Blending the Ancient with the Digital: Blackburn in Taiwan

Associate Professor Bradford Blackburn spent the earlier part of this year in Taiwan, studying how to play the guqin with guqin master Shiou-Shiang Su (蘇秀香), in the hopes of building an electroacoustic one back in Tampa.

Pronounced "goo cheen," the ancient traditional Chinese instrument is quiet and delicate, an instrument of the scholars, with a meditative sound. This makes it hard to perform in front of large audiences. So it was ironic that he was taking his lessons from a master whose studio windows were always open to the cacophonous, concrete jungle of Taiwanese street noise below.

“The guqin presents a sense of timelessness; and has a transcendental approach to music making,” said Blackburn, director of UT’s music technology and composition program, who was the recipient of a Delo research grant. “I’m developing an electroacoustic guqin that can replicate the subtlety of the traditional acoustic instrument, but also provide new affordances for live electronic and digitally augmented performance.”

After returning from Taiwan, Blackburn spent the summer working on his version of the instrument that uses integrated electronic technology to convert acoustic resonances from the instrument into signals that can be amplified and digitally processed.

“I liked the challenge – transducing the sound, transducing the gestures,” he said. “The sabbatical blends my love of building instruments with my love of electroacoustic music.”

Blackburn, whose wife is from Taiwan, was fascinated by the instruments he had come across that were played in Taiwanese orchestras.

"They almost have this whole parallel universe of instruments over there," he said.

In the U.S., he explained, Western classical music tends to favor timbres and playing techniques that create a kind of beautiful uniformity of tone. In Chinese classical music, there is more infusion of folk culture.

"They celebrate the idiosyncrasies," said Blackburn.

There are more than 80 playing techniques for the traditional guqin, which involve different positions of the musician’s hands. To become proficient in a month was unlikely, but he did give a successful cameo performance in Taiwan, during the sabbatical.

The guqin isn’t very well known these days in Taiwan, rather finding popularity only among a very small subculture within Chinese music. In modern times the instrument, which resembles a lap zither, is more often used for decorative art in people’s homes.

Blackburn plans to use his electroacoustic guqin in the classroom, from his music theory and technology courses where he can touch on the guqin’s intonation, the science of it and the instrument’s history, to featuring the guqin in the Interactive Arts Ensemble course which includes a construction component.

“This will be a good demonstration of transducing techniques,” Blackburn said. “So students will be able to see how that works and incorporate it into their projects.”

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