Acoustic profiling of Guqin music: Exploring the unique sound quality associated with an ancient Chinese musical instrument

Similar to speaking, production music using an instrument is also governed by the Source-Filter Theory---all sounds are produced as a product of source and filter. While Western musical instruments have been studied extensively, research on ancient Chinese musical instruments including guqin is scarce. With a history of over 3000 years, the quality of guqin music is characterized by a unique resonant timbre and subtle tonal variations. Its intricate playing techniques such as plucking and sliding also allow generation of sounds of distinct properties, contributing to its elegance, tranquility, and sublimate quality. To objectively describe and quantify guqin’s timbre, the present study will attempt to objectively describe the timbre of guqin’s music by analyzing its sounds using a number of time- and frequency-domain parameters including frequency, amplitude, perturbation, spectral contents, etc. It aims to highlight the guqin’s distinctive acoustic characteristics in order to deepen our understanding of sound produced with this ancient Chinese musical instrument.