[2020-04-22] First cumulative submission of Chinese Instrument Definitions

This is my first cumulative submission of Chinese instrument definitions, including at least 45 instrument definitions. Three of them have alternative names and their corresponded ethnic types (colored in grey in the attached Excel spreadsheet file). Some of those instruments are more famous in Mongolian and Vietnamese culture.

Huqin: Erhu, Zhonghu, Gaohu, Banhu, Đàn Nhị, Jinghu, Yehu.
Morin Khuur: Morin Khuur (Matouqin), Bass Morin Khuur (Bass Matouqin), String Chuur.
Ruan: Soprano Ruan (Liuqin), Alto Ruan, Tenor Ruan, Bass Ruan, Contrabass Ruan.
Desktop Pluck: Guzheng, Guqin.
Gourd: Soprano Gourdflute, Alto Gourdflute, Tenor Gourdflute, Contrabass Gourdflute.
Sheng: Soprano Sheng, Alto Sheng, Tenor Sheng, Bass Sheng.
Suona: Folk Suona (no key), Soprano Suona, Alto Suona, Tenor Suona, Bass Suona.
Guanzi: Soprano Guanzi (no key), Alto Guanzi, Bass Guanzi, Contrabass Guanzi.
Dizi: Xiaodi (Dizi ExtraSmall), Bangdi (Dizi Small), Qudi (Dizi Regular), Dadi (Dizi Large), Beidadi (Dizi ExtraLarge).
Other: Xiao, Xun, Bawu, YangQin, Pipa, Sanxian.

[Translation]
胡琴家族: 二胡, 中胡, 高胡, 板胡, 弹二, 京胡, 椰胡.
潮尔家族: 马头琴, 低音马头琴, 潮尔琴.
阮琴家族: 高音阮 (柳琴), 小阮, 中阮, 大阮, 低音阮.
桌面拨弦: 古筝, 古琴.
葫芦家族: 高音葫芦丝, 中音葫芦丝, 次中音葫芦丝, 倍低音葫芦丝.
凤笙家族: 高音笙, 中音笙, 次中音笙, 低音笙.
唢呐家族: 民谣唢呐, 高音键唢呐, 中音键唢呐, 次中音键唢呐, 低音键唢呐.
管子家族: 高音管子, 中音管子, 低音管子, 倍低音管子.
笛子家族: 小笛, 梆笛, 曲笛, 大笛, 倍大笛.
其它乐器: 洞箫, 埙, 巴乌, 扬琴, 琵琶, 三弦.

I do apologize that I have lack of submissions regarding most Chinese percussion instruments. I strongly recommend Dorico team to let Dorico support (especially percussion) articulation notations introduced in this book: “The TENG Guide to the Chinese Orchestra”. Also, Japanese instruments are far more sophisticated than what I can imagine, hence my idea that the organizations of Japanese folk instrument definition data can be done by YAMAHA Japan.
[Updated] Dorico Chinese Instruments (Note #60 = C3).xlsx.zip (11.2 KB)

A supplemental explanation regarding why I excluded “Xindi (新笛)” in this submission.

Xindi was invented post-WWI and is merely a chromatic Dizi without membrane-made reed, and its timbre is extremely similar (almost the same if performing in exactly the same articulation) to the flute family used in Western Orchestra. I do admit that Xindi is comparatively cheaper in price (it has no mechanical keys), but I don’t think this is enough to let Xindi and (orchestral) Flutes have separated notation definitions. The data I submitted above is already simplified (considering workloads on both the Dorico dev’s side and the engravers’ side), and I guess that anyone can just add a western flute and rename it as Xindi if necessary unless persuative materials are given below by someone else (especially regarding the differences in pitch ranges).

(I searched through the internet and found that the articulable range of Xindi is A#2-A5. Its comfortable range is shorter.)

Xindi is, at least, not an ideal evolution of Dizi family to me. Key-installed Dizi with metal (or 3d-printed) incarnation and man-made membrane reed (similar to the membrane from bamboo) is what it should look like in the future, though the incarnation itself may introduce some bamboo-like parts to make sure the timbre still sounds intact.

---------- [2020-04-23] Daniel already forwarded this submission to his i18n colleagues. ---------

Will this submission be rolled in to the next Dorico 3.5.x update (e.g. Dorico 3.5.2)?
(Please tag this thread as feature request. I found that I have no privilege to edit the main post now.)

We do not plan any further Dorico 3.5.x feature releases. We anticipate releasing a small update with some compatibility fixes for Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon Macs shortly, probably early in January, but no further Dorico 3.5.x releases are planned after that. We will not be making any localisation changes in that forthcoming small update.

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Thanks for your response. May I expect either of the following in Dorico 4?

  1. the introduction of these instrument definitions.
  2. the ability of creating user-defined instrument definitions (with batch import / export functionalities of user-defined instrument definitions).

We have passed your suggestions on to our Chinese language translator, so at her discretion as to which suggestions to include, I would expect at least some of them to be included in the next version.

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Sorry for bumping-up this old thread, but I wonder whether this submission is omitted.
I tried searching “Dizi” and “Qudi” among available instruments in Dorico 4.3.11 and it returned no results.

We have not added any Chinese instruments as yet.

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Hi.
I just checked the app bundle of Dorico 5, seeing that only Bawu is included in the instrument xml file.
May I confirm that will the rest instruments also be missing in the future updates of Dorico 5?

(I’m gonna place an order for Dorico 5 update to see whether it supports importing / exporting customized instrument definitions.)

We didn’t add any new instrument definitions in the Dorico 5 release. I can’t say for sure when we will next have time to add new instrument definitions.

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Thanks for your confirmation.

May I also confirm whether the import / export feature for instrument definition is also missing from the initial public release of Dorico 5?

(I didn’t see the import / export button here.)

You can save instrument definitions to the user library, but as yet you can’t import/export them via the Library Manager. That will come in future.

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Thank you so much for the good news.