ok, goin to post 2 posts today.
1st post...

heyhey ppl!!! =DD wahaha! hw's life? its so free n easy, i can say!~ jus try not to wry too much n it wont b tat bad aft all huhs! =DD

ehs yahs, anyways, every blog post will hav something special in it. today's may not fancy much ppl, but it did fascinate me!
a co blog which i got from yuheng (year 3 rpco mate). =D thx for the interesting blog! but well, interesting is interesting, but can it be effective. the blog is http://co21.qqblogs.com/blog.php
i noticed his proposal of changing the traditional Chinese Orchestra arrangement of instruments. take a look.
quote:

In the reformed layout, the strings would sit in a formation much akin the western symphony orchestra while retaining the yangqin in front of the conductor. However, the remainder of plucked strings now sits behind the bowed strings in a stright row on a raised platform, and the woodwinds following behind the plucked strings on yet another raised platform.

The general makeup of the strings section in full strength would be 12-16 gaohu, 14-20 erhu, 10-12 zhonghu, 8-10 cellos or gehu, 4-5 double basses or diyin gehu. The erhu in this case exists as only one section, unlike now where the erhu is divided into two sections - erhu I and erhu II.
The plucked strings should have a reduced group of approximately 1-2 yangqin, 1-2 liuqin or gaoyin ruan, 1-2 pipa, 2-3 zhongruan and 1 daruan (also a zhongruan player when the daruan is not required). Instruments like sanxian and guzheng should occassionally appear as the composer desires so.

The woodwinds section should also feature a small group of 2-3 dizi (flutes), 2 guan, 2-3 sheng. The diyin sheng should be often used to reinforce tenor and bass lines. The guan should be the de-facto double-reed instrument and the current suona, however, should be retired and added as the composer desires for solo purposes.

There are several reasons why this layout would be better.
- The large group of strings will provide the foundation for harmony and texture. Existing works reinforce harmony by the use of sheng and ruan or yangqin. A large group of strings should prompt composers to leave these instruments to more melodic lines instead.
- The forward-facing plucked string instruments will be better heard by the audience, reducing the need for a large group.
- The reduction of plucked string instruments will prompt composers to think twice about writing excessively percussive songs (usually identified in most chinese musical arrangements) and focus their attention on more melodic lines.
- The removal of the suona (often thought to be a screechy and distruptive instrument) and the introduction of guan as the standard instrument will prompt composers to start writing more parts for this forgotten double reed instrument as it blends better with the orchestra. Players, rejoyce - no more 248 bar rests!
- The reduction in the number of sheng will also prompt composers to focus on writing counterpoints rather than having the poor musician play whole note chords through the entire piece. The sheng is an excellent chromatic fixed pitched single reed instrument that should be exploited for more beautiful melodic lines or counterpoints!
- The large group of bowed strings meant that more Cellos and Basses are required to balance the orchestra. This helps to further reinforce the tenor and bass voices of the orchestra.
- The stereo effect of the orchestra is improved such that if only bowed strings were playing it wouldn't sound as if it came from one side of the orchestra. Current musical arrangements are written in some way or another to have plucked strings play together with bowed strings to "fill up the right side". Composers can also leverage this new layout to create a wave-like right-to-left effect when passing from low to high notes or vice-versa.

Let me discuss in more detail about the strings.
- The gaohu, being a little brighter than the erhu, usually exists in a small group of 4 to 6 in a typical orchestra. This is in attempt balance its brighter tone with the rest of the string instruments. However this might be just the wrong perception.
- Like the gaohu, Violins have a typically bright E-string. However when played in a large group, this screechy E string becomes a nice feathery texture. I believe this will apply to the gaohu too. - In the existing setup, the lack of range on the erhu (usual range starts from middle D + 2 octaves) makes the orchestra heavy in the middle range, thus composers generally hand over higher pitched notes to instruments like dizi or suona.
- In order to add range and texture the orchestra, the larger group of gaohu should make composers focus their attention on writing melody or harmony lines for the gaohu, thus making the erhu the equivalent of second violins in the modern symphony orchestra. In this case, there will not be a second part for erhu unless specially requested by the composer to play divisi.
- This radiacal change of orchestral layout should be the first step to improving the chinese orchestra. Without this change, composers will be limited to the setup of an orchestra and will forever be staring at a template of problems.

:Unquote.

ok, so what do u all think?
i feel its quite ineffective in certain(ok not certain, is most) aspects in his proposal.
sacrificing plucking and woodwind for strings, would jus create a strings orchestra. no variety of instruments.
his perception of woodwind is that, its loud n noisy. LOL! -.-" mayb we shld tell him whats pp(pianisimmo), LOL!
ok, gaohu, is loud, for gdness sake. even 4 gaohu, alrdy can overwhelm the whole co man, even in mezzo piano state! -.-" if u wan more, omg. i cant imagine! ok, get tis right! gaohu =/= violin!
removing suona n put guan inside? ok, jus imagine a SO without trumpets man!
and by reducing the woodwind n plucking, the strings will easily overwhelm the other instruments, making the whole song, a string song.
in other words, a SCO(symphonic chinese orchestra) =X

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Name: Randal Lim Peng Soon
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