Music
This is a matter of opinion, with many opinions. The author believes that music is a sound art rather than a visual or other sensory art. The art of organizing musical sounds (and sometimes noises appropriately) according to certain rules to make people feel beautiful when listening to them is called music.
Knowledge about music The four elements of sound
The four elements of sound are: sound intensity, pitch, timbre and waveform envelope. Their meanings are now described as follows:
1. Sound intensity,
Sound intensity is the loudness that people feel when listening, which is what we usually call the strength of the sound or loud, small, heavy or light. It is one of the human ears' subjective evaluation criteria for sound stability. Its objective evaluation scale - that is, the measurement of physical quantities - is the amplitude of sound waves. Sound intensity and amplitude are not completely consistent or proportional. There is a big difference in the low frequency band of the audio frequency range, and there is also a considerable difference in the high frequency band.
The sound frequency range is the frequency range of sound vibrations that people can hear, which is 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Below 20 Hz is called infrasound, and above 20 kHz is called ultrasound. Within the audio frequency range, the human ear is most sensitive to sounds in the mid-frequency band of 1 to 3 kilohertz, and is relatively insensitive to sounds in the high and low frequency bands, especially in the low-frequency band. There is another characteristic of the human ear. For very strong sounds, the relationship between loudness and frequency is not significant. In other words, sounds with the same amplitude and frequency sound about the same loudness. But for low-level signals (that is, very light sounds), it is felt that its loudness has a great relationship with frequency: for sounds of the same amplitude, sounds in the low and high frequency bands sound lighter than those in the mid-frequency band. The smaller the sound amplitude, the more serious the chicken breeding phenomenon is. For a sound signal of 1 kilohertz, the lowest sound pressure that the human ear can feel is 2X10 (minus 4th power) microbar. Microbar is a unit of sound pressure, which is equivalent to a pressure of 1 dyne in an area of ??1 square centimeter. Electroacoustic workers refer to this sound pressure as 0 decibels of sound pressure level, usually written as O decibels SPL (SPL is the abbreviation of sound pressure level), just as 0.775 volts is defined as 0 decibels in a 6OO ohm circuit. . There are obvious advantages to using logarithmic "sound pressure level" to express the amplitude of sound instead of using sound pressure. This is because the sound pressure range that the human ear can hear is very large, ranging from 2X10 (negative 4th power) microbar to 2X10 (negative 4th power) microbar, a difference of 10 million (1C) times. For such a wide range of changes, it is very inconvenient to calculate, and it is much more convenient to express it in terms of sound pressure level than sound pressure. In addition, since the human ear's perception of loudness is nonlinear, using logarithms to measure is closer to the subjective characteristics of the human ear. When the sound pressure level reaches 120 decibels SPL, the human ear will feel pain and cannot bear it. Therefore, the dynamic range that people hear is from 0 to 120 decibels SPL. When listening to a band playing in a concert hall, what is the natural dynamic range of music? ? For large-scale symphony music, the loudest music segment can reach 115 dB SPL, and the weakest music segment is about 25 dB SPL, so the dynamic range can reach 90 dB. Of course, this is rarely the case. Usually the dynamic range of symphony music is about 50 to 80 decibels, the dynamic range of medium and small music is about 40 decibels, and the dynamic range of language is about 30 decibels.
Therefore, home sound playback equipment is required to be able to reproduce as much as possible:
1] The natural sound level dynamic range of the above music or language.
2] The natural sound pressure level of music or language. For commonly used playback volumes in homes, the average sound pressure level is about 86 dB SPL for music and about 70 dB SPL for speech.
2． Pitch, or pitch, is the human ear's subjective evaluation of the pitch of a sound. Its objective evaluation scale is the frequency of sound waves. Unlike the relationship between sound intensity and amplitude, pitch and frequency are basically the same. When the frequencies of the two sound signals are doubled, that is, when f2=2f1, then f2 is said to be one octave higher than f1. The difference between 1 (do) and i in music is exactly one octave, which is also said to be one octave in musicology. There are 12 semitones in an octave. Taking the 1-i octave zone as an example, the 12 semitones are: 1-#1, #1-2, 2-#2, #2-3, 3-4, 4-#4, #-5, 5- #5, #5-6, 6-#6, #6-7, 7-i. Please note that the divisions of these 12 scales are basically divided in a logarithmic relationship.
When various musical instruments play notes of the same frequency, people feel that their pitches are the same. This means that the sounds played have the same fundamental frequency. But every time a musical instrument produces a sound, in addition to the fundamental frequency fo, this sound also has harmonics that are positive integer multiples of fo. As mentioned before, the pitch feeling of each note is determined by fo, and the different harmonic components of each instrument determine the unique timbre of the instrument. So, what is the natural fundamental frequency range of music? Among musical instruments, the piano has the widest range of fundamental audio strings, ranging from 27.5 to 4136 Hz. The fundamental range of orchestral and symphonic music is 30 to 6000 Hz. The fundamental range of my country's national musical instruments is 50 to 4500 Hz. By the way, modern electroacoustic research shows that the natural frequency range of musical sounds has exceeded the audible sound frequency range of 20 to 20,000 Hz. For example, the fundamental tones of some African drums are in the infrasonic frequency band, and the harmonics of some Chinese woodwinds (overtones) can reach as high as 25 kHz.
Although infrasound signals cannot be heard by human ears, they can be sensed by human skin. In addition, the fundamental frequency of language painting is in the range of 150 to 3500 Hz.
3. Timbre
In addition to obvious differences in loudness and pitch, people can also accurately judge the "tone" of the sound. Although the clarinet and the French horn play notes of the same pitch (fundamental frequency), people can clearly distinguish which is the clarinet and which is the French horn without confusion. This is due to their different timbres and waveform envelopes. The timbre is determined by the overtone (harmonic) spectrum of the musical sound, which can also be said to be determined by the waveform of the musical sound. Because most of the waveforms of musical sounds (which can be seen on an electronic oscilloscope) are not simple sine waves, but a complex wave. Analysis shows that this complex waveform can be decomposed into a series of sine waves. These sine waves There is the fundamental frequency f0, and there are harmonics that are integer multiples of f0: f1, f2, f3, f4. Their amplitudes have a specific ratio. This ratio gives each instrument a unique "color" - Tone. If there are no harmonic components, a pure fundamental sinusoidal signal will have no sense of music. Therefore, the frequency range of the musical instrument tone is by no means just the frequency range of the fundamental frequency, and should include all harmonics of the musical instrument tone. , even high-order overtones still have a great impact on the timbre of the instrument. High-fidelity sound reproduction systems must pay great attention to reproducing each overtone, which makes the reproduction frequency range reach at least 15,000 Hz, which requires high-end applications. In addition, the overtone of the language can reach 7 to 8 kHz.
The waveform envelope of the musical sound refers to the musical sound performance. , blowing, pulling, plucking) the transient state of the starting and ending amplitude of a single musical note, that is, the envelope of the waveform. For some musical instruments, the amplitude immediately reaches the maximum at the beginning of playing, blowing, pulling, or plucking. value, and then the amplitude gradually decreases. On the contrary, some instruments are less excited at the beginning, then gradually increase, and then gradually decay. These waveform envelope changes also affect the timbre of the instrument. Obviously, better playback equipment is also required. Transient following ability, otherwise it will cause distortion of the natural envelope of the music.
Modern ancient music - two thousand years of theoretical exploration and the birth of the twelve equal temperament
In traditional Chinese. Among the heritage of music theory, there is a science that has been studied since the 7th century BC and has continued for more than 2,600 years until today. .
Rhythm is the science that studies the pitch system and the mutual mathematical and logical relationships in the musical sound system. It is an interdisciplinary subject that interpenetrates music acoustics (acoustics), mathematics and musicology. . In the research and application of pitch systems, the laws of temperament are almost everywhere, such as: the structure and intonation of melody intervals; the principles of harmony in mode and harmony theory; and the various interval relationships in the vertical combination of multiple voices. ; the transposition of keys; the determination of intonation and phoneme in instrument manufacturing and tuning; and the adjustment of pitch in duets and chorus ensembles, are all directly related to temperament. Therefore, a "Twenty-Four Histories", in addition to "Music". "Lv Zhi", each dynasty has chapters such as "Lv Zhi", "Lv Shu" and "Lv Li Zhi".
The rich heritage of "Lv Xue" and its status in the history of Chinese culture and academics , you can imagine.
The earliest complete temperament theory in the history of Chinese music is called the "three-point profit and loss law", which appeared in "Guanzi·Diyuan Chapter" in the middle of Qian Chunqiu. "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals: Music Pian" describes its basic rules: take the length of a string as the base number, divide it into three sections, round off one and take two, "three parts lose one", then the first Shangwu 4 degree tone; if you add one section to the three equally divided sections, "three points equals one", the first lower 4th tone will be produced. If you continue to calculate in this way, you can get 12 tones, which is called "Twelve Rhythm" ", each rhyme has a fixed rhyme name, namely:
Huang Datai Jiagu? Zhonglin Yinan Wuying
Zhonglucuozhong The law of degree reciprocity". A little later, Pythagoras (about 580 BC - 501 BC), the originator of Greek mathematics, also calculated the "Twelve Laws" using the same method.
Although the "three-point profit and loss" deduces the "Twelve Laws", it cannot be recycled when the last law is calculated, which is an uneven "Twelve Laws". Contains the difference between major and minor semitones. Therefore, seeking an equal temperament system that can freely rotate the palace has become the ideal that music temperament scholars have been striving for for more than two thousand years.
Jingfang (77-37 BC), a famous legal scholar in the Han Dynasty, continued to calculate along the method of five degrees of mutual generation. By the 53rd "Seyu" rhythm, it had basically returned to the starting point of "Huang". "Bell" (53 equal temperament also appeared in Europe in the 16th century).
He finally counted 60 laws, which later generations called "Jingfang Law". On the surface, Jingfang's complicated rhythm system of calculating 60 temperaments is completely different from the concise ideal of twelve equal temperaments. However, if you put aside its mystical cloak, many of the temperament heights he obtained in the calculation process can be found in Zeng Hou This is confirmed by the "bell rhythm" embodied in the second chime bell. Qian Lezhi and Zhong Zhong in the Southern Dynasties continued to deduce the law of life based on the "two-part profit and loss method" on the basis of Jingfang's 60 laws, until they reached the more thorough 360 laws. They minimized the number of tone differences in Huansheng Huangzhong's original temperament, thus providing a greater possibility of selecting each of the twelve equal temperament tones.
But at the same time, the exploration of solving the law of twelve equals along this way has also entered the dilemma of "endless".
It is no coincidence that He Chengtian (370-447), a musicologist who was a contemporary of Qian and Shen, boldly proposed a "new temperament". His approach was to divide the remaining errors that could not be restored in the twelfth law into twelve parts, and add one part to each law.
After twelve rebirths, it happened to return to Huang Zhonglu. This can be said to be a genius idea of ??twelve equal temperaments. At that time, He Chengtian was almost knocking on the door to this unpredictable temperament. Unfortunately, he did not calculate based on frequency ratio, but calculated based on string length, and the problem was once again stranded. . In the Sui Dynasty, Liu Zhuo (581-618) got rid of the fetters of the "three-point profit and loss law" and calculated the "twelve-length arithmetic law" based on the same difference between the lengths of vibrating bodies. Wang Pu (905-959) proposed a "new temperament" in 959, which rigidly adjusted each temperament with an octave interval related to one and a half times. He clearly realized that the solution to the contradiction of the law of inequality can only be carried out within the scope of the 12 laws, but his basic method was still based on the "three-point profit and loss method".
After such a long period of exploration and wandering, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the royal family Zhu Yuyu (1536-1611) finally became the one who climbed to the top of the pagoda of law to pick the pearl of "Twelve Equal Temperaments". The first person. He used the abacus method to obtain the geometric series in the rhythm system, and for the first time solved the eternal problem of free rotation of the palace within the twelve rhythms of music, realizing the ideal that countless rhythm experts have dreamed of for more than a thousand years. His "new law of density" has become one of the most important discoveries in the history of human science. As a giant in the history of art, Zhu Weiyu has made achievements in science, culture, especially the theory of traditional music theory. The "Complete Book of Music", which he wrote throughout his life, covers all aspects of music art. However, due to the decline of China's feudal society. The "Law of Twelve Equals" invented by Zhu Yiyu. In the end, it failed to be put into practice and was hidden in a book and shelved, becoming a tragic profile reflecting the feudal empire's stifling of genius.
Ancient Music - History of Development (1)
The pre-Qin classic "Lu Shi Chun Qiu" says: "The origin of music is far away!" It is true, but the musical artifacts that are constantly being discovered have proven again and again its far-reaching "origin".
In the early 1950s, the "Shang Dynasty tiger-patterned rock" from the Yin Ruins in Anyang was unearthed, proving that Chinese musical instruments have a history of more than 3,000 years; in the mid-1950s, the Neolithic ruins in Banpo Village, Xi'an were excavated With the discovery of the "One Sound Hole Pottery Xun", musical instruments can be traced back to more than 6,700 years ago; in the 1970s, a large number of "bone whistles" and a "pottery Xun" dating back more than 7,000 years ago were discovered at the Hemudu Neolithic site in Yuyao, Zhejiang...Chinese Music It is indeed like a long river of history. This river is winding, colorful, and never ending. This river has merged from trickles into a mighty river. In recent years, an archaeological excavation in Jiahu Village, Wuyang, Henan Province has extended it to an even older era...
The history of Chinese music, ancient documents generally trace back to the Yellow Emperor. Although the legend about the Yellow Emperor is mixed with the ideal elements of later generations and contains many supernatural contents, it is not completely credible (for example, the "Twelve Laws" were established during the Yellow Emperor's time, which is to attribute later creation to the Yellow Emperor. This is inconsistent with modern Scientific archaeological discoveries are inconsistent.) It is too late to regard the Yellow Emperor as the source of Chinese music: modern archaeological discoveries have greatly advanced the history of Chinese music from the Yellow Emperor's era to its history, which is far older than the Yellow Emperor's era!
From 1986 to 1987, at least 16 bone flutes were unearthed from the Neolithic site in Jiahu Village, Wuyang County, Henan Province. According to carbon 14 dating, these bone flutes are 8,000-9,000 years old. How long! These bone flutes were made from the ulna of cranes, and most of them had seven holes drilled. Some of the sound holes still have the division marks carved before drilling. A small hole was drilled next to some sound holes, which should be used to adjust the pitch. used. These circumstances at least show that at that time, people already had certain requirements for the accuracy of pitch, and they also had a preliminary understanding of the relationship between pitch and pipe length. Musicians have measured the sound of the most complete one of them and found that China, which is said to be dominated by the pentatonic scale, actually had a stable structure that went beyond the pentatonic scale as early as seven or eight thousand years ago. . (This historical fact eloquently illustrates that the later dominance of pentatonic music in Chinese music was not due to the so-called "imperfect development of scales" as some people imagine, but the result of a historical and aesthetic choice.) This also proves that Music at that time had developed to a very high level, far beyond people's imagination. Before that, Chinese music must have existed for a long historical period. It is difficult to guess whether this period is measured in thousands or tens of thousands of years.
In addition to bone flutes, musical instruments from the Neolithic period have also been found including bone whistles, xuns, pottery bells, chimes, drums, etc. These musical instruments are distributed over the vast land of China and span a wide time span, indicating that they were the main musical instruments in China's primitive period. Among them, bells, chimes, and drums have been greatly developed in later generations. As for the xun and whistle, there are also musical instruments with the same shape and principle as the bone flute (called "chi" today), and they are still alive among the people today.
Xun is a very distinctive musical instrument. It is made of clay and looks like an egg (or in various deformations). Its size is similar to a Chinese fist, and it is hollow with a blow hole at the top. One or several finger holes are made in the chest and abdomen.
Apart from the bone flute, the Xun is the only instrument found in the primitive era that can produce more than one tone with certainty. The Xun in the primitive period only had 1-3 sound holes and could only produce 2-4 tones. (This is very strange. It may be related to the fact that it is more difficult to calculate the holes in the small egg-shaped xun than in the tubular flute.) They reflect the development process of the Chinese musical scale to a certain extent, and can especially reveal the development of the musical scale in China. The interval relationship that occupies an important position in the process; some scholars today point out that it is the minor third interval that has been repeatedly emphasized from the first tone hole Xun, which can only produce two sounds. This point of view undoubtedly has important guiding significance for understanding the development of Chinese scales, the rhythmic relationship between scale tones, and even the internal mechanism of the phenomenon that the Chinese heptatonic scale still uses pentatonic as the backbone.
Music and dance in primitive times are inseparable. This is probably a unique phenomenon in the history of all nations in the world, and China is no exception. As late as the 11th century BC, China had called this art form that combined music and dance "Le". Even after music and dance became independent art forms, "Le" could still refer to both dance and music. Its vague meaning has been preserved. Today, "yue" refers specifically to music, so scholars generally refer to the "yue" in the primitive period as "music and dance." Some of the existing primitive rock paintings vividly depict primitive music and dance scenes, which are group singing and dancing activities. According to the fragments of "memories" preserved in later documents, it can be seen that the performance of primitive music and dances and sacrifices such as praying for a good harvest were "one in two, two in one", so they must contain the reproduction of production activities.
In the primitive period, music and dance were not the objects of social division of labor. There were no full-time musicians in primitive society. Music and dance were generally social activities in tribal societies. Therefore, music and dance in the primitive period did not become independent from society as a specialized art form.
Strictly speaking, it was not until the establishment of the Xia Dynasty around the 21st century BC that music and dance truly became a social division of labor and gained independence from society. Legend has it that both Qi, the king of the early Xia Dynasty, and Jie, the last king of the Xia Dynasty, used large-scale music and dance for their own enjoyment. This shows that in the late Xia Dynasty, society had created a large number of professional music and dance personnel. This is a sign that music and dance as an art are independent of society. .
Because primitive music and dance are closely integrated with primitive witchcraft, sacrifice and other activities, people's mysterious thoughts about music, dance and even some musical instruments may have originated very early. After the emergence of a country, rulers will use and strengthen the mystical view of music to manipulate and control music and dance to strengthen their rule. Some of the preserved musical myths and stories are the product of such a social background. Legend has it that the large-scale music and dance "Nine Debates" and "Nine Songs" divided into chapters were obtained from heaven by King Qi of the Xia Dynasty. We can still see the image of Qi on the musical instruments unearthed from the early Warring States Period (5th century BC). It seems that he already had the status of the god of music at that time. It is also said that the Yellow Emperor got an animal that looked like an ox and was named Kui. He used its skin to cover a drum and used the bones of the thunder beast as drumsticks. When he beat it, "the sound could be heard for five hundred miles." Be famous all over the world. Kui and the thunder beast are both imaginary magical animals. The drums at that time were actually the same as those of later generations, mostly made of cowhide, but there were also some made of (now called alligator) skin, so they also became mythological materials. Later, Kui transformed into a "man" (god) in charge of music. Kui of Menggu became the god in charge of music, which should be seen as a tortuous reflection of the dominant role of the drum, an instrument that controls rhythm, in music and dance.
The Jiahu bone flute was unearthed near the legendary Xiatai of the Xia Dynasty. This tells us that the activity area of ??the Xia Dynasty was the area where Chinese music developed at a high level. According to legend, the music and dance of the Xia Dynasty obviously surpassed that of the previous generations, which is completely understandable. If we strip away the mythical elements of the above-mentioned "Nine Bian" and "Nine Songs" that they were inspired from heaven, then the only thing left is that the "Nine Bian" and "Nine Songs" in reality are indeed incomparably magnificent and beautiful. Only this is enough to trigger people's reverie that "this music should only exist in heaven", and thus further create myths.