Yu Hui: What kind of Chinese cultural code does Chinese guqin music contain?
China News Service Kunming, March 24 Title: Yu Hui: What kind of Chinese cultural code does Chinese guqin music contain?
Author Chen Jing
With the continuous strengthening of national cultural self-confidence and the rise of "national tide" in Chinese society, many young people are keen on Hanfu and learning guqin, bringing unlimited possibilities for the inheritance and development of traditional culture. As one of the earliest stringed musical instruments in the Chinese nation, the guqin has been handed down for more than 3,000 years, during which what kind of development process has it undergone, what kind of cultural code and cultural genes are contained, and what kind of development possibilities are displayed? In-depth discussion and reflection on these issues will build a bridge between the past and the future, and between the East and the West.
Recently, Yu Hui, academician of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and "Distinguished Professor of Yangtze River Scholars" of the Ministry of Education, was interviewed by China News Agency's "East and West Questions" to interpret the natural sounds, cultural consciousness and civilizational self-confidence embodied in Chinese guqin music under the interaction of Chinese and Western cultures, and how traditional Chinese music can better "go out".
The interview transcript is summarized below:
China News Service: Why is the guqin the most traditional instrument with Chinese characteristics?
Yu Hui: Traditional Chinese music is an important part of traditional Chinese culture, accompanied by people's endless daily labor, and has gone through five thousand years of splendid history of the development of Chinese civilization. In the process of historical and cultural development, some ancient musical varieties have gradually disappeared for various reasons; other musical varieties have been continuously transmuted in the course of development, handed down in new forms, and have been endowed with new era characteristics and social functions, such as pipa, yangqin, etc. Were first from other ethnic groups; Song and Yuan miscellaneous operas, Ming legends, Qing Dynasty four loud cavities and other Chinese opera varieties have also evolved in the flow of time and developed into new musical genres. However, there are still very few ancient music forms that have always maintained their early characteristics, passed down from generation to generation in a living form, showing and inheriting the cultural genes of traditional Chinese national music, especially Han music, in the land of China, and guqin is one of them, and can even be said to be the only musical variety.
The legend of Guqin was created by Fu Xi and has been passed down from the pre-Qin Dynasty to today, spreading and inheriting traditional Chinese music that contains profound philosophical and cultural ideas. The shape of the guqin has remained prototype at least since the Han Dynasty. At present, the earliest surviving guqin score, passed down from the Tang Dynasty manuscript of the Southern Dynasty Liang Dynasty hermit Qiu Ming (494-590 AD), "Jieshi Tuning Youlan", is still sounding under the fingers of contemporary qinren after being interpreted by the present people.
Chinese guqin scores on display at the National Museum of China. Photo by Deng Yifei, China News Service
Traditional guqin production uses silk strings and has a small sound. However, in the dead of night, the real sound of nature can pop up, delicate, subtle, endless, making people think infinitely, reflecting the philosophical concept of "big sound and sound, invisible elephant" in Chinese Taoist culture. When the player plays the guqin, he will fall into contemplation and meditation, so that the soul can be purified and sublimated. From the perspective of rhythm, the guqin is a kind of "high culture" music that is closest to the sound of nature in human music, and is one of the very few human instruments known in the world's academic circles that use pure rhythm scales. Pure rhythm, due to its closer to natural overtones, rarely produces beats when more than two notes in a scale resonate at the same time, making the harmonies produced by choruses and instrumental ensembles more pure. This also makes the musical tradition of the guqin a precious musical heritage of mankind.
In addition, the single tone ("sound") in guqin music has a very important expressive meaning. The same tone, through the right hand support, wrestling, picking, wiping, culling, hooking, picking, playing and other string playing skills, left hand chanting, kneading, nickname, note and other downward sound decoration techniques and appropriate strength and weakness control, play a variety of press, overtones, empty strings and decorative tones and a large number of sound colors that make the piano unattainable. This emphasis on individual tone sound embodies the musical concept of great oriental color and has become one of the important creative concepts of contemporary Western composers.
Guqin playing. Photo by Yu Junjie, China News Service
China News Service: What kind of Chinese cultural essence does guqin music embody, and how to break down barriers to carry out mutual learning among civilizations?
Yu Hui: The score of the guqin is composed of Chinese characters or partial radicals of Chinese characters, so literacy has become a prerequisite for playing the guqin. This makes guqin a representative variety of ancient Chinese literati music, ranking first in the "qinqi calligraphy and painting" quality that shows the literati's sentiments, and profoundly reflects the moral pursuit, cultural outlook, social outlook and religious outlook of the "scholar" class.
When the "scholar" class takes the entry into the army as its own life pursuit, it will be deeply influenced by many Confucian ideas. It is said that Confucius would play the guqin and treated the guqin as a good companion all his life. There is a saying in the Book of Rites that "a soldier does not withdraw the qinser for no reason". However, when the "scholar" class loses its aristocratic status and is outside the system, it will return to the mountains and forests and advocate the learning of Lao Zhuang. For example, Ji Kang and Ruan Yuan, the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest" in the Wei and Jin dynasties of China, were famous pianists in Chinese history.
After Buddhism was introduced to China, the guqin also absorbed Buddhist music to a certain extent, such as the famous guqin song "Pu'an Mantra" which absorbed elements of Buddhist music. The "Three Teachings Simultaneous Musical Score" survived from the Ming Dynasty also reflects the eclectic interpretation of Chinese culture by guqin music.
In 2016, in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, Zhu Yi, vice president of the Chinese Organ Association and president of the Jiangsu Guqin Society, played "Pu'an Mantra". Photo by Song Chenglin, China News Service
As a concentrated embodiment of traditional Chinese culture, guqin has also been used as a means of vocalization by patriotism or nationalists at a time when Chinese culture is facing a crisis. In China's modern history, when Western culture occupied an important position in the upper life of Shanghai and other central cities in China, a group of staunch defenders of traditional culture such as Cha Fuxi believed that the value of Chinese guqin music was precious, surpassing Western music in many aspects, and organized one of the most important traditional music societies in Modern Chinese history, "Jinyu Qin Society", in Suzhou and Shanghai, to organize practitioners of guqin music to unite to protect, excavate and inherit guqin music culture. In 1936-1937, when the Japanese army was about to attack Shanghai and Western culture was about to attack traditional Chinese culture, it carried out successive "yaji" activities among the same people to spread the self-confidence of Chinese culture and lay an important organizational, academic and social foundation for the subsequent development of Chinese guqin music.
Guqin music has remained unchanged through the baptism of history and has become one of the most representative musical varieties of Chinese music culture. Because of its chinese characteristics, contemporary Chinese and foreign musicologists have been trying to reveal the traditional Chinese cultural code or cultural genes implicit in guqin music. The Lore of the Chinese Lute: An Essay in Ch'in Ideology (Chinese translated as "Qindao"), a well-known Dutch sinologist, devoted a lot of effort to the study and collation of Chinese guqin literature, and spent a lot of effort to write and publish a monograph with important international influence, which made important contributions to the dissemination of Chinese guqin culture. The American avant-garde composer of the 20th century, John Gage, influenced by the Chinese guqin and Taoist musical concepts, created his unique classic "4 minutes and 33 seconds". In 1977, the recording of "Flowing Water" played by the famous guqinist Guan Pinghu was engraved on a gold-jet bronze record, and as one of the 27 selected works of human music, it was launched into space by the American spacecraft Voyager to greet the superintelligent creatures that might exist. In 2003, the guqin was inscribed on the United Nations Representative List of the Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
At The 2010 spring auction of China Guardian, a Jin Taikang two-year "Ape Howling Qingluo" piano was sold for 19.04 million yuan. This organ is treasured and used in the later years of the Guqin National Hand Pipe Pinghu. The picture shows customers listening to this guqin at a concert. Photo by China News Service reporter Sultan
China News Service: From a global perspective, how can traditional Chinese music better "go out" and communicate with world music?
Yu Hui: The exchange and mutual learning of world civilizations is inseparable from the "soft power" of countries. We have always talked about culture "going out", but I think the "power" of "soft power" is more of an "attraction". Taking guqin music as an example, it embodies the philosophical and aesthetic ideas of ancient China, implies the important value orientation and cultural genes of Chinese culture, and enables listeners to yearn for Chinese culture from the appreciation of guqin music. As for the exchange of musical culture, I think sometimes the power of the people may be more effective than the official activities.
Foreign students try to play the Chinese guqin. Photo by Zhai Yujia, a reporter from China News Service
For example, in 1997, a good friend of mine established the world's first Chinese national orchestra composed entirely of Japanese people, the Japan Chinese Orchestra, which has performed more than 600 times at home and abroad, and was invited by the Chinese Ministry of Culture to perform at the 50th anniversary of the founding of New China held in Beijing, which has received widespread attention and praise from the international music community. Their performance not only deepened the cultural exchanges between China and Japan, but also allowed more foreign friends to understand the charm of traditional Chinese culture.
When I was studying and working in the United States, I was often invited to introduce traditional Chinese music at universities and communities, and was invited to introduce and demonstrate Chinese guqin music in the special TV series of the American Public Broadcasting Corporation (PBS), which achieved good results. I think that folk music exchanges and communication can open up new channels for us to communicate and exchange music between the East and the West, and carry out new cultural diplomacy. The "cultural self-confidence" we are advocating now needs to come from the full study, protection and development of cultural traditions with Chinese characteristics such as the guqin, and from the continuous in-depth communication and reference of Chinese and foreign cultures. (End)
Respondent Profiles:
Yu Hui, Academician of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, "Yangtze River Scholar Distinguished Professor" of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, "Donglu Distinguished Professor" of Yunnan University, Chair Professor of Xiamen University, Visiting Professor of Zhejiang Normal University, Doctor of Philosophy of Ethnomusicology at Westlian University, Co-President of the Council for Asian Musicology, Member of the Steering Committee of the East Asian Association of the International Music Society (IMSEA), International English Music Journals "Asian Musicology" and "Asian Musicology" Co-editor of the Oxford Handbook: Chinese Music.
Source: China News Network