Peking Opera has always paid attention to singing, and the artists of the previous generations have created and developed a lot in the singing of Peking Opera Danjiao, and have accumulated rich experience. Critically inheriting these experiences and innovating and enriching the chanting of the Danjiao of Peking Opera is an important task for us. I'm younger, I don't have much stage practice, and on the basis of learning from the artists of my predecessors, I have tried to do some artistic reforms, and now I will talk about some of my experience in the reform of singing.
The starting point of reform is to let the audience hear and understand clearly
When I was a child acting, how the teacher taught me, how I sang, never thought about how to make the audience hear my singing clearly, of course, not to mention the problem of singing in line with the personality of the characters in the play. After liberation, under the party's education, he understood that literature and art should serve the workers, peasants, and soldiers. The audience of Peking Opera has also changed greatly, and workers, peasants, and soldiers account for a large proportion. However, it is often heard that some people reflect that because they cannot hear the lyrics of Peking Opera, especially the lyrics of Danjiao, it has affected the interest in appreciating Peking Opera.
I myself encountered several things: when there were large sections of singing on the stage, I sang very hard, but many of the audience in the audience did not concentrate enough, some were talking, some simply went out; once, I invited a young student to see my play, and he politely refused: "I don't understand what you sing, thank you!" , the result went in vain.
Zhao Yanxia's "Bibo Fairy"
In addition, I also found that there are many young people in the audience of movies and dramas, but there are many elderly people in the audience of Peking Opera. I think that the lyrics of Peking Opera are not easy to understand, which is probably an important reason. Later, there were subtitles, although some problems were solved, but this was always a help tool, and some people also reflected that if they looked at the subtitles, they couldn't care about watching the performance, and they had a sense of losing sight of one or the other. These situations caused me to think deeply. I think the fundamental problem is still to find a way to make the chant clear to the audience.
So, I began to make some reform attempts in the pronunciation of the chanting, trying to sing clearly and clearly. These ideas and practices of mine have been strongly supported by the leadership of the Party, and the audience has also given me enthusiastic encouragement, and many viewers have written to me, believing that my singing method is easy to understand and popular, which has increased my courage and confidence.
This spring, I went to Hong Kong and Macao with the Beijing Peking Opera Troupe to perform, and before I went there, I had some concerns about whether the Hong Kong and Macao compatriots could accept my singing method, and the results of the performance showed that the audience there still liked it. My attempts at reforming my singing were carried out through new singing voices in the new repertoire such as "The Legend of Chunxiang", "The White-Haired Girl", "The Bibo Fairy", and "Xun Guanniang". I realized that without these new plays, just old plays, even if you try to reform them, the effect will be much worse.
Zhao Yanxia's "The Legend of the White Snake"
How I sang it
Let's start with a voice. My singing is a combination of true and false voices, more precisely the main use of small voices, appropriately mixed with some sounds close to large voices. This is not this sentence or a few words with a small voice, another sentence or a few words with a large voice, but every paragraph, each sentence, and even to each word is a combination of big and small voices, but according to the requirements of clear words and true feelings, the degree of use varies. According to my experience, the singing of Peking Opera Danjiao uses a combination of large and small voices, which helps the audience understand the lyrics. This can also be cited as circumstantial evidence, such as commentary, Huangmei opera, etc., Danjiao's singing is basically with a big voice, there is no problem that the singing words cannot be understood, which may be due to the relationship between the pure sound quality of the big voice (true tone), less decorative tone, low volume, and less floating tone.
However, the Danjiao of Peking Opera cannot be completely sung with a big voice, and it is not like Peking Opera when it is completely sung with a big voice, so I use a combination of big and small voices, and singing has both Peking Opera characteristics and makes people easy to understand. For example, in "Bibo Fairy", "Nan Zizi" "Jumping Cold Pond Rushing Silver Mist busy on the shore", the three words of "Tan", "Fog" and "Shang" are mixed with more big voices in the small voice. "Look at the beautiful scenery on earth", the "view" and "light" in it are mixed with more big voices in the small voice, while "beauty" and "wind" use less big voices.
It is necessary to make the words clear and clear, and we must also pay attention to the weight, spacing, and sharp masses of the words. Regarding the weight of the characters, the Ming Dynasty composer Shen Petsui said in the "Instructions for Duqu": "The letters run through thirty-six, and it is necessary to distinguish between turbidity and light; You will get these magic methods, and there will be no words in the world and no sound. "Some people think that as long as you repeat every word hard, it will be clear, but not necessarily.
Some words need to be sung again, such as help, waterlogging, and, ming, non, shi, bong, micro... It is not easy to sing accurately without repeating. However, not every word needs to be re-sung. I didn't quite understand this truth in the past, almost all the words were repeated, thinking that the audience could hear clearly, but as a result, some words were sung "clumsy", and the audience could not hear them clearly. Later, I gradually realized that some words can be sung again, some words must be sung lightly, and even some words are just passed by, and the effect is better. Usually a singing word has at least seven or eight words, not only in the meaning of the word, but also in the sound of the word is also related to each other, which is necessary to properly distinguish the weight according to the specific situation.
For example: "Blue Wave Fairy"
If the word "rotten" is too strong, it will be sung into the word "Lan", so when I sing, I start to pay attention to the word "stone", with a zigzag cushion, and when the word "rotten" is lightly brought, the sound of the word is correct. Because the four words of "dry", "stone", "love" and "difficult" are all flat sounds, and the word "rotten" is the only slang word in the middle of the four flat words, even if it is lightly brought together, it can be clearly highlighted. Another example is "Panfu" in "Mo is not my Lan Zhen ugly appearance", the "Lan" word in it is not only not good to hear and easy to sing into the word "rotten" if sung heavily, if it is lightly taken, this "Lan" word is clear and pleasant.
In a singing word, if the interval between words and words is not clear and all connected together, and the hyphenation is not obvious, it is not easy to hear. For example, in "Chen Miaochang"
The word "thanks" must be sung off to be clear. Another example is the "answer" and "within reach" in the two sentences of "Bibo Fairy", "It is difficult to open my mouth and answer" and "It is difficult to meet at the end of the world", and the "answer" and "close to the end of the world" are disconnected and sung, and the interval between the words is swinging, so that it is easy to hear clearly.
Regarding the sharp group characters, I basically follow the principle of "sharp group clearness" when biting the words, but I am not completely stuck to the law, and sometimes make some appropriate changes according to the changes in the feelings of the characters in the play, or the connection between the words and the words in the singing. For example, in "Huatian Mistake", "Meet Cailang before crossing the Xian Bridge", the "xian" and "front" should sing the sharp character according to the rules, while I sing the "front" word into a group word, and the "xian" word still sings the sharp word, because the two words are too close, both sing the sharp characters, which is neither good nor clear.
In addition, there are catchy characters, and I basically follow the law. However, when encountering catchy words, it is not easy for the audience to hear clearly, and there are times when they are changed. For example, in "Panfu", "Who Knows Husband and Wife Are Wrongdoers", the cavity of the word "Zhi" is both tall and long, and there are very few words in the whole sentence, so I still sing this word as catchy. However, another singing line in the same play, "Can know Zhu Maichen's fifty talents", is also a "know" word, but because there are more words in this sentence, and the cavity of the word "know" is short, and the word "Zhu" next to it is a catchy word, so I changed this "zhi" word to Beijing pronunciation is not catchy, it is easy to hear, and it is more in line with the tone and feelings of the character at that time. My principle of changing or not changing the sharp group characters and the catchy characters is: one is clear and easy to understand, the other is pleasant to the ear, according to the specific situation, the different singing voices and emotions are specifically analyzed, and the discretion is whether and how to change.
The accompaniment duet has a lot to do with it. The sound of my band accompaniment is generally relatively light, the purpose is to highlight the singing cavity and spit words, especially the volume of huqin and erhu, so as not to let huqin form a competition with the actors, so as not to cover the words, cavity and air mouth of the complicated piano.
I was inspired by the late Mr. Bai Yunpeng, a famous Jingyun drum actor. Mr. Bai's voice is not high, but the words are real, the sentences are in the ear, in addition to the high skills of pronunciation and spitting, all Mr. Bai's extremely brilliant singing, the accompaniment is both light and low, so that the audience can fully appreciate the beauty of Mr. Bai's words, singing voice and timbre. So, I adjusted my relationship with the organist many times, and together we studied some ways to avoid the authenticity and clarity of the words due to the accompaniment.
I am by no means deliberately devaluing the role of accompaniment, I still need to put my feet on the accompaniment music when I need to highlight the accompaniment music, if the accompaniment has an impact on the voicing line, it needs to be lighter, in short, to make the accompaniment force on the blade, can not compete with the actor, can not be completely shaded. For example, in "Bibo Fairy", "The God of War will be difficult to move the ambition of the anti-heavenly soldiers", and the word "move" is long
And it is a parallel mouth tone, and the accompaniment is lighter; In "Panfu", the "palm pearl in the boudoir flower", "flower" is an open mouth sound, the volume is large, and the accompaniment is also put down, and there is no need to yin down. Like when the actor is raised, the accompaniment volume should not be too light, but should be put full of bows, so as to pave the actor's singing and increase the atmosphere for the actor's singing.
I think that in order for the audience to hear clearly word by word, the three aspects of vocalization, spitting, and accompaniment need to be interconnected and cooperate with each other. Of course, on this issue, I still have many deficiencies, such as in order to spit out clear words, some words are not sung beautifully enough, "clumsy" some; Sometimes we don't pay attention to the shape of the mouth, and so on, and we must pay attention to correcting it in the future. In addition, my method of reading, voicing, and pronouncing sounds is basically the same as my singing, and I will not go into it here.
Singing should be combined with the character of the character
In the long history of development, Peking Opera has accumulated a rich artistic tradition, but due to the influence of the old era, it has also produced a certain formalistic tendency. Some actors focus on the beauty of the singing voice and the elegance of the rhyme, and more or less ignore the use of singing to express the situation in the play and the personality feelings of the characters, so they feel that there is a lack of life in the singing voice. Art is the superstructure; in today's socialist world, Peking Opera art must serve the workers, peasants, and soldiers well and reflect the spiritual outlook of the times. In order to meet this requirement, the art of Peking Opera must be innovated from the aspects of script, performance, and chanting. Therefore, the problem of the massization and characterization of Peking Opera chanting is even more prominent.
A few years ago, I thought that danjiao's singing could only be heard clearly by the audience without losing its beautiful and beautiful sound. In the past two years, through continuous learning, I have prominently felt that the audience can understand only one of the most basic means, and the purpose is to express the emotions and personalities of the characters through chanting, and to infect the audience in order to better express the theme of the play. Of course, the clear sound of the word is very beneficial to expressing the characters in the play and helping the audience understand the plot, if you can combine the character personality on the basis of singing clearly, so that the character image will be more profound and fuller. Therefore, I think that if the singing of Peking Opera can achieve the combination of beauty, meaning and emotion, it would be good.
Singing should be combined with the characters, and it is also complicated to talk about and do. Here are some of my superficial understandings.
First of all, different characters should be different in singing, vocalization, and intonation. For example, Chunxiang in "The Legend of Chunxiang" and Chunlan in "Flower Field Mistake", these two characters are girls, but Chunxiang is a "gentleman among women", talented, knowledgeable, temperamental, generous, and stable manners, therefore, the whole play Chunxiang's singing tone is deep and stable, the sad tone is used more, the sharp and brittle tone is used less, and the big voice is slightly more mixed, no matter what the board strives to show this feature; Chunlan is a little girl in the rich man's family, less knowledgeable, small in style, naïve and lively, naïve and sloppy, enthusiastic, In the singing method, I use more bright tones, fine notes, trebles and crisp tones, and the small voice is more important than the heavy, and the big voice is just appropriately mixed. In both plays, there is also a large section [flowing water], and in this part of Chunxiang, I sing slowly, have a strong sense of rhythm, have a well-breathed mouth, and are deep and powerful, so as to highlight Chunxiang's undaunted, generous statement, fearless, and unyielding character of "not a woman who dares to disobey, but a man with a husband can be a 'guard of the hall'". Chunlan this paragraph is to the members of the Wai'an people to narrate the coincidence of the flower field event, I sang the size faster, and strive to be smooth, bright, bright, sharp, both crisp and clean, the mouth is forceful, singing Chunlan at that time thought that she was capable of doing things, helping others for fun.
Zhao Yanxia's "Flower Field Mistake"
The same character in different specific situations, different scenes, but also according to the specific plot to use the pronunciation tone to deal with the singing voice, showing the character in different situations of the ideological and emotional changes. For example, in the "Bibo Fairy", the "Study" sings "Nan Zizi" "Yue Han Tan Chong Shu Wu Busy On the Shore ...", is the carp fairy first met Zhang Lang, the heart of the infinite love and excitement of the emotional outpouring, this paragraph I basically use a small voice to make a sound, appropriately mixed with some big voice, the tone is cheerful, crisp, bright tone is used more. But in "Separate" a singing [erhuang rocking board] "it is really difficult to give up the love of you and my husband and wife, it is really difficult to give up the mountains and rivers in the world..." Finally, with "crying head", the feelings of the carp fairy being forced to separate and difficult to give up, the mood of the carp fairy is mixed with sorrow, when singing this paragraph, I am a loud voice mixed with more, to avoid making the voice too sharp and too brittle, so that the voice is sad, the tone is thick, the sonorous is powerful, and in the last "Zhang Lang" sentence "Crying Head" emits a sound close to howling.
Generally speaking, as an actor, there is no one who does not like the audience to applaud his singing. But sometimes it is specially designed to make the audience applaud, and they will leave the scene, leave the characters, deliberately pull up a high cavity, play a flower cavity, and "ask for vegetables". I myself have had this problem in the past. In recent years, this has been felt not very good and attention has also begun to be taken into account.
For example, in a passage in the "Panfu" [Xipi Slow Plate], there is a sentence that "the grandfather was the lord who was once honored to marry", according to the convention of [slow plate], the word "marry" could have made a long flower cavity. However, when I recognized that the singing voice should be combined with the characters, and could not simply play with the flower cavity, I noticed that Yan Lanzhen's mood at that time was worried and depressed, and the cavity singing too much did not conform to her mood at that time, and she performed a low and stable cavity.
Another example is the "Cell" in "The Biography of Chunxiang", Chunxiang sang [inverted board] "quietly tough rain and cold wind hit through", the last "through" word, according to the custom, can be pulled up a high cavity, want a "good", but Chunxiang's mood at that time was very sad, not suitable for singing, I sang it flat. And "Spring Tour" in "Ye Hanyan" (Nan Zizi)
This singing shows Ye Hanyan's joyful mood of going out to swim in the spring, so I made a flower cavity.
I haven't done enough of this, and there are some places where I don't handle it well or leave the play because I have copied the traditional singing method. For example, the [Xipi original board] in "Female Uprising Solution" "sells the pro-daughter tu wealth into the prostitute", the "prostitute" character in it makes the cavity more flowery, and the meaning of the word and the feelings of Su San at this time, very incompatible, but this is the traditional singing method, the audience is already very familiar, and every time the song here has "good", it is not appropriate to change it, and now I have not come up with a good way, so I had to sing it first. There are many similar examples. I don't think it's a side issue, but a question of whether we should raise the level of whether we should be singing the characters in the play or singing for the sake of singing.
Zhao Yanxia's "Yutang Spring"
Regarding nianbai, I think that whether it is Jingbai or Yunbai, it is a dramatic artistic language, and it cannot be said to be the same as life. The actor is farther away from the audience on the stage, in order to make the audience hear clearly, the recitation should be slower and longer than the speech in life, of course, this must be combined with the changes and needs of the character's emotions. Therefore, in terms of Peking Opera recitation, we must pay attention to the beauty and beauty of the artistic language, on the other hand, we must not lose the breath of life and the personality characteristics of the characters, and we cannot "a soup".
The chanting is the same as the singing voice, and the different characters should be different. For example, Chen Xiuying in "Iron Bow Edge" and He Yufeng in "Yuelaidian" are both girls full of martial arts, but there is a big difference in personality: Chen Xiuying is naïve and has nothing to worry about, her pronunciation should be sweet, her tone should be delicate, her voice should be thin, there are more sharp tones and small voices, and the rhythm is fast and casual; He Yufeng is a heroine who is full of grievances and courageous deeds, so the tone of the white is wider and deeper, the big voice is mixed more, not too sharp and too thin, the size is slowed down, but the sense of rhythm should be strong, in order to show the character's depressed emotions and bold personality.
Due to the different specific circumstances of the same character, the language and tone of the recitation should also be different. For example, Yan Lanzhen in "Panfu", the general recitation of the scene (rhyme white) is the pronunciation of everyone's boudoir, to reveal the delicacy of the daughter of the Xiangfu, I mainly use a small voice. But in the scene of eavesdropping on my husband's words, although it is self-talk, it must be heard clearly by the audience, so I use more loud voices, low voice, small amount, can not use Dantian qi, it is completely oral strength, both to let the audience hear, but also to show that she is talking to herself.
Strengthen the exercise of singing and chanting the basic skills
The above methods and techniques, its application is inseparable from the basic technology of chanting. The technical foundation is poor, and the method cannot be used easily. Therefore, I think we actors must pay attention to the exercise of basic skills, not only on the waist and legs, but also in the mouth, voice, and breath. For example, singing and pronouncing sounds should pay attention to the use of Dantian Qi, and cannot be pronounced only from the oral part. In order to practice Dantian Qi, when I was practicing in my childhood, I shouted my throat with my mouth to the mouth of the mound, and shouted for two or three hours a day. When I first shouted, others and myself could not hear it, and I waited until I practiced so that others and myself could hear it clearly. The advantage of using Dantian Qi is that the voice can be far, the tone is round, the strength is abundant, and the voice can last for a long time after practicing, so that the voice will not be hoarse when the voice is slightly tired, or other problems. I think for the throat should not be too delicate, to be "skinny", not to be able to bear the wind at all, not to be able to stand the cold. Proper protection is necessary, but protection does not equal squeamishness. Mainly rely on regular exercise, frequent use, and can not rely solely on injections and medicines to maintain.
Zhao Yanxia's "Xun Guan Niang"
You also have to practice your mouth and be strong. The strength of the mouth can not only make the singing and spitting words clearly, but also be clean and fluent and clear when chanting in large sections and singing [flowing water] [Allegro]. When I was a child, in order to practice the clean and powerful spray words of my mouth, I used He Yufeng's large section of Jingbai in "Thirteen Sisters" as a means of practicing exercises every day, and I had to read it many times.
There are many aspects of the basic skills of chanting, and I will not dwell on them. And, to me, it wouldn't be appropriate to talk too much. Because I am not mature enough in art, some reforms are also in the process of trying to explore, there will be many shortcomings and fallacies, I hope that experienced elders and comrades who care about Peking Opera will help me criticize me and guide me forward.
(Drama Newspaper, No. 10, 1963)