Tan Dun: Looking after the Oriental Wisdom Zhang Jie from the window of music
From the east to the west, from Xiangxi to the world, Tan Dun has made his own way with his own music. Tan Dun has an ideal of his own; Bring China's ancient tones and traditions with local characteristics to the whole world through his own music practice.
From China's ancient times to the modern West
Tan Dun was born in Changsha, and there is a place called Simaochong on the outskirts of Changsha, where there are many weddings, funerals, music, night songs, such as: playing Dongdongkui and playing Shiro. At that time, Tan Dun, a barefoot boy, listened to and watched these every day. His childhood experience in folk music left a deep impression on him. In the eyes of folk artists, by playing Shiro, it seems that they can find a realm to communicate with death and the afterlife, with God and the land. At the beginning of his contact with music, Tan Dun saw this legendary oriental folk art, and this special experience may have brought a strong local color to Tan Dun's future music road. From the native land to the world, from ancient times to modern times, from Xiangxi to the world ... Tan Dun started from playing Dongdongkui and playing Shiro, and embarked on a road of his own.
In p>1981, Tan Dun was still studying in the Central Conservatory of Music. When he returned to Hunan to visit relatives, he met an old man who could play music with stones in Xiangxi. An ordinary stone could play many tones and melodies in his hands. After each fight, the old man scattered stones on the ground, and always arranged some hexagrams in the Book of Changes. This aroused Tan Dun's curiosity. He wanted to learn from the teacher, and the old man agreed. Many years later, when he was preparing to compose a new symphony for cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Boston Symphony Orchestra, he suddenly remembered the past and went back to Hunan to find the old man. The old man had passed away, and no one knew how stone music was made.
This incident is a great shock to Tan Dun: our existing tradition is such a reality: when some people pass, everything will be blowing in the wind. He hopes to find a media, find a way, find a spirit, and get back what has disappeared, so that these things will never disappear. This is the beginning of the Map.
Tan Dun believes that before the invention of language, human beings had music. Before the invention of language, they were "listening to the sound to find their way". When crossing a stockade or a village, you must leave your songs behind. Through this "listening to the sound to find your way", you can hear echoes, duets, different accents, different tones and different rhythms in the countryside, find your way and find you. Starting from the local music, it may go beyond the tangible world and reach the wider world, because it is the "root" connecting life and the past.
Tan Dun's road to music is to seek such a "root" and find such a path of "finding a way by listening to music". And such "listening to the sound and finding the way" paths must be found before they are completely gone. Tan Dun felt his responsibility and the urgency of the task. Tan Dun said: I think the whole purpose of our root-seeking is to create. Therefore, I have always had a strong idea to extend the best things in the past into better things in the future through this spiritual search and an invisible "road to hometown".
When Tan Dun returned to the Phoenix in western Hunan to collect folk songs, he met a Miao girl who sang "Flying Song". Tan Dun asked her how to sing "Fei Ge" and what was going on. She said, "Flying Song" is love, the antithesis of life, sung to the invisible, the people on the other side of the mountain and the people on the other side of the river; When you sing here, there is an answer there. The song is "face to face" in the air, but people are invisible. Tan Dun thought this way of communication was very interesting and asked her, "Can you sing it to people on the other side of the world?" She smiled and said, "Yes." Tan Dun said, "Then you have a try." She seemed to be listening while singing. Tan Dun recorded the whole audio-visual process with a video camera. The process she waited for was made by composing music. So the whole music constitutes an interaction and answer between Xiangxi and the world, new and old, past and present.
Tan Dun also made a series of natural music: Paper Music, Water Music and Tao Le. Paper Music is music for the opening of Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, USA. At that time, he thought, since it was for Disney Concert Hall, it was necessary to find a musical language related to children's life and way of thinking. The most difficult challenge in life is children. Children's perception of music is very natural and reasonable, and perhaps the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi dominates them. Our life is full of paper, but has anyone ever asked, "Who invented paper? Many Americans can't answer. Another is, what if there is no paper in the world? Third, has anyone noticed the sound of paper? And the sound of paper is always by your side.
Tan Dun suggested that the first concert of the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles must be given to children. They hesitated at first, but they accepted it. The moment just after the paper music performance, in Tan Dun's imagination, it may be clapping, but to his complete surprise, he heard more than 2, children screaming for five minutes! Tan Dun said with a smile, "This is the biggest reward the children gave me, which is much more than winning the Oscar."
China people need to convey their feelings to the whole world
Tan Dun said that if my son studies art, my first requirement is that he should be crazy and courageous. This is what I learned in the realm of Li Bai and Du Fu's poems in China. If Li Bai is not crazy, where is Li Bai? If China people are not crazy, where can Zheng He go to the Western Seas? Where did the four great inventions come from? Tan Dun thinks that many inferior art novels, poems, literary works or music have the first impression that they are unassuming and unimaginative.
Tan Dun mentioned a saying by Stalin: "If you want to be an artist, you should regard yourself as an artist." Tan Dun thinks that art should be like this, and our education is particularly lacking in this respect. Especially after the Opium War, we China people took a nap, which was too long. We forgot a lot about the wild in Wei, Jin and Pre-Qin Dynasties and the chic in Li Bai's heyday. Now that China is developed and strong, China people have a strong desire to express themselves. China people need to spread their love and feelings about the world to every corner of the world. At this time, when you need to convey your love and feelings, you must have a strong imagination and a fanatical imagination. This imagination is to conquer everyone's imagination and behavior. Tan Dun said that only if you think you are Michelangelo or Beethoven can you succeed.
Tan Dun believes that this is actually the case. If you carefully observe the performance of some good musicians on the stage, you will be relieved. After Yo-Yo Ma succeeded, he felt that he was the most expressive and expressive person in the world. Only by maintaining this state can he conquer all the audiences who share this music world with him. Tan Dun said: "When reading Shakespeare's plays and Li Bai's poems and songs, he felt this kind of fanaticism. I think this kind of wildness is extremely valuable."
when Tan Dun reflected on himself, he said, "I am made up of tradition and novel dreams. I am unwilling to live in Hunan, where there are Flower Drum Opera, xiang opera and Peking Opera all my life. Therefore, I must go to the * * * Conservatory of Music to study music from all over China, which I realized; But I still have to learn music beyond China, so I went to Columbia University, and I realized it. If there is more wonderful music in the universe one day, I will definitely sign up to go to the moon to learn music. "
China has the best music, the most intelligent wisdom and the widest mind. It belongs not only to China, but also to the world.
Tan Dun's definition of music is: "Music is life and life is music." He thinks this is the most important thing he learned in Xiangxi. In the villages of western Hunan, if people want to try the acoustics there, they will call "Woo …" by themselves, and there will be "Hi, Woo …" following the folk songs, which is overwhelming. The scene left a deep impression on Tan Dun at that time. Tan Dun thinks that this is the source of music, this is the original existence state of music, and this is life. On the riverside seen by the Phoenix in western Hunan, the tangke who washed clothes, the songs they sang when washing clothes, the water they made when washing clothes, and the gossip when washing clothes, the contradiction with her husband's family and the things at home were all expressed in music, all of which were related to their work and their days.
Tan Dun thinks that the people who really create music are local farmers. He believes that they are real musicians, such as Bartok, Shostakovich and Stravinsky, the leading figures in the field of music in the 2th century, who are all thinking about how to return music to the farmers who really created music. Farmers are free, and real musicians should follow their souls.
This is one of the reasons why Tan Dun's music manuscripts are collected by Carnegie Hall. The manuscript of Map is placed in the long corridor of Carnegie Hall, with Beethoven on the left, Bach on the right and * * * opposite.
Carnegie Hall is the most authoritative performance place of western culture. Some of the best music artists in the world often go there to play, where many classic novels, poems and literary works like Beethoven, Strauss and Shostakovich premiered, and Tan Dun's Map premiered here in cooperation with Boston Symphony Orchestra, which shows that Carnegie Hall cherishes this. It was the earthy things in Tan Dun that attracted them, and they saw Tan Dun in the earthy smell.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won the Oscar Music Award because of its oriental cultural heritage. No matter from the Chinese point of view, or from the angle of experimental art and classical art, the oriental wisdom contained in it is very meaningful. As Ang Lee said at the Oscar seminar: "You must not ignore China, China is a country with the richest wealth and human resources in the world."
Tan Dun said: "Music is the window for the world to know about China, from which we can see that China has the best music, the most intelligent wisdom and the widest mind. It must not only belong to China, but also to the world."