If there's any modern method for traditional Chinese music to live on, it must be digital technology.
Recently, a digital protection project targeting traditional Chinese instrumental music was started by the Chinese National Academyof Arts and Tencent Interactive Entertainment, a leading internet entertainment company in China. The project was intended to revive (复兴) traditional music by using digital technology to restore and preserve original music sources. Based on these sources, digital albums, social media mini-programs and game background music can be created. These are all ways of transmitting and promoting preserved music to future generations.
The first traditional instrument to get this kind of "rebirth" was an ancient set of chime bells originally owned by Marquis Yi of the Zeng State (曾侯乙编钟). The set is a large group of 65 percussion instruments (打击乐器) dating back to the Warring States Period. As the largest set of bianzhong ever discovered in China, the chime bells have a wide range of tones and special features. This made it really challenging for the music technology providers of the project. "This is the first time that I have ever seen such a large, unexpected composition because it's not one set of instruments, but 65 different pieces," said a sound designer Zhang Xin.
To perfectly record sounds of the chime bells, they did a number of trials. After reading a lot of papers and historical books, they tried to work out where to put the recording microphone. The team tested and tried many forms of field recording technology from different distances.Finally 613 sounds were collected.
So far, they've used the bianzhong sounds to compose 9 songs digitally, forming a new album to touch people's soul.
