An organic blend of tradition and modernity

Author: He Zhiwei

"Whoever seeks the elders of the wood will strengthen its roots, and he who desires to flow far will dredge his springs." In recent years, with the active advocacy of the party and the state to revive the traditional excellent culture and firmly enhance the self-confidence of the national culture, the mainland's excellent traditional music, dance, art, costumes and other national culture and art have once again aroused the attention of the whole people, and the "ancient style" novels, animations and games have begun to mushroom into the market, and the "ancient style" music has also ushered in prosperity and development under the impetus of this trend. As a new musical style in the 21st century, the definition of "archaic" music is still controversial in academic circles. However, from a comprehensive point of view, "ancient style" music should be a new representation and development form of traditional poetry and song, literary customs and traditional music culture in contemporary society, and is a kind of modern popular music with great characteristics of traditional Chinese music culture in terms of lyrics, melodies, musical instruments, and singing methods.

On the one hand, "ancient style" music can meet the aesthetic needs and level of contemporary people's art and culture, on the other hand, it has continued and innovated the broad and profound traditional culture, as the continuation of the vitality of traditional culture in contemporary society, the existence and development value of "ancient style" music in contemporary society is beyond doubt. Although the quality of the "ancient style" music works on the market is uneven, and the overall level still has a lot of room for improvement, our evaluation of "ancient style" music should be macroscopic and objective and rational, and should be based on the long-term goal of the development of Chinese national culture.

Ancient Rhymes Today: The classical and modern nature of "ancient style" music

"Ancient style" music is a new form of traditional Chinese national music culture in the contemporary era, and the combination of classicism and modernity is a significant feature of "ancient style" music. "Ancient Style" music has a classical traditional cultural atmosphere in terms of lyric creation, melody tune, singing instruments, etc., and is combined with modern network technology elements.

First of all, the lyrics of "Ancient Style" music have the characteristics of ancient elegance, neat wording, and aesthetic mood, and the sources of the lyrics generally include: "Ancient Wind" Xianxia online games, "Ancient Wind" novel stories, "Ancient Style" animation film and television works, classical poetry and song endowments, etc., such as the "Ancient Wind" song "City of The Moon" in the game "Shu Mountain", "Every Step is Coveted" created by the novel "Step by Step", "Moon Endowment" created according to the animation "Qin Shi Mingyue", "The Most Li Shangyin" composed of lyrics by Li Shangyin's poetry, etc. The lyrics of "ancient style" music are used to express the delicate and touching feelings behind the song with the tone of classical poetry, the classical and elegant "ancient style" imagery, the classic touching historical story, the melodious recitation, and the narrative copy full of classical era atmosphere, so that the song as a whole is full of rich classical charm, and at the same time presented in a way that modern people can understand and accept, which is its unique charm.

Secondly, in terms of melody, "ancient style" music tends to choose the traditional five-tone mode of the mainland to create music that conforms to contemporary aesthetics, and the arrangement also uses more traditional ethnic instruments such as guzheng, flute, drum, pipa, etc., supplemented by a small number of Western instruments, which are characterized by a soothing melody, a slow and soft rhythm, and complementary and complementary traditional and modern elements.

Finally, in terms of singing and music video visual effects, "ancient style" music carries out corresponding antique design in terms of stage design such as set, lighting, makeup, costumes, effects, props, etc., and uses modern and advanced means to create and process an antique and surreal "ancient style" scene.

It can be seen that the lyrics, tunes, musical instruments, singing, performance and other basic elements of "ancient style" songs are mainly based on traditional cultural elements, supplemented by modern elements, thus creating the "ancient style" music in the artistic mood and emotion and language style of the classical elegance, in the artistic aesthetics and performance of the modern society is highly consistent. In this sense, "ancient style" music can be called a bridge between traditional culture and contemporary society. Since its inception, "ancient style" music has undergone decades of development, and the results have become more and more remarkable, and traditional and modern elements have become integrated and coexisted in this kind of music.

Inheritance and development: the contemporary continuation of traditional excellent culture

For a long time, due to the uneven level of creation of "ancient style" music, the lack of organized large-scale special creative teams and the clear and unified industry regulations, it has caused many controversies from all walks of life. However, for the inheritance and development of traditional literary language, historical and cultural knowledge and traditional customs in the mainland, "ancient style" music has advantages that other traditional cultural transmission and inheritance methods cannot match. On the one hand, the lyrics of "Ancient Style" music involve a wealth of poetry and song adaptations, from the "Book of Poetry" and "Chu Ci" to the poetry works of famous poets such as Li Bai and Du Fu, which are all popular sources of adaptation of the content of "Ancient Wind" songs at present, such as Li Bai's "Will Enter the Wine", Su Shi's "Water Tune Song Head • When is the Bright Moon", Bai Juyi's "Pipa Line" and so on. The alternative forms of expression of "ancient style" music to poetry and song enrich the spiritual entertainment life of the masses, but also improve people's traditional literary literacy and stimulate the contemporary public's interest in mainland poetry culture.

On the other hand, "ancient style" songs are often based on classic historical love stories, heroic deeds and great characters as the background, or with the plot of online games, novels and film and television works as the background, showing the melodious melody beauty of the song and the poetic beauty of the lyrics, but also conveying to the public the unswerving love concept of the ancients, the great righteousness of the world for the country and the people, and the lofty and firm ideals and beliefs. Through the interpretation of these traditional virtues, the "Ancient Style" song conveys a positive outlook on life and values to the contemporary public, and also helps the public to increase their historical and cultural common sense while entertaining.

The rapid development of "ancient style" music is also a symbol of the prosperity and growth of the mainland's national music culture, and is the driving force of the mainland's cultural soft power in the rise of comprehensive national strength. Domestic mainstream popular music has long been influenced by Western music culture, such as rock, rap, etc., but the rise of "ancient style" music has also been witnessed by all in recent years, and a series of "ancient style" drama music works such as "New Noble Concubine Drunk" and "One of My Daogu Friends" have more and more frequently set off a wave of "ancient style" songs. Musical works with traditional Chinese music styles are rising in new and modern forms, and the strengthening of people's cultural self-confidence and the face of traditional cultural values will continue to promote Chinese-style music to the world. Therefore, "ancient style" music can promote the effective inheritance and innovation of traditional Chinese traditional culture internally, and can highlight the charm of traditional Chinese music culture externally, which is the value expression of "ancient style" music in contemporary times.

Continuing the Past: The Correct Interpretation of "Ancient Style" Music in contemporary times

The development of traditional music culture in the contemporary era should pursue new forms and new breakthroughs, but at the same time, it is also necessary to adhere to the cultural standard, do a good job in inheriting traditional culture and scientific integration of new and old things. At present, it is a good stage for the revival and development of traditional excellent culture, the self-confidence of the National Culture of the Chinese people has been significantly enhanced, the cultural literacy of the masses is generally higher, the ability of cultural and artistic innovation has gradually increased, and the market environment of "ancient style" music is good, all of which is conducive to the creation and development of ancient style music. However, challenges and problems cannot be ignored, and the most obvious problems in the development of "ancient style" music are copyright problems and the quality of lyrics. On the one hand, the problem of plagiarism, disregard for copyright cover singing and adaptation has existed for a long time, which has suppressed the original enthusiasm of "ancient style" music creators to a certain extent; on the other hand, the overall level of lyric creation is limited, and the creation of "ancient style" music requires creators to have a high degree of traditional cultural literacy, and have a certain degree of familiarity and mastery of ancient sayings, ancient customs, and historical stories, so that the "ancient style" songs they create can give the public the correct guidance in terms of rhetoric and content emotions, and realize the "ancient style" The inheritance value of music to traditional culture, but in fact, most of the current "ancient style" music belongs to individual creation, and the creators often pay relatively little energy in the study of traditional culture, so the works created will inevitably appear pretentious, unintelligible, vassal style, and mixing ancient and vernacular.

The solution of these problems first requires the creators to have strict requirements for their own traditional cultural level and knowledge literacy, and qualified "ancient style" musicians should be familiar with the classics, improve their own cultural literacy, and then create lyrics on this basis. Secondly, the "ancient style" music market and mass consumers should also strengthen the supervision of works, severely crack down on the trend of plagiarism and infringement, resist shoddy manufacturing, refuse to blindly follow the trend, advocate excellence, and correctly interpret the "ancient style" music and traditional culture. In addition, the creative development of "ancient style" music must reasonably grasp the scale of the integration of traditional and modern elements, which is too obscure and too modern to promote its long-term development.

As an organic combination of traditional culture and modern culture, the development of "ancient style" music shoulders the mission of inheriting and innovating the excellent culture of national traditions and letting classical culture burst out of the new life of the times. The contemporary development of "ancient style" music must ensure the correct expression and interpretation of traditional excellent culture, and on this basis, the traditional cultural elements and modern cultural elements can be combined to achieve the lasting prosperity of "ancient style" music in contemporary times.

(The author is deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the College of Teacher Education of Wuzhou University)

Original title: The Organic Fusion of Tradition and Modernity - A Contemporary Interpretation of "Ancient Style" Music

Source: China Art News