Listen with a thousand autumn tunes
Diao Juemin
The movie "Confidant" in the early 80s of the 20th century tells the love story of Cai Zheng, a patriotic Confucian general in the early years of the Republic of China, and Xiao Fengxian, a dusty woman. The theme song in the film is soulful and gentle, making people mesmerized; The touching melody and the guqin performance that travels through time and space are even more fascinating. The theme song not only interprets the noble sentiments and brave and witty heroic qualities of this crossover man and woman to save the motherland, but also celebrates the unswerving love between them.
I was also moved by the music in the film and their iron-blooded and romantic, chivalrous and tender love stories, and the guqin music in the play made me unforgettable for a long time, and it still lingers for many years. Recently, this long-lost ancient song suddenly broke into my heart.
One weekend afternoon in autumn, I strolled through the Jintang Water City Impression Community. Suddenly, a beautiful and low sound of the ancient world broke the tranquility of the community. Following the sound, the sound of the guqin came from the garden on the ground floor. The sound of a long and familiar guqin comes from far and near: sometimes clouds and water, sometimes ups and downs. Listening intently, it is like being on the top of a mountain, surrounded by clouds and mist. The ethereal, spinning, ethereal tunes aroused my interest and a sense of joy. I stood quietly outside the garden, quietly looking. A man exuding elegance is carefully instructing students and explaining demonstrations one-on-one.
Professor Lu Chang (left) instructs Luo Xianhua (right) in fingering
Teachers and students sit opposite each other, and men are teaching the fingering of the classic song "Flowing Water". While demonstrating to students the fingerings of "rolling, whisking, hitting, advancing and retreating" and up and down tones, he depicts and interprets the ups and downs and storms of "Flowing Water". I immersed myself in such scenes and moods, taking advantage of their recesses to appear in front of them very presumptuously.
The gentleman who plays the guqin is called Luo Xianhua, a post-80s literary and artistic youth. Mr. Luo grew up in a traditional family, was influenced by the excellent Chinese culture since childhood, and has a strong interest in folk skills and folk music. When I was in junior high school, I encountered the popularity of guitar in social school, and singing while holding a guitar was very fashionable for young people at that time, especially boys, which was a plus. Luo Xianhua is no exception, plus he loves music, so he scraped together his pocket money to secretly buy a guitar, learned to look like in film and television dramas and began to teach himself, visit teachers, and communicate. Until he joined the army and participated in work, he has always been the cultural and entertainment backbone of the unit. By chance, several piano friends went to Chuanyin Guan Mo to study, a professional performance, in which the guqin performance ignited the flame of his beloved heart again, which also made him more determined in his ideals. In particular, he admired the guqinist's beautiful and elegant and dexterous performance style, and he used his spare time to search for information and learn about relevant knowledge. Unexpectedly, there are records of guqin and the history of playing guqin in the records of Jintang County. This discovery enhanced his knowledge and confidence in the guqin, and he became extremely interested in the guqin.
Luo Xianhua (middle) performs the classic song "Flowing Water" with students
"I feel like I have a responsibility. Learn guqin and inherit the art of guqin. Luo Xianhua said, guqin, Jintang has existed since ancient times, but now it is about to disappear. He told me that verses about the guqin and the history of playing the guqin are also recorded in the county records. For example, the "Jintang County Zhi Qing Jiaqing Sixteenth Year Engraved Version" records that the former Qing Jinshi and Jintang literati Gao Chen's "sitting alone in the lonely pavilion and playing the piano at night, I can't help but move my feelings" ("The Twelve Songs of Spring and Autumn in Hongdou Village with Li Sushan"), the Chengdu literati Li Maozhao's "Every good night a stringed piano, no reason for infatuation cannot help yourself" ("Hongdou Village Spring and Autumn Twelve Songs"), and the imperial examiner Chen Daji in the Jiaqing period has a poem: "Songxuan is endless, and he even whisks the boya qin" ("Inscribed Xiangshan Temple") and so on.
The Jintang County Chronicles, Volume 7, "Musical Instruments of the Ministry of Political Affairs", can also find the musical instruments used by the government, such as: 麾, 旙, Ying drum, mole drum, flute, sheng, wrestling, 柷, 敔, weaving, chimes, pan flute, qin, serp."
These records, as well as the "qin" written by the literati and the "qin" used in the government, are undoubtedly the guqin that was a compulsory instrument for ancient scribes.
Guqin, also known as Yaoqin, Yuqin, and lyre, is one of the oldest stringed instruments in the mainland with a history of more than 3,000 years. There are records of guqin in pre-Qin classics, such as the "Book of Poetry" with verses such as "My fair lady, Qin Se Youzhi" and "I have guests, drums and drums". And the stories of Fuxi making the piano, Confucius learning the piano from Shixiang, Bo Ya Absolute String, and Xiangru Wenjun are even more widely spread.
In 2012, Luo Xianhua was recommended by others to learn from Professor Lu Chang, a guqin player, a "Guangling School" pianist and a master tutor of Sichuan Conservatory of Music, and began to systematically understand and learn the guqin, looking for the thousand-year-old music that is about to disappear in this land. Under the guidance of Professor Lu, he has been learning and inheriting his unique loose and tangible, scattered and tangible guqin playing techniques for ten years, pursuing the original flavor of the repertoire and the skills of playing small songs and large songs and playing large songs finely, and gradually mastering and forming the characteristics of delicate and layered timbre control, concise and varied fingering, so as to perfectly display and embody the crisp and crisp tone, crisp style, delicate chanting, coherent and smooth strings. When playing guqin songs such as "Flowing Water", "Three Alleys of Plum Blossoms" and "Fishing Tree Q&A", he learned from others' strengths, supplemented by ancient poems and singing, making the guqin playing more three-dimensional and rich.
Luo Xianhua (left) demonstrates fingering to students
Such performance techniques and playing styles not only reproduce the original flavor of the repertoire, but also enhance the unique aesthetic ideas, cultural characteristics and artistic charm of the works, giving people a beautiful enjoyment. In 2017, Luo Xianhua founded his own guqin art studio in Jintang to study guqin skills and spread guqin culture, and added 8 beds of guqin to provide a free learning and communication platform for guqin lovers.
In recent years, while teaching, Luo Xianhua has participated in social practice, using his spare time to go to schools and communities from time to time to publicize guqin knowledge, introduce the history of guqin, hold lectures on "guqin culture enters the people's door", and take the initiative to participate in cultural and recreational activities carried out inside and outside the county.
Professor Lui is even more praised by his student, Luo Xianhua. He said: "The Guangling school of guqin, as the most influential school in modern China, can be passed on in Sichuan, and through teaching, more people can understand the guqin, and Jintang, a region that once had a very brilliant guqin culture in history, can continue in the art of guqin, which not only has the significance of inheritance and inheritance, but also has strong social value." "I am very pleased that my student Luo Xianhua devotes his spare time to the study and inheritance of guqin art, and leads a group of guqin art lovers in Jintang to continue the urban context.
Luo Xianhua practices guqin music outdoors
"Youyou deer song, eat the wild beast. I have guests, drums and pianos. Drums and drums, harmony and cham. I have a purpose to wine, with the heart of Yanle guests. ”
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Source: Sichuan Provincial Office of Local History
Text/Photo: DIAO Juemin (Member of Sichuan Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Association, Director of Sichuan Literary and Art Communication Promotion Association, Member of Chengdu Historical Society, Special Invited Researcher of Jintang Cultural History Committee, Member of Jintang County Intangible Cultural Heritage Expert Evaluation Group, Executive Editor of Tianfu Border City Wufengxi Newspaper)