memorial ceremony for his soul along the river bank sorrowfully and tactfully. (The Erhu is one of the
most widely used bowed instruments in China. The tone is mellow and bright. The snakeskin over the
soundbox gives the instruments its distinct timbre. The bow plays between the two strings, which are tuned
to D and A.)
We select three kinds of tones from VL-70M and M1J-90, refine and reform, them, then synthesize the Erhu
voice. When this work won in China MIDI competition, some audience had misunderstood and then
complaint it's played by human, not machine. Unbelievable!
2. "Lady Liu Qing" (Liu Qing Niang), time 3'. This is a piece of Peking opera music. You will hear the
following voice:
* JingHu, Peking opera fiddle
* ZhongHu, two-stringed Chinese alto Fiddles
* DiZi, bamboo flute
* SuxoNa, a wind instrument
* LiuQin, a plucked stringed instrument
* SanXian, a three-stringed plucked instrument
* Pizzicato
* an~d Rezzy Sawtooth,
* pl~us the drunis part of 15 different percussion instruments of Peking opera.
The drums here: include WuLuo (a sort of gong used when fighting), DaLuo (big gong), Xiaoluo (small
gong), Naobo (cymbal), Dabo (big cymbal), Xiaobo (small cymbal), ~Bangu (small high-pitched drum
sounding like a bamboo-block), Dagu (Chlinese Timpani), TangGu (Chinese: Campane), etc.. It is almost a
complete frame of traditional orches~tra of Peking opera. The voice of JingHu is made from VL7O-M, and
the voice of all other instruments here is made from M~U-90. You will be totally surprised to hear Peking
opera music coming from MU9O & VL7O-MU. This work won the Best MDII TIechznique Award
(professional group) in China MIEDI competition in 1998.
3. 'Yangkso of Supporting Army" (Yong Jun Yang Ge), time 1'.
This is music for yangko, a popular rural folke dance in north China. Here it has been rearranged for a
small-scale instrumental ensemble. We made the: tone from NRJ~-80 for Dizi, Suo~Na, LiuQin, PiPa (a
plucked string instrument with a fretted fingerboard), SanXian, ZhongRuan, GaoHua (treble ErHu), erhu,
and Chninese drums.
It has been the first published MIDI work for the author using MJJ-80 tone generator based on 'voiceP
modification" approach. At that time, even the experts from YAMvALEiA Company (the MTJU-80 maker)
were so surprised that MIJ-80 could make such a real tone for Chinese folk music.
III[. ]Reference
M. Ulf8O Owner's Manual
2. M~U8() Voice List & MIDI Data
3. VL7O-m Owner's M~anual
4. VL7O-m List Book
5. Chinese Virtuosi: http://www.cs.ust.hk/icmc99/virtuosi.html
IGCII Proceedings 1999
