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In the 2021 Third Shenzhen Vocal Music Season "China Vocal Talent Training Program • Master Open Class", teacher Wu Bixia made a very wonderful speech on Chinese vocal music before the master class. In the speech, Teacher Wu Bixia shared with everyone based on what she had learned, seen, heard and wanted over the years. The platform believes that the content involved in this speech provides teachers and students with very valuable experience and summary in terms of teaching, and gives you reference and learning; in terms of industry development, it has given a strong thinking value to the entire vocal music industry, practitioners in development and exploration, and established scientific and positive values and direction. Xiaobian made a text collation according to the oral statement of teacher Wu Bixia, and the following is the original text of the speech for everyone to learn, exchange and reference.
Wu Bixia | speech
Receiving the trust and invitation of the Shenzhen Vocal Music Season Organizing Committee and Teacher Lei Jia, I can gather with you in Longgang, Shenzhen today to talk about vocal music, art, life, and learn together with everyone.
In fact, before I came, when the last season opened, I was busy with my own work, but I also paid attention to the situation of our vocal season. Seeing a lot of good repercussions, some of your feelings about vocal music, especially seeing a lot of artistic views and understandings on this forum, as well as some criticisms and prospects for our vocal cause, I think we have some great inspiration, so here I also wish us a better vocal season, thank you!
I would like to use half an hour of this lesson today to talk about some of my own feelings about vocal music, share them with you, and encourage them together. On the WeChat link platform, I saw that this vocal music season put forward a learning slogan of "promoting learning with competition, promoting performance with learning, and combining learning and acting".
I think it's a very, very good idea that can bring a very new, all-encompassing learning experience to our students. So today's young generation of outstanding vocal talents, now your singing ability and level starting point are very high, especially in the style of the work, the diversity of languages, the breadth of music and the richness of skills, I think it is very sufficient, which is beyond the reach of the predecessors at the same age. This should be grateful for the giving of our new era, so that we have a broader vision, thinking, cultural collision and rich information, and we should be grateful to the superb artistic creation and dedication of our predecessors, so that we can inherit, develop and create.
The race is for young people
It is indeed a very important climbing ladder
Taking advantage of the stage of the vocal season, this is a platform for mutual learning and exchange, and it is also a stage for competitive competition to find their own positioning. I have been performing on stage since I was a child, participating in various competitions and performances, and gradually changing from the identity of an actor and a contestant to the role of teacher and judge. In the change of life, I am constantly thinking, reflecting, and feeling a lot. The race is indeed a very important climbing ladder for young people. It gives us not only the recognition of the judges, but also the charm of the magic mirror, illuminating our own good and bad beauty and ugliness, constantly motivating and correcting ourselves.
Every student here today is the mainstay of the future development of Chinese vocal music. I sincerely wish everyone a glorious and hopeful path of vocal music. Today, combined with my own practical teaching and some experiences of participating in various competitions and activities recently, I will talk to you about the understanding of the "beauty" in singing, and learn and encourage with you.
Don't be unscrupulous at any time
Whether it's vocal conditions, emotions or technique
Pay attention to the sense of proportion of expression
1
"Beauty" lies in control
Singing should go to the heart, and to walk the heart is to think, experience, feel, and then layout and design, that is, the desk work we have to carry out. In the master class of Teacher Chen Wei and Teacher Gong Jingyi yesterday, they both talked about "doing desk work carefully and carefully" to achieve conscious and purposeful expression. At any time do not unscrupulously show off, whether it is voice conditions, emotions or techniques, we must pay attention to the sense of proportion of expression, that is, the degree, grasp this degree.
Every student here today has come here through selection, and I believe that everyone has a good voice and good conditions, and many of them have the basic skills training of singing foreign works. In singing, the tension of the instrument has great power, plus young, how to sing and how to have. It is precisely because of this "being" that special emphasis should be placed here on making good use of this "being." We should not lose sight of the importance of control in the language, emotion, and style of the work because of "having". It is particularly important to grasp the characteristics of the style of the work and choose the appropriate timbre and strength to express the musical temperament of the work.
For example, in many recent events, I have heard many contestants choose to sing an aria in the recently released classic national opera "Yimeng Mountain", "The Sky Opens Your Eyes", the approximate plot of this work is:
Stills from the national opera "Yimeng Mountain"
Begonia raised Xia He's daughter Xiaoyimeng and grew up with her son Dashanzi, as a result, Rikou entered the village and surrounded the village, in order to cover and protect Xiaoyimeng, Haitang let Dashanzi divert the enemy's sight, and in the process of escaping, he was shot.
At this time, "Begonia", as a mother, watched the child fall in a pool of blood and cry like a hoarse and heart-rending cry. When I was a judge in the competition, I had an experience, when I heard the contestants sing this work, because there was a crying recitation of "Heavens ~" before the music started. Because the stage of the opera has this lamp, costume, Road, effect of the scene setting, can be a good in the plot of a good explanation, for the audience can also have a good sense of substitution, this is different from the concert stage, I think when we choose to use an aria as a repertoire performance, we have to do a little director's work, is to carry out a scene design arrangement.
If there is no such scene, it will be very "scary", that is, when there is nothing at all, suddenly this piano accompaniment is ready, you are ready, turn around and cry "Heavens" is very "scary", because as a judge, the audience may not know what situation and emotion your work is expressing.
I was thinking, when I saw this performance of this player, I was thinking about what I should do if I was standing on the stage, so that everyone could feel that this cry was not so "abrupt". I wondered if I could do this, in a foreshadowing form (see the video for a detailed way).
Of course, this is just a discussion (Wu Bixia's design): the music has not yet started, then you are preparing on the side curtain, when you turn around, you can look at the child with emotions and eyes. You have to be a mother, you have to worry about him with your heart, with your eyes, and then you have to say in your heart, "Dashanzi, Dashanzi... Run, run..." Meaning, suddenly saw a gunshot, the music sounded, and the white "Heavens ~" was read. In this way, I feel that it is better than suddenly turning around and reading a sentence, which will relatively give the judges and the audience a sense of anticipation.
There is a connection of the storyline, there is a kind of this presupposition, I think this kind of performance is not obtrusive, and with the sound of the emotion, the sound is also rich, I think it can also achieve such an effect, which is the sense of proportion of the performance.
The design and grasp of the sense of proportion combined between sound and performance, I think the concert version and the opera version should be treated differently, because there is a storyline in front of the opera, and the audience can see it at a glance. When the concert is taken out as a separate fragment, we have to give it some design, artificial design.
For another example, in my college years, I often heard teachers say that Guo Lanying's special performance, as long as she is on the stage, she feels that this stage is hers, and her every move feels like this character, full of drama. At that time, I was also very young and young, and I had not seen Teacher Guo perform on stage at her golden age. Just listening to the teachers, then I imagined at the time, Teacher Guo is full of drama, full of drama, then how big a field she has to run on the stage, how much action on the stage, because she is an opera actor. However, having the privilege of studying with Teacher Guo, especially in the performance of the opera "Little Two Black Marriage" and the rehearsal process of the whole opera, I found that "less is more" is such a truth.
Teacher Guo Lanying in his youth
In fact, Teacher Guo's performance on the stage does not lie in the complexity or a lot of actions, but in the rich amount of information contained in each action and each look, that is, accurately grasping the characters, grasping the characters of the characters, and the characteristics of the characters to make effective expressions. When a simple performance action after refining and deep excavation has a very rich amount of information, it will convey a great resonance and understanding to the audience. At this time, the feeling given to the audience is very rich, so it will feel that the stage is full of "drama", and this kind of creation is devoted and selfless.
Stills from the opera "Little Two Black Weddings"
Especially in my study to sing "Little Two Black Marriage", for example, is the last paragraph of "Sparkling Water to Blue And Brilliant Sky", when the interlude, we are washing clothes, washing clothes, are pondering, suddenly remembered that last night had a dream, on this one "raise your eyes", that is, from this moment, I remembered the dream of last night, the action is very small, do not need a lot of expression, all the goals, all the attention, are focused on the actor's eyes at this moment, this is the hand, eye, body, law, Step by step, at the end of the day, "All say you are a good young man..." At this time, you will withdraw your eyes.
In 1955, he performed the opera "Little Two Black Marriage" in The Zhongshan Hall of Heavy Steel
The teacher asked to keep his eyes on it, staring out, not blinking. When I first started practicing, I really stared at the tears and flowed out, this eye is really not something you can open and you can definitely stare at, and you have to see it. See what needs to be done. So in this process, I finally understood the truth of "less is more", whether it is from the use of sound, or from the use of performance, we must pay attention to a degree of grasp, the grasp of control.
The human singing function is highly malleable
It is constantly breaking and reshaping
The process of finding boundaries and pursuing freedom
2
"Beauty" lies in change
We understand the vocal principles of human singing instruments, carry out solid basic skills training, and establish good singing habits and abilities in order to be able to achieve a touching and profound realm of freedom and achieve ever-changing changes. This change is cultural, regional, stylistic, linguistic, and finally settles on the expressiveness of singing techniques.
Tell me my own story. After I graduated from undergraduate, I positioned myself as a research project that combines Chinese and Western at the level of internationalization. At that time, I also had a lot of confusion in my heart, and a large part of it came from the outside world.
Everyone will ask, will singing Chinese and foreign works at the same time sing badly? Will it be sung four differently, neither Chinese nor foreign?
I asked myself, how malleable is a human singing instrument? I think that only by solving this problem will I be able to make great strides forward. So I decided to experiment with myself. In the first six months of my graduate studies, I followed the main teacher, Professor Guo Shuzhen, to learn the singing of Italian classical art songs in depth, and at the same time took professor Dong Weisong's Hebei Zizi class at the China Conservatory of Music.
In my opinion, Hebei Gangzi is a type of work that is very different from Italian classical art songs. However, the two teachers did not communicate with each other, that is, they did not know each other, did not know that I was taking this course. If I run into a problem, I'll fix it myself. I plan to spend half a year to complete this scientific experiment, what are the criteria for testing? It is as original as possible, and both teachers can give me the highest score. In this way, in the absence of reference from the experience of the predecessors, feel the stones to cross the river, step by step, and take out the highest score.
Over the past six months, I have studied eight Italian classical art songs and three large passages of Hebei Zizi singing. The eight art songs probably include "If You Love Me," "Violet," and "Beautiful Moments," including Mozart's Arias, and so on. Hebei Zizi is an excerpt from "Du ShiNiang".
Hebei Zizi "Du Shi Niang"
I'm delighted. In this way of learning, I found that instead of fighting, the two benefited each other. I transplanted the change of thinking concepts and training principles of recitation in opera to the practice of Italian, so as to achieve the effect of round characters. Putting the singing technique of the overall italian resonance into the language training of Hebei Zizi, I obtained the effect of looseness, tong, and run, and I felt that I sang Hebei Zizi better than in the past, and the tension was greater. From this I came to the conclusion that the human singing function is highly malleable.
This point of view was finally presented in my later concerts, as well as my master's thesis, on whether fish and bear paws can be both, "On the Singing Concept and Thinking Method of Chinese and Foreign Works" In the first chapter of this thesis, it solves the plasticity of human singing function, which is a summary of my experiments in the past six months. What I would like to add is that this attempt at the aesthetic and practical aspects of foreign works was a decades-long preparation that I began when I entered the Attached Middle School of the China Conservatory of Music, and it was not achieved overnight, but at that stage it was mainly based on singing Chinese works, and I had never sung foreign works in front of the public.
Well, here's the problem:
Why can people sing different styles of work? What determines the change in timbre? I think it is language and resonance, the diversity of regional dialects determines the diversity of musical varieties, and the colorful folk song tunes and opera arts in various places rely on dialects to exist and survive. The loss of dialects means the demise of these cultural varieties.
Therefore, for six consecutive years, I raised the issue of rational protection of dialects at the sessions of the National People's Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Wu Bixia attended the NPC session
So, the next question comes again:
What is the purpose of learning to sing as many different genres of works as possible?
I think it is to find the boundaries of their singing ability, to clarify the effective scope of their artistic creation, to find the boundaries of the bottom line, and to gain the freedom of singing. Understand the necessity of doing something and not doing something.
For example, this bottom line boundary may be the limit of your voice, and beyond it you may hurt yourself. For example, the sound problem, what kind of sound color are you, are you a midrange or a high note? Are you lyrical or dramatic? It is necessary to determine the boundary bottom line of your own voice conditions and find a work that suits you.
I once let go of such "mistakes", at least let me understand where my boundaries are. When I was in college, I heard my sisters sing this work from the particularly good "La Traviata" "Why Did His Words Move Me So Much", and I wanted to sing it down, it would be in the third and fourth grades of college. But I was a student in the direction of ethnic vocal music, and the teacher said you were not suitable. But I wasn't convinced, so I took advantage of a summer vacation to nibble down this eight-minute flower soprano. Then it's time for school to start. Just sing to the teacher, and then give the teacher a lesson. The teacher said, you can't sing [this work], I'll say, sing it to you, and then talk about it after listening.
Well, I sang it like this, and later I took this piece to several international vocal competitions, such as the Eighth Bilbao International Vocal Competition, the Tchaikovsky International Vocal Competition. This caused controversy among the judges in the competition, especially in the Tchaikovsky Competition and the Polish International Vocal Competition. Say that this work is not your work, although you are very complete, you can control, including the final high descent E you can be competent, but it is the work of the dramatic flower soprano, you are a lyrical flower soprano.
Because of this, after I try different types of works, let me know which type of voice I belong to, then find my own suitable works, play to the strengths and avoid the weaknesses, which we need to get through experimentation.
In addition, this boundary may also be a flaw in your aesthetics, and you need to spend time and effort to break through and improve. For example, if you are good at singing Chinese works, you rarely have contact with foreign works, or conversely, most people now take foreign works as the foundation to learn to sing Western works, and then contact traditional Chinese works and Chinese opera, then there is a big difference between the two in the inner hearing and inner rhythm, and there is also a big difference in aesthetic aspects.
For example, legato is "coherent", Chinese works also pay attention to coherence, and foreign works emphasize coherence, is there a difference between this coherence and coherence? What is the difference between the coherence of the Chinese style, the coherence in the aesthetics of Chinese music, and the coherence in the Western "bel canto"? How to express such an inner rhythm, the difference in inner hearing, should be distinguished.
As a singer, we must evolve this difference in perception into a world of difference. So, in my opinion, the clear boundary is to understand freedom, not bondage. I conclude that the study of singing is the process of constantly breaking, reshaping, finding boundaries, and pursuing freedom.
The establishment of the Chinese Vocal School
It must be guided by Chinese philosophical and aesthetic thinking
True and benign literary criticism is the precursor
Chinese vocal music practice and theory are based
Clear direction for the appreciation and education of vocal art
3
"Beauty" lies in perseverance
Teacher Lei Jia said at this year's 2021 Shenzhen Vocal Music Season China Vocal Music Summit Forum that the inheritance of Chinese opera should be based on traditional culture and do a good job in spiritual inheritance. Without the recognition and inheritance of traditional Chinese culture, its creation is water without a source and wood without a root. I deeply agree that more than 20 years ago, I experimented with myself and proved with practice that the foreign is used in China, and the ancient is used for the present, and it can be achieved with both fish and bear paws. To this day, we must continue to explore the question of what foreign countries use for China and what has been "used" in the past for the present.
Teacher Lei Jia at the 3rd Shenzhen Vocal Music Season in 2021
Today's "use" is no longer the "use" of dragonflies, but should be the "use" of knowing oneself and knowing the other. If you want to figure out what to "use", you must first know what we have, what we lack, what we take, what to throw, have choices, know the trade-offs, which is also an important embodiment of cultural self-confidence. Therefore, the so-called genre is to clarify the boundaries, there is something to do, there is no way to do. What can be done, it should be accurate, full and bold. What cannot be done is not that it cannot be done, but that it is unwilling to do it and should not be done.
It is an aesthetic choice, not a lack of ability. Therefore, I think that the establishment of the Chinese vocal music school must be guided by Chinese philosophy and aesthetic thinking, guided by true and benign literary and art criticism, and supported by Chinese vocal music practice and theory, so as to clarify the direction for the appreciation and education of vocal art.
Finally, let us use the ancient precepts left by the ancestors to encourage together", "Words have things, words have feelings, sound follows the words, words lead the way, the voice is full of emotion, the afterglow is around the beam, and the three days are endless", thank you!