Tao Zhen.

A popular rap technique in the Song Dynasty, also known as "Taozhen". In the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, Tao Zhen developed further. The biggest difference is that in the Song Dynasty, drum accompaniment was used, while in the Ming and Qing dynasties, pipa accompaniment was used.

After Tao Zhen became popular in the city for a long time, from the Song Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, the simple style changed: from percussion drums to strings with controlled melody; from blind man to blind girl, Instead, the audience was made of citizens and even women.

The lyrics at this time also had two different changes. On the one hand, the original hymn was changed to a song about the north and south. This was a development from simplicity to complexity in form.

But the main thing is that the singing is influenced by pop music. On the other hand, the poems and praises in Tao Zhen's books were deleted and turned into prose novels for reading, suitable for the tastes of scholar-bureaucrats and citizens.

Current situation:

Tao Zhen's arias do not exist today, only a small amount of libretto is recorded in Volume 22 of "Seven Revised Drafts" by Lang Ying (1487-1566) of the Ming Dynasty. It is a seven-character sentence, and its words are similar to those in the Chenghua version of Ming Dynasty.

But Tao Zhen, sung in the play "Pipa Ji" by Gao Zecheng in the Yuan Dynasty, is a lotus falling. In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, Li Tiaoyuan's "Remaining Talk on the Painted Boat" in "Tongshan Poetry Collection" recorded Tao Zhen's performance in Hangzhou.

Ningbo Tanci is now also known as "Si Ming Documents". "Tanci" began in the Jiajing and Wanli years of the Ming Dynasty and became popular among the people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. It is also accompanied by pipa and the lyrics are composed of seven-character sentences.

It can be seen from this that Taozhen in the Song and Ming Dynasties is the predecessor of Tanci, and Tanci in the Ming and Qing Dynasties is a continuation of Taozhen. The development history of the two is inseparable. This technique may later gradually merge with Tanci and be absorbed by it.