seven-Strings-Qin, is
So, the goal of this work is the model-based sound synthesis, the modern name for the fretless plucked string instrument qin,
which gives possibilities to control a string instrument model in which is the oldest Chinese string instrument still used in modern
 1st Nordic Music Technology Conference (NoMute 2006), Trondheim, Norway, October 12.-14., 2006.

Table 1: String numbers, the note names, the measured fundamen-

tal frequencies f0 , and string diameters for the guqin used in this
article.
S# Tuning f0 (Hz) d (mm)
1 C2 65.4 1.38
2 D2 73.5 1.20
3 F2 87.4 1.08
4 G2 98.2 1.00
5 A2 110.5 0.90
6 C3 131.1 0.75
7 D3 147.3 0.64

Figure 1: Typical guqin playing position.

time [9]. The current structure of the instrument was formed ap-
proximately between the 5th and the 7th century, and since then strings bridge
there has been no major changes in the construction. Next, we
briefly describe the construction and playing style of the guqin.
Figure 1 displays the side of the instrument while one of the au- 8 c m a)
thors Henbing Li is playing the instrument in the listening room at foot peg
TKK. head
end(tail) bridge
stringno. 1
mark 1
2.1. Construction and tuning mark 13

The body of the guqin is a long, narrow, hollow box made from
two pieces of wooden board, and the top board is carved into an 18cm b)
arch while the bottom is flat. For the top board soft wood is usually
used (such as tung), while the wood for the bottom board is hard waist neck
(catalpa or fir). 120cm
The surface of the box is covered with a special layer (about
1 mm) of roughcast, which is a mixture of deer horn powder (or
bone powder or tile powder) and raw lacquer, and there are several
layers of raw lacquer along the top of the roughcast for polishing. Figure 2: Construction of the guqin from two angles: (a) side view
and (b) top view.
The bridge is made from hard wood, and the strings are at-
tached to it with a twisting-rope system, which allows fine-tuning
of the strings in a limited range. The other ends of the strings
are bent over the end (tail) and are finally tied up to the feet on Tab. 1.
the bottom. Traditionally, the strings were made of silk, but after
the 1950’s they have been replaced mainly by steel-nylon strings.
There are 13 marks inlayed on the roughcast at the side of the
first string, which indicate the positions of the first to the fifth and 2.2. How to play the instrument
the seventh overtone. These marks also function as a reference
for stopped strings, i.e., when the string is pressed against the top
board. Each part between two contiguous marks is divided into In modern days the guqin is usually played on a table with its two
ten parts, for example, mark 2.5 indicates that the tone is played feet standing on the table and the neck laying on the right edge of
halfway between the second and the third mark. the table with anti-slip mats between the contact points of the table
The seven strings are tuned basically as a pentatonic scale. The and the instrument (see Fig. 1). The right hand plucks the strings
basic tuning of the open strings is C2 , D2 , F2 , G2 , A2 , C3 , and D3 between the bridge and the first mark, and the left hand presses
from the lowest string (no. 1) to the highest (no. 7). The pitch the strings against the top plate of the body. The instrument is
range for so called stopped strings is from 65.2 Hz (open string fretless, which enables smooth sliding tones. Guqin music also
no. 1) to 787.5 Hz (string no. 7, mark 2.6) which roughly corre- incorporates substantial use of harmonics or flageolet tones.
spond to notes C2 and G5 , respectively. The highest harmonic or The little fingers of neither hand are used. The other four fin-
flageolet sound is played on string no. 7 on marks no. 1 or no. 13 gers of the right hand pluck the string from both the fleshy and
(f0 = 1174.7 Hz, D6 ). the nail side. Typically, the nail exceeding the finger is 2-3 mm
The guqin used in this measurement was made by Zhang Jian- long for the thumb and 1-2 mm long for the other fingers. The
hua in Beijing in 1999. The boards are made of fir, and the rough- left thumb presses the string on the right side, where the nail and
cast is deer horn powder and raw lacquer. Shangyin steel-nylon flesh joins, or at the first joint. The other three left fingers press the
strings are used. The respective string numbers, note names, fun- string with the fleshy top part of the finger or occasionally with the
damental frequencies and diameters of the strings are displayed in left side of the first ring finger joint.
 1st Nordic Music Technology Conference (NoMute 2006), Trondheim, Norway, October 12.-14., 2006.

0.4 199
(a)
0.2 198
Level

f0
0
197
−0.2
196
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
Time (s) Time (s)

0.2 (b)
Figure 4: Initial pitch glide of a forte fortissimo tone played on the
guqin (string no. 4, mark 7).
Level

−0.2
3.2.1. Initial pitch glide
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
Time (s) Initial pitch glide is a phenomenon due to tension modulation and
occurs in vibrating strings [10, 11, 12]. Even a small transverse
Figure 3: Time responses of guqin tones played on string 6 mark displacement of the string causes a second-order change in its length,
5, when (a) the nail of the thumb terminates the string and (b) the and therefore in its tension. This causes the pitch to decay after re-
fingertip of the forefinger terminates the string. leasing the string from its initial displacement. Hence, some initial
pitch gliding occurs in guqin tones. The amount of pitch glid-
ing for tones played as mezzoforte and forte fortissimo notes were
3. ACOUSTIC MEASUREMENTS AND SIGNAL measured.
ANALYSIS For mezzoforte tones the largest initial pitch glide value ob-
tained was 0.075 ERB (Equivalent Rectangular Bandwidth) [13],
To create a synthesizer for the instrument, an extensive set of iso- while the mean was 0.025 ERB with a standard deviation of 0.021.
lated plucks was recorded. The purpose of the isolated plucks is to Number of ERBs is defined as 21.4 log10 (4.37F + 1), where F
be able to properly analyze the characteristics of the instrument. is frequency in kHz [13]. Similarly, for forte fortissimo tones the
mean value for the initial pitch glides was 0.034 ERB with a stan-
dard deviation of 0.019. The largest value was 0.096 ERB (for
3.1. Measurement and recording setup string 5, mark 7). According to Järveläinen [14], these initial pitch
glides would remain inaudible to most listeners, since the limit for
Guqin tones were recorded in the small anechoic chamber of Helsinki the initial pitch glide audibility is about 0.1 ERB. However, the
University of Technology. The recordings were made with a mi- quartile limits are quite large and hence expert listeners, such as,
crophone (AKG C 480 B, cardioid capsule) placed at a distance instrument players are able to detect smaller changes than 0.1 ERB
of about 1 m above the sound board. The signals were recorded [14].
digitally (44.1 kHz, 16 bits) with a digital mixer (Yamaha 01v)
Figure 4 shows the behavior of the fundamental frequency f0
and soundcard (Digigram VX Pocket) onto the hard drive of a PC
in time for a forte fortissimo tone played on string no. 4, mark
laptop. To remove infrasonic disturbances the signals were high-
7 (about G3 ). The x-axis displays time and the y-axis the fun-
pass filtered with a fourth-order Butterworth filter with a cutoff
damental frequency. At 0.11 seconds the fundamental frequency
frequency of 52 Hz.
is 198.6 Hz and beyond 1 s it is 197 Hz. This gives a change
As for the tones, four complete sets on a typical scale used of 1.6 Hz, which is 0.035 ERB. The fundamental frequency esti-
in guqin music were recorded. Two different styles for terminat- mations have been calculated with the autocorrelation-based YIN
ing the string with the left hand finger were used, the nail of the algorithm [15]. The glitch in Fig. 4 is due to estimation errors
thumb or the fingertip of other fingers. In the following text these during the attack, i.e., when t < 0.11 s.
styles of string termination will be referred to as nail or fingertip. The largest measured initial pitch glide can be audible for
Furthermore, two different plucking styles were recorded, namely some listeners, therefore the initial pitch glides are synthesized
plucking with the middle finger towards the player or plucking with the obtained mean value, i.e., 0.025 ERB for mf tones and
with the index finger away from the player. In addition, a complete 0.034 ERB for f f tones. The initial pitch glides are synthesized
set of harmonics or flageolet tones was recorded for all strings by changing the pitch of the string with a break point function in
and marks. Moreover, three dynamic levels (pp, mf, and ff) were the PWGLSynth system [16]. Alternatively, the synthesis could
recorded for all open strings and marks seven. Slides, isolated vi- use the nonlinear approach proposed by Tolonen et al. [12].
bratos, scales, and musical pieces were also included in the database.
Important for this study are the basic pluck events (281 samples),
sliding sounds, and the harmonic sounds (91 samples) that will be 3.2.2. Analysis of friction sounds
analyzed next. All in all, the database contains over 400 samples. The friction noise caused by the sliding finger-string contact was
recorded using the setup described in Section 3.1. In order to
3.2. Analysis of guqin tones record only the friction noise, the strings were not plucked. Figure
5 (a) shows the spectrogram of the friction noise when the player
Next, two essential features in the behavior of guqin tones are in- slides her finger from mark 7 to mark 9 on the lowest string (i.e.,
vestigated. The initial pitch glide and friction sound are discussed from 131 Hz to 99 Hz). In (a), the player was asked to perform
through examining them in time and frequency domains. the slide slowly. Figure 5 (b) shows the friction noise spectrogram
 1st Nordic Music Technology Conference (NoMute 2006), Trondheim, Norway, October 12.-14., 2006.

(a) Onset
0 dB
20
Frequency (kHz)

15 −20 dB
Output
10 Timbre
S (z)
−40 dB Excitation control
5 samples
0 −60 dB
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Time (s) Figure 6: Block diagram of a simple guqin synthesizer.
(b)
0 dB
20 x (n ) y (n )
Frequency (kHz)

15 −20 dB

10
−40 dB Ad ( z ) b
5
a
0
0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55
−60 dB
g ca +
Time (s) -
F( z) z - L1 z-
1
Figure 5: (a) Spectrogram of the friction noise when sliding slowly
from mark 7 to mark 9on the 1st string (131-991 Hz). (b) Spec- One-pole
filter
trogram of the friction noise when sliding quickly from mark 7 to
mark 9on the 7th string (297-220 Hz). H LF ( z )

Figure 7: Signal flow diagram of the guqin string model. The syn-
with a slide from mark 7 to mark 9 on the highest string (i.e., from thesis structure differs from the traditional SDL DWG model in two
297 Hz to 220 Hz). Here, the player was asked to perform the ways. Firstly, the length of the delay loop changes during run time.
slide quickly. Note that both sliding styles still fall under the nor- Secondly, the signal values are scaled by gca in order to avoid the
mal playing styles of the guqin, and that they represent the two artificial changes in energy due to the pitch change.
sliding velocity extremes usually played on the instrument.
The spectrogram plot reveals that the friction signal is simi-
lar to lowpass-filtered noise, where the amplitude and cutoff fre-
quency are proportional to the sliding velocity (the amplitude and to changing length of the string. When implementing the string
cutoff frequency are highest in the middle of the slide, where also model on a computer, the memory for the maximum length of the
the sliding velocity is highest). In addition to this, there is a clearly string should be allocated beforehand so that the possible elonga-
observable harmonic structure in the noise (see Fig. 5 (b)), con- tion can be accounted for.
sisting of a few modes, each approximately 200-400 Hz wide. The
amplitudes and frequencies of these components also seem to be
proportional to the slide velocity, the lowest harmonic having its 4.2. String model calibration
frequency near 2.7 kHz in Fig. 5 (b).
To produce normal plucked tones the string model parameters must
be calibrated as described below. First, the inharmonicity is deter-
4. SOUND SYNTHESIS OF THE GUQIN
mined, and then the excitation signals are obtained by canceling
the partials of the guqin tone with a sinusoidal model [18]. The
4.1. Compact synthesis algorithm and time-varying string model
transversal vibrations are canceled and the parameters for the loss
The structure of the synthesis model is illustrated in Fig. 6. The filter HLF (z) and ripple filter HR (z) are obtained as described in
guqin string model constitutes essentially of a single-delay loop Ref. [18] and Ref. [19], respectively.
(SDL) [17] digital waveguide (DWG) string, S(z), and a body In HLF (z) the parameter g controls the overall decay, and a
model filter, B(z). The length of strings is varied during the syn- controls the frequency dependent decay[20]. The transfer func-
thesis run time [17]. The SDL string model, S(z), synthesizes the tion is HLF (z) = b/(1 + az −1 ), where b = g(1 + a). Due
transversal vibrations of the tone, with the inharmonicity coeffi- to calibration errors and large differences in parameter values, for
cients of B. The input signal is read from the excitation database. consecutive tones, the g and a data are smoothed in the same vein
The string model S(z) is illustrated in Fig. 7. The z −L1 block as previously proposed [18]. More specifically, the g parameters
implements the (time varying) integer delay of the SDL. The tra- were treated with a 10th order median filter, and the a parame-
ditional SDL blocks HLF (z), L(z), and Ad (z) [17] correspond ters were approximated by a linear regression on the logarithmic
with the figure as follows. The HLF (z) block is the loss filter fundamental frequency scale for each string. Additionally, the ex-
implementing the frequency dependent decay due to losses in the citation signals are normalized. This way a synthesis model was
string and L(z) is a a third-order Lagrange filter applying the frac- obtained that has natural and subtle changes from a tone to another
tional part of the loop delay. Ad (z) is the dispersion filter made without drastic unwanted sonic departures. The coefficients for the
of a chain of four allpass filters or a single second-order allpass dispersion filter Ad (z) are obtained as described by Rauhala and
filter. Coefficient gca is responsible for gain compensation due Välimäki[21].
 1st Nordic Music Technology Conference (NoMute 2006), Trondheim, Norway, October 12.-14., 2006.

0.4 displays the playing of the open strings, including Chinese sym-
0.2
Level

bols, in the ENP. Note that sliding an open string is practically a

0 (a) pure physical impossibility.
−0.2
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
0.2 6. CONCLUSIONS
0.1
Level

0 (b) This paper has given a short introduction to the Chinese instru-
−0.1 ment guqin and its sound synthesis. Some acoustical aspects have
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 been discussed and a simple synthesis model has been proposed.
Time (s) A future publication [8] will contain essential additions to the syn-
thesis model and acoustic analysis presented here. The additions
Figure 8: Time responses of synthesized guqin tones played on include investigations and discussions on the effect of the termina-
string 6 mark 5, when (a) the nail of the thumb terminates the tion technique, inharmonicity, and phantom partials [23, 24]. Im-
string and (b) the fingertip of the forefinger terminates the string. provements in the model include synthesis of flageolet tones, fric-
tion sound, and phantom partials. Measured and synthesized guqin
tones are available on the Internet at http://www.acoustics.
4.3. Results hut.fi/publications/papers/jasa-guqin/.

Next, synthesis results produced by the model discussed in Sec.

4.1 are shown, and the measured and synthesized signals and some 7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
characteristics are compared.
The authors are grateful to Jussi Pekonen, Jukka Rauhala, Hanna
Järveläinen, and Vesa Norilo for their help. Dr. Cumhur Erkut is
4.3.1. Normal plucked tones thanked for his helpful comments. This work has been financially
supported by COST287-ConGAS Action (Gesture Controlled Au-
Figure 8 depicts the time responses of synthesized signals for string dio Systems), the Academy of Finland (project no. 104934 and
6 mark 5, for (a) nail and (b) fingertip terminations (compare with no. 105557), the Pythagoras Graduate School of Music and Sound
Fig. 3). The nail tone responses correspond fairly well, as do the Research, the Helsinki Graduate School of Electrical and Commu-
fingertip tones, but they have a slight difference during the begin- nications Engineering, and Tekniikan edistämissäätiö.
ning of the decay. This can be explained by a difference in par-
tial decay times, i.e., the higher frequencies of the real tone decay
faster than the synthesized one. 8. REFERENCES

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 1st Nordic Music Technology Conference (NoMute 2006), Trondheim, Norway, October 12.-14., 2006.

00:00 00:01 00:02 00:03 00:04 00:05 00:06 00:07 00:08 00:09 00:10 00:11 00:12 00:13 00:14 00:15 00:16 00:17

œ ˙ œ œ ˙
ENP-Guqin 1 ? ˙ ˙ ˙ œ ˙ ˙
guqin1 vs6,3
0,0,g,4 vs1,1.1 vs1.2,1
vs1,1.2,1 vs1,1.2,0.9,0.3
sh,10,g,4 vb0,1,0,0 0,0,g,7 vs0.5,1,0.8 0,0,g,7
vb2,0.3 vb0,5,3,0 vb0,1.2,1 vb1.2,1.2,1 vb0,1.4 sh,w,g,6 vb0,0.5,2,0
sh,7,g,2 sh,7,g,2 sh,7,g,5 sh,62,g,5 sh,9,g,6 sh,w,g,6

Figure 9: A short guqin score in the ENP enriched with the JZP notation and slides.

Figure 10: Open strings with Chinese symbols and slides in the ENP.

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