Style characteristics and formation of Chinese national music
Abstract: Chinese national music has a long history and has formed its own unique style characteristics. Chinese folk music pays attention to lines, harmony, and artistic conception, and pursues a broad, free, and beautiful space in its inner thoughts. Among them, the language methods, traditional notation methods and "freehand" aesthetic expression ideas in traditional Chinese culture have had a great impact on the formation of Chinese national music style characteristics.
Chinese national music has thousands of years of historical accumulation and is the result of the joint creation of all ethnic groups. Musical genres and forms, tones and styles all present a colorful appearance. The formation of Chinese national music styles is comprehensively influenced by the natural ecological environment of each ethnic group and the resulting main production methods, living customs, language, religion and many other factors. It reflects the aesthetic standards, life concepts and thinking of the Chinese nation. method etc. The five major categories of traditional Chinese music include songs, song and dance music, rap music, opera and instrumental music. Their style characteristics are both unique and individual. Moreover, they have jointly formed their own distinctive personalities: they pay attention to charm and artistic conception; they emphasize character and appearance; they focus on the harmony and unity of man and nature; they pursue the combination and penetration of emotion and ethics in expression; they advocate subtlety and elegance; Observe harmony and neutrality, simplicity and moderation, etc. These unique aesthetic pursuits have created the inherent style characteristics of Chinese national culture and art.
1. Basic style characteristics of Chinese national music
Although Chinese national music has its own characteristics due to different ethnic groups, regions, genres, varieties, and schools, they all have unique characteristics. The above characteristics are contained in the same place and are reflected in all aspects of musical form. Chinese national music reflects that its own style and characteristics are different from Western music. The main reason is that China's patriarchal society based on traditional production and lifestyle for thousands of years has determined people's social ideology and psychological quality. On the one hand, it aims to "educate and help others", aiming to maintain various relationships; on the other hand, influenced by Zhuang Chan, he pursues deification and rebirth. Diligence and simplicity, respect for tradition, self-sufficiency, advocating moderation, etc. have become the collective subconscious, penetrating into all fields and aspects of social culture. The cultural foundation of people's psychology, physiology, material and survival makes people form a habit in long-term artistic practice , pay attention to harmony, pursue understanding, etc., it includes music creation skills, form and psychological needs. The basic style characteristics of Chinese national music are reflected in three aspects: musical lines, harmony and artistic conception.
1. Lines
Chinese folk music is a linear musical way of thinking. Unlike Western music, which focuses on three-dimensional sound effects, music is formed through harmony and polyphonic thinking. The framework is used to express a philosophy, and the music has richer logic and other characteristics, which are obviously different. Chinese folk music mainly expresses tunes and is a monophonic music system. Special attention is paid to the various changes that can occur during the progression of the melody to enrich the content of the monophonic music. Its melody is directly generated from the acoustic colors of poems, words and music. Bred from the rich tones, accents, accents and dialect phonology of various places, it is colorful and graceful. It can be used in calligraphy, painting, sculpture, dance and other artistic lines. It is displayed through the linear expression of music. In music, volume control and phrase expansion are often used. , conversion of musical sections, changes in timbre, etc. to express various emotions and artistic conceptions. It is reflected in the beautifying treatment of lines, one is the treatment of single notes; the other is the decoration of the melody progression.
The process of pronunciation is the movement process of sound. In this process, the single tone is artistically processed, such as volume, timbre, etc., so that the lines of the music can be modified, and it has become one of the important manifestations of national music style. The sound of Chinese folk music does not disappear in a straight line after being sung or played. Instead, after the sound is emitted, it is modified to increase the depth and charm of the work. Such as various decorations such as portamento and appliqué in folk songs, operas, and instrumental music, and techniques such as chanting, rubbing, and pushing and pulling in musical instrument performance. It is caused by the rapid alternation of the proper tone and a slightly lower or slightly higher tone. The musical performance is an expressive technique that bends the sound in a wavy shape, forming a back-and-forth curve, adding to the charm of the music.
The melodies of national music are mostly based on the pentatonic mode or the pentatonic mode as the backbone. The direction of the melody is more natural and smooth, and most of the dragging or long sounds are not consistent. For different pitches, it requires adding flowers, variations and other techniques to beautify the melody, so that the melody can be combined with movement and stillness, driven by stillness or driven by movement, making the music more vivid and the melody lines more beautiful.
2. Harmony
“Happiness is the harmony of heaven and earth.” Starting from the large-scale ceremonial music used to worship the gods and ancestors of heaven and earth in the ancient Western Zhou Dynasty, the "collective subconscious" gradually formed through long-term practice has far-reaching historical continuity. As a result, Chinese music has been rooted in the soil of the nation for thousands of years, and has always maintained the spirit of the ancient land and the divinity of the natural regional characteristics. This is ethical and illogical. Therefore, many national music works mostly use techniques such as variations, transitions, and reproductions to express the slow narrative and endurance of music, unlike Western music that emphasizes contrasting and conflicting themes. Harmony and beauty have become one of the important features of my country's national music. It manifests itself in structure and performance.
In national music, the structure pays attention to balance, symmetry and stability. For example, the whole song "Spring River with Flowers and Moonlight Night" uses the ending form in many paragraphs, which sounds very harmonious and unified. Symmetrical structures are also common in folk songs. In the progress of music, the pentatonic scale is used as the basis to form the relative stability of music and achieve a kind of acoustic unity. At the same time, there are changes in the unity. In addition, the overall dynamic balance formed by civil and military, yin and yang, hardness and softness also enables people to obtain a peaceful mind and produce a feeling of beauty.
In the performance of our country's national music art, the expression of emotion in singing and performance is the organic unity of "inside and outside", so that music can reach a perfect state. It is necessary to have inner feelings and experiences, express them through singing (playing), and seek the harmony and unity of emotion and energy, strength and energy. Only by paying attention to maintaining the harmony and smoothness of Qi and force can we effectively express the multi-layered musical emotions.
3. Artistic conception
For thousands of years, Chinese folk songs, rap, opera, instrumental music and other music forms have manifested themselves in the pursuit of artistic conception. As a state of beauty presented by a completed work of art, the artistic conception is generally expressed in two aspects: virtuality and reality, and emphasis on conveyance and enlightenment.
Virtuality and reality refer to the sound entity and the image created in the work, as well as the virtuality and reality formed by technology. Music is not like painting or sculpture, which directly describes the entity of the performance object. It needs to express the artistic conception through personal skills, cultivation, understanding of music, etc., which reflects virtuality and reality. Music always contains some kind of connotation beyond the sound of music. It includes both the actual sound entity and one's own feelings about the music, a state that must be achieved through association. As it is often said, "the sound is broken and the meaning is connected, the sound is broken and the meaning is continuous, and the sound is not heard when the meaning is reached", "the intention comes first with the pen, and the breath is swallowed before the pen reaches it", etc. It means to express "the silence here is better than the sound" through the gaps and rests in the music. Only when the virtual and the real are combined, and movement and stillness depend on each other, can music be charming.
Chinese national music also attaches great importance to the expressive role of music art. In a play, accompanied by music, you can often see or feel various scenes, but this kind of expressiveness requires certain conditions, that is, "enlightenment". Enlightenment refers to the ability of people's thinking to achieve a strong grasp of the essence of things after intense exercise. Comprehension requires solid basic skills and extensive cultivation, and it is necessary to get rid of technical problems. The cultural dissemination of Chinese national music mainly relies on "oral transmission and heart-to-heart teaching". This traditional communication method has also become an objective condition for pursuing the beauty of artistic conception in national music. In national music, whether it is creation, singing, performance, or appreciation, only after "enlightenment" and grasping the essence can we reach the highest state of artistic conception and beauty.
2. The formation of the basic style characteristics of Chinese national music
As an indispensable part of the overall Chinese national culture, Chinese national music has been passed down and developed for thousands of years , evolution, forming the basis of the aesthetics and artistic paradigm of the world, including the "line"-based way of thinking in music, the musical expression method that is simple and suitable, contrasting the dynamic and the static, the well-proportioned and steady rhythm arrangement, the balanced and symmetrical Structural principles, layer-by-layer symmetrical development techniques, modal structure with pentatonic as the backbone, comprehensive expression forms combined with literature, poetry, language, dance, opera, etc. In summary, language methods, traditional notation methods and "freehand" aesthetic expression ideas have had a great impact on the formation of the characteristics of Chinese national music style.
1. The influence of language
The differences between Chinese and Western languages ??determine the characteristics of the respective national music and art of China and the West. In the long-term development process, the stylistic characteristics formed by Chinese vocal music art are mainly reflected in the way of using the voice, the adjustment of the voice, the techniques of vocalization, the characteristics of the language, the style of the music and the aesthetic requirements. The melody trend of traditional Chinese songs always roughly matches the tone trend of the lyrics. In a farming culture where oral culture dominates, people's spiritual culture such as survival knowledge, behavioral norms, and aesthetic tastes mainly rely on oral language inheritance, and singing is one of the main behaviors of cultural inheritance. The beauty of the voice and the melodiousness of the melody have become the aesthetic ideals of Chinese national vocal music art since ancient times. The choice of timbre in Chinese national vocal music is fundamentally based on the pronunciation of Chinese language, forming the timbre characteristics of Chinese national singing based on Chinese pronunciation, and has accumulated into a stable aesthetic concept of timbre. Different from European vocal art, which expresses emotions directly and emphasizes individuality, Chinese national vocal art pays more attention to reserve, moderation and group-oriented. "Be happy but not obscene, sad but not sad", this aesthetic standard runs through Chinese music for more than two thousand years.
The unique "moistening tone" in Chinese national vocal music art is also an important stylistic feature of Chinese national vocal music. In the aesthetic activities of national singing, "moistening the tone" has become an important criterion for judging whether vocal works and their performances have aesthetic value. This style is called "charming" in traditional Chinese aesthetic theory. Moistening the tune can not only make singing full of charm, make up for the lack of emotional expression in tunes, and achieve the purpose of profoundly portraying the character's personality and artistic conception. At the same time, these inevitably affected the national instrumental music, resulting in the creation of instruments such as the guanzi and the erhu that resemble human voices, the high-pitched and bright suona, and the flute, as well as their techniques.
2. The influence of traditional notation
The traditional Chinese “framework” notation has had a significant impact on the formation of Chinese national music style.
Chinese music culture has a long history, but it has always used the "inexact" and "framework" notation form. This is the product of many factors such as the unique cultural background, humanistic values, and emotional expression of the Chinese nation. Several main characteristics of the ontology of Chinese national music and humanities are related to it and cause and effect each other. It is a materialized manifestation of the unique way of thinking of Chinese national music. The traditional Chinese frame notation is only an outline record of the basic pitch and basic rhythm of traditional music or singing. In this way, it promotes the innovation of folk artists and performing artists in the form and structure of music during the inheritance of music. , and prevent their artistic expression from performing the artistic functions of "one song with many changes" and "one song with multiple uses" across time and space that are unique to Chinese national music. In Chinese folk music, different folk artists play or sing pieces according to the same gongchipu. They often play (sing) various innovative versions of the works based on their personal experience and cultivation abilities. Therefore, the same piece of music can produce different versions and musical styles when performed by different performers. It is precisely because of this imprecise notation that an improvisational performance style that is consistent with traditional Chinese aesthetic ideas has emerged. "Music Records" says: "Musicians are the harmony of heaven and earth." By abandoning the objective division of time values ??of music, the precise written notation that restricts performance (singing) is removed, supplemented by oral transmission and heart teaching, so that people can When playing (singing) music, it is easier to "forget oneself", "send what you feel" and "reveal naturally", and enter the highest state of "harmony between man and nature".
3. The influence of "freehand" aesthetic expression ideas
There are obvious differences between the expression techniques of Chinese national music and Western orchestral music. Chinese national music has a distant artistic conception and is completely different from Western music. The stylistic characteristics of Chinese national music are the same as Chinese paintings, calligraphy and other Chinese arts, forming a unique "freehand" style full of emotional expression. If the national orchestral piece "Spring River Flowers and Moonlight Night" is regarded as a long ink scroll, it relies on the branches of the melody itself and unfolds the scroll through changes in timbre, register, and texture. Chinese instrumental music works are limited by the characteristics of the instrument, and most of them appear in the form of solos. Even large-scale instrumental works are mainly performed in unison. To achieve the rich and colorful artistic effect of the music, it needs to be achieved through changes in the color of the instruments, the ups and downs of the melody lines, and the ups and downs of the phrases. Melody is the element that has dominated almost everything in Chinese national music for thousands of years. Like other Chinese art forms, it belongs to the "freehand" style.
Most of Chinese folk music is "freehand" works, often using virtual and implicit techniques to express objects, paying more attention to "spiritual resemblance". Chinese folk music is good at using points to represent aspects, using one generation to represent ten, and is good at expressing the content of music through symbolic means. Although it is not as rich and thick as Western orchestral music, it gives people a rich space for imagination.
Related websites:
http://www.ewen.cc/music/bkview.asp?bkid=6348&cid=10885
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