It can be said that the variety of Chinese plucked stringed instruments may be more extensive than any part of the world. Due to a long history and broad development of this section, ancient musical scores that have survived have always favoured this section.

It can be seen from the instrumental formation of the Chinese orchestra, that it is essentially a reformed Western orchestra.  It has a bowed stringed section, a wind section and a percussion section.  However, unlike the Western orchestra, the Chinese orchestra has an additional section – a plucked stringed section.  Interestingly enough, the Chinese orchestra does not have a brass section, with the closest member to a brass instrument being the reformed shengs, which have metal amplifiers.

The term “plucked-string instruments” is a generic term including the “plucking-string” and “struck-string” categories. Instruments in this section are played with the fingers or a plectrum; or by striking at the strings. There are hundreds of variants of plucked string instruments. The common ones that have been standardised in the Chinese orchestra are yangqin, liuqin, pipa, ruan, guzheng, sanxian and konghou. Other plucked string instruments include the guqin and yueqin. 
 
The plucked stringed section was added into the orchestra largely because of the importance of the pipa and zheng.  The two instruments had a huge influence on Chinese instrumental music, and many of the founders of the modern Chinese orchestra were plucked stringed instrumentalists themselves.

The sounds of plucked stringed instruments are lively and charismatic, with overtones that have been likened to female voices.

Click on the below links for more information about:
- Guzheng
- Pipa
- Liuqin
- Yangqin
- Ruan
- Sanxian

*Information provided by Samuel Wong Shengmiao from The Teng Company.