Plucking a new sound from history

Tang Bin performs with a custom-made guqin, which is wired with electronic effects in a live show last year in Shanghai. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A part and parcel of the nation's intellectual history, the guqin, an ancient seven-stringed instrument, arguably, epitomizes China.

But Tang Bin, 35, a guqin player who now lives in Shanghai, is illustrating the instrument's versatility by using it to create a modern musical vibe. By converting its strings' vibration into electrical signals through an amplifier and a synthesizer, a new sound is generated.

With a modified guqin, Tang has formed an electronic music band that is wowing appreciative fans.

At one of his live performances last year in Shanghai, a blue-colored beam of light swept the venue; a nebula hologram, reminiscent of a faraway galaxy, seemed to float above the stage. Then the sound of the original guqin collided with the electronic noises, drum beats and a tune played on a metal percussion instrument. The stereotypical impression of a traditional music performance vanished in the haze of an electronic universe.

Through the live show, Tang recalls, he wanted to tell a thrilling time travel story about swordsmen from the ancient world and humanoid robots.

Experimenting with more daring ideas, he has even tried, to play the ancient instrument, not with both hands, but with a violin's bow, to activate its strings to create an even lower pitch.