本計畫是一個以古琴絲絃為對象的民族音樂學研究，試圖探討臺灣琴人如何透過實際使用絲絃演奏的聽覺與觸覺等經驗，來建構各種音色描繪語彙的知識以及選擇絲絃的偏好根據。過去關於樂器或是琴絃音色的研究，多著眼於其物理特性。本計畫則認為音色並非絕對的物理現象，不能忽略音樂家的背景與實踐經驗，因此從琴人實際使用絲絃彈奏的經驗與評價切入。研究方法是請五位琴人以八個月的時間彈奏五種不同品牌的絲絃，再請琴人給予意見。另外也將錄製五種受測絲絃的聲響，請臺灣各派別琴人聆聽後發表看法。最後以聲響分析工具瞭解各種絃的聲響特性，探討這些聲響特性與琴人所用音色語彙的關聯。
This is a ethnomusicological research on silk string of Chinese zither qin, aiming to understand how the qin players in Taiwan construct their knowledge of vocabulary of tone color and their preferences the auditory and tactile experience. Most of the existing researchs on tone color of strings of musical instruments focus on the physical properties of the strings. This project, on the other hand, will examine the experience of real practice and evalution of musicians. Firstly, five qin players will help to test five sets of silk string of different brand in a term of eight months and then give their opinions. Secondly, this project will make recordings of the sound of the tested strings, which will be presented to qin players of different schools for gathering their opinions about the tone color. Finally, sound analysis software will be used for study the relevance between musicians’ subjective terminology and obective acoustic performance of the silk strings.
