Yanyue is a highly artistic song and dance music for entertainment during court banquets from the Sui and Tang Dynasties to the Song Dynasty. It is also called banquet music.
Song Dynasty Shen Kuo said in "Mengxi Bi Tan": "The music of the former kings is Ya Yue, the new sound of the previous life is Qing Yue, and the music of Hu tribe is Yan Yue." Yan Yue of Sui and Tang Dynasties inherited the style of Yuefu music Achievement is a new palace music that is a fusion of Han folk music, other nationalities in the territory and foreign folk music. It has been greatly developed under the promotion of several music-loving emperors in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty had 30,000 professional musicians. At that time, the large-scale palace orchestra was divided into nine music groups according to the origin of the music played, namely Qing music (traditional music), Xiliang (now Gansu) music, Qiuci (now Kuqa, Xinjiang) music, Tianzhu (India) music, Kangguo (i.e. Kangju, today's northern Xinjiang and Central Asia) music, Shule music, Anguo (Central Asia) music, Gaoli music, Libi (the last one played, it is called Wenkang music). During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, there were tens of thousands of musicians in the court, and five schools were set up to manage them, as well as a special academy to train the court music creators. In the early Tang Dynasty, the nine-part music was changed to ten parts, including: Yanle (mixed Chinese and foreign music), Qing Shangji (traditional music), Xiliang Ji, Tianzhu Ji, Gaoli Ji, Qiuci Ji, Anguo Ji, Shule Ji , Kangguo Ji, Gaochang (in today's Xinjiang) Ji. By the time of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, the ten-bu music was changed into two categories: sitting-bu music and standing-bu music based on the performance form. Zubuqi plays indoors, with a small number of people, and the sound is elegant and delicate, requiring musicians to have higher skills; Libuqi plays standing outdoors, with a larger number of people, often with a noisy ensemble, and sometimes a hundred operas are added.
Yan music includes a variety of music forms, such as vocal music, instrumental music, dance, opera, etc. Among them, song and dance music occupied the most important position in the Yan music of Sui and Tang Dynasties. Large-scale songs and dances with multiple sections are called Daqu, which had outstanding artistic achievements in the Yan music of the Tang Dynasty.
The main musical instruments used in Yanyue include pipa, harp, harp, sheng, flute, Jiegu, Fangxiang, etc. After the Anshi Rebellion, court music declined, and most of the court musicians were scattered among the people. After the unification of the Song Dynasty, although teaching workshops were set up and old songs from the Tang Dynasty were used, the big songs performed inside and outside the court were only part of the grand occasion of the Tang Dynasty, and the scale was greatly reduced. Daqu in the Song Dynasty began to evolve into musicals, and many sections gradually became tunes, scattered in lyrics, operas, raps and instrumental music. Daqu as an independent music genre gradually disappeared. After the Southern Song Dynasty, the mainstream of music development shifted to citizen arts (opera, rap, urban songs, etc.), and the court's Yanle and Yale lost their original development momentum. Both the elegant music system and the Yan music system are based on the monophonic system, which is related to the spirit of traditional Chinese aesthetics. The main characteristics of ancient Chinese aesthetic thought can be summarized into the following two points: First, "emptiness and tranquility". That is to say, only when the human mind is in a state of emptiness and tranquility, without being disturbed by the outside world, can we understand the world. Su Shi's poem "Quietness leads to the movement of the crowd, emptiness leads to the acceptance of all the surroundings", which expresses this meaning. The second is the beauty of neutrality, that is, "joy but not obscenity, sadness but not sadness" in "The Analects of Confucius". It can be said that the two points of "emptiness" and "docility" constitute the core of ancient Chinese aesthetic thought.
Taoist thought also affects the formation and development of Chinese music. "Tai Chi generates the two rituals, the two rituals generate the four images, and the four images generate the Bagua." Therefore, there is the "law of five degrees of mutual generation" in the "Law". During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there was a breakthrough in Chinese aesthetic thought. It turned away from the Taoist idea of ??quietness and inaction, negated the idea of ??five tones and five colors, and replaced metaphysical poetry with landscape poetry and painting. But it is not a total betrayal, but an opposition to naturalistic depictions, demanding that "gods descend upon them" and "gods be like them". So there are five tones of "Gong, Shang, Jiao, Zheng, Yu".
Western music is based on the polyphonic system. The author believes that this is closely related to "imitation of nature" in Western aesthetic thought. We know that music is produced and developed based on all sounds in nature. The sound in nature is not just a single sound; besides, the West pays more attention to scientific explanation? They found that even a single sound is supported by many overtones when it produces sound. Therefore, the West has "pure rhythm"; and therefore, the West has "counterpoint" and "harmony". It is on this basis (at least one of the foundations) that polyphonic music developed. The difference in aesthetic thinking between China and the West is that Chinese music emphasizes the role of emotion in art and focuses on "quality and beauty." Western music, on the other hand, emphasizes imitating nature and pays more attention to "formal beauty."