Quyi is a general term for various rap arts with a long history in China. The emergence of its art form can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty. According to incomplete statistics after liberation, there are about 300 kinds of songs in various ethnic groups and regions of the country, and their common characteristics include two categories: speaking and singing, and have strong regional characteristics.
In the north of China, qu art mainly includes two major categories: drum music and chanting.
In the past hundred years, many founders, pioneers or epoch-making artistic giants of a certain genre have emerged in various genres, such as the single-string "Suiyuan Music" (Si Ruixuan), Deokshou Mountain; Jin Wanchang of the plum blossom drum; the "Ten Thousand Charms" (Li Dezhao) of the cross-talk industry; Zhao Yufeng of the Xihe Big Drum; Wang Peichen of the Iron Drum, and so on.
There is no doubt that Liu Baoquan can be called the grandmaster of the Jingyun Drum, and the Liu Pai Jingyun he founded has a deep influence that has not been unsurpassed in the past hundred years.
First, the life, from the art
Liu Baoquan, character Yimin, born on the 14th day of the 14th month of the 1869 lunar calendar (17 November)
There are three different accounts of his birthplace: his origin is directly under Shenzhou (present-day Shenxian County, Hebei), Tianjin, and Beijing – none of which provide reliable evidence, and I think the accuracy of his birth is strong.
His father, Liu Neng, was a craftsman who mainly made colorful works (called the Dark Cloth Shop in Beijing), but preferred wooden planks and drums in his spare time. Liu Baoquan fled to Tianjin with his father as a child and lived in Guanshang, Hebei (in present-day Hongqiao District, north of Beidaguan). Due to family influence. Mr. Liu has loved literature and art since childhood, and at a very young age, he was able to play the three strings, pull the four hu, and you shan pipa (he once learned from Lu Wenkui, a famous pipa player in Tianjin for many years). Due to his father's limited income, the father and son often worked in the area of Beichenggen to earn some extra money to supplement the family. My father sang the bullet because he was young and short at the time, and he needed help when fixing the strings.
Liu Baoquan
While learning art from his father, Liu Baoquan once visited Wang Qinghe, Song Wu, Hu Shi, Huo Mingliang, Zheng Guoxun, etc. as teachers or asked for art, and learned wooden plank drums. The drums were officially performed around the age of sixteen.
Stills of Zhu Suyun's "Rainbow Pass"
"Zhan Chu Zhou" shang and jade ornaments off
Cheng Jixian
In addition, when Liu Bao was young throughout the year, Pi Huang (Peking Opera) was in the period of development, and those who were almost the same as Mr. Liu's Nian Geng, such as Pan Yueqiao, Tian Guifeng, Zhu Suyun, Shang Heyu, Cheng Jixian, etc. were among the best in the field of Peking Opera, based on the factors of the times at that time (the social influence and economic income of Peking Opera actors who became horns were not comparable to those of opera actors), so Mr. Liu also studied Peking Opera, he once studied with Sun Yuqing, and by the age of fifteen or sixteen, he had learned to play seven or eight plays. It is said that Sun Yuqing once brought him to Shanghai to perform, but he did not become a big hit. In addition, when Mr. Liu was nearly an adult, his tall body was very inappropriate, in order not to damage the stage image, he consulted with his father to make a custom line, but this required a considerable amount of money, and his family was not rich, so he wanted to give up; another said that he got the "reverse color" when he performed "Empty City Meter" in Shanghai, and returned to Tianjin in shame, determined to sing drums for life.
When Liu Baoquan was a teenager, the wooden drum entered the Beijing-Tianjin area, and for a period of time when he had just entered the city, he was still accepted by the people. The wooden drum was originally a popular song in baoding and rural areas around Hejian in Hebei Province (because of some local sounds, it is also called timid drum by the people in the city), and the performances are mostly long books, and the performers have no musical instrument accompaniment, and the actors play the wooden planks and beat themselves with book drums. After entering the big city, due to the contact with most of the urban civilians, with the passage of time, and the change of the audience object, it gradually shows that the original wooden drum tune is not very suitable for the requirements of the urban audience, especially often performed in the theater, most of the needs are small paragraphs, which requires the singer to have a new breakthrough in the rhyme and annulus, and make the Guqu feel more beautiful, more artistic appeal, many famous artists are fighting in this direction, such as Hu Shi (Ming JinTang), Song Wu (Ming Yu Kun), Huo Mingliang and so on. The vast majority of their artistic practice is in Tianjin. Therefore, in the continuous reform of the wooden plank drum, the Jingyun drum (in the early days) was gradually formed, and it was also known as the Jinyun drum (because it was formed in Tianjin).
At that time, the Jingyun big drum was divided into large mouths and small mouths. Most of the songs played by Oguchi are war stories or historical stories of Jinge Iron Horse, singing with enthusiasm, real loud and loud to win, Huo Liangming is the best at winning the field; Xiaokou specializes in the story of the Qinglou and family ethics, the passages of children's love, Hu Shi as a representative figure, his voice is bright and crisp and high-pitched, known as "a line of heaven". Only Song Wu sang both large and small mouths, although this person was blind, he had no knowledge of the yuan in his chest, but he was good at musical rhythm, could compose lyrics, and was brilliant. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic of China, when Peking Opera was at its peak, Hu Ji respectively integrated the "Xipi" and "Erhuang" tones in Peking Opera into the singing sections of the Jingyun drum "Nanyang Guan" and "Ma'anshan", which were welcomed by listeners, and these singing sections have been passed down to this day. Liu Baoquan also took the path of Song Wu.
The name of the Jingyun Big Drum is estimated to have begun in the early Minchu, because Liu Baoquan marked the "Big Drum Book" on the heart of the first album "Eight Joys and Eight Loves" produced by the Baidai Company in 1908, and there is no Jingyun name. However, it is not accurate to say what year and month there is a beijing rhyme. However, the evolution from a wooden drum to a Jingyun drum is by no means an overnight achievement, but for a long time, the predecessors of the famous artists Hu Shi, Song Wu, Huo Mingming and others have paid great efforts for this, and the Jingyun drum to a higher and more perfect artistic realm should be attributed to Liu Baoquan, who is indeed the epoch-making figure of the Jingyun drum.
Second, the big instrument is late
Liu Baoquan is not an actor who "picks the curtain red". He has been constantly working hard, tempering, groping and striving on the road of art to become a family.
Zhang Xiaoxuan (1876—1945)
His early singing art was even influenced by Zhang Xiaoxuan, who was several years younger than him, and his reputation was slightly inferior to Zhang's, but he was an enterprising artist after all, so after the 1910s, Liu Pai Jingyun finally formed.
Most successful artists have one thing in common, that is, their own efforts and obedience. Behind Liu Baoquan's success, there are also many people who help him. Among them, there are not only the predecessors of the art world, but also the literati and celebrities who love qu art, or the enthusiastic audience, and the well-known King of the Lingjie World, Tan Xinpei, has played a crucial role in the formation of Liu Pai Jingyun in the future.
Tan Xinpei
Liu was more than twenty years younger than Tan, so Liu always performed discipleship to Tan. Tan once said to Liu: "You are singing books, not books, some of the words are still a little timid, and the seats in Beijing are afraid that they will not understand." These few words shocked Liu a lot, which can really be described as a conversation of the Fang family, and it was a great contribution to his future singing form of establishing the jingzi jingyin and rap organic combination in singing. Therefore, in the future, Mr. Liu often said: "These few words of Boss Tan are worth gold." (This character is a common word of gratitude used by artists to improve or help their art in the past) Mr. Liu really lived up to Tan's expectations, and after his unremitting efforts, he really won the reputation of "Three Masters of the Art World" in the early Qingming Dynasty. (The other two are Tan Xinpei in the Peking Opera circle and Shuang Houping in the book critics) Mr. Liu became Tan Xinpei in the music and art world.
Of course, the formation of Liu Pai Jingyun was not achieved overnight. For example, the correction of character sounds, absorbing and borrowing the pronunciation methods of Peking Opera veterans, has created a high-pitched singing method (similar to Peking Opera Ga tune) in the singing cavity. As a result, he finally created an extremely perfect Jingyun drum cavity art that is both strong and gorgeous, both solemn and clever, singing and singing.
3. Jing Yun all-rounder
Liu Baoquan's Jingyun drum is a perfect work of art. In the singing, the shaping, narrative, lyricism, imitation, and shape can be said to be everywhere bad.
After the formation of the "Liu Pai" Jingyun art, the repertoire he sang was only more than twenty paragraphs, but the segments were classics.
Liu Baoquan's singing voice, there is no one inside and outside the circle who is not praised. His singing voice is extremely varied and creative. Each of his repertoire constitutes a syllable with ups and downs, priorities, staggered syllables, and a beautiful and pleasant tone full of emotion, each melody contains compound elements and timbres, with small swings in the big whirling and small ups and downs in the big ups and downs. Like the small pearls and flowers sprayed in the rough waves of the sea, they are colorful and never monotonous.
His singing voice, industry insiders and the general audience agree that it is unparalleled in the music and art world, sweet and crisp, round and bright, high and low and salty, and the voice and false voice are all as good as possible. Although this is a talented throat, it has also undergone long-term hard training to achieve a free kingdom of freedom and freedom to control freely and do as you please. He never appeared in the singing of "jaundice flowers" or hoarseness, and he neither showed off his talents solely by virtue of his talents, nor did he show his superiority or sensationalism. Unique in the ease of seeing, rap is in the service of the repertoire, can give the audience a sense of beauty, so that the gu composer really achieve artistic enjoyment, really a comfortable, relaxed and pleasant.
Fourth, the art of shocking pear garden
Mr. Liu's artistic attainments are extremely profound, and his artistic vision is broad, which can be described as erudite and versatile. As we all know, he has a fairly high level of performance of three strings, four hu, pipa and other instruments, and is also good at singing stone rhymes and nanban horse head tunes. Shi Yun is a tune created by Tianjin artist Shi Yukun (Qing Zi Zi Shu actor), who sings by himself (three strings) when singing, representing that as "The Case of Long Tu Gong", Mr. Liu's Shi Yun is said to have been learned from Shi Yukun's granddaughter-in-law. Shi Yun and Ma Tou tune rarely perform in business, and sometimes they are occasionally performed at church meetings.
Chen Shihe
An accomplished artist draws on many sources of artistic nourishment. The famous critic Mr. Chen Shihe once opened in the 1930s and 1940s at the Small Pear Garden. At that time, most of the commentaries opened in qu art venues, which is not to say that their art was not good, because the opening of the commentaries could play a role in bringing the audience together. Because Mr. Chen said that the watches are good, it can attract the audience, often in the middle of the way, more than half of the hall has come up. Mr. Liu was shocked to hear this news, so he came to the scene at the beginning (usually half an hour to an hour before the play into the theater), listened carefully to Mr. Chen, and after listening to his comments: "Mr. Chen's commentary is really good, no wonder the audience entered early." In fact, when he listened to Chen, he was also grabbing useful things for his own performances.
The art that Mr. Liu absorbs the most nutrition is Peking Opera, which is of course related to the fact that he studied and sang Peking Opera in his early years, and the main reason is that he believes that Peking Opera is the most perfect, most refined and most exquisite art in Various Dramas in China. Singing, reading, doing and playing are all beautiful. As mentioned earlier, Tan Xinpei's artistic guidance to Mr. Liu has benefited him for life. In addition, he also learned a lot from many other actors, such as Sun Juxian, Gong Yunfu, Yang Xiaoduo, Yang Xiaolou, Wang Yaoqing, Yu Shuyan, these people have been very close to him. From them, we have drawn a lot of useful things, or pronunciation, body shape skills, all of which have been borrowed and used. Mr. Liu's Beijing rhyme has many "catchy words" commonly used in Peking Opera, such as 'shoes", "thieves", "inside", etc., which make the audience sound particularly harmonious and comfortable. As for the things on the gong shelf that borrow from Peking Opera, it is even more, and he has absorbed more of the figures of various professions in Peking Opera. Once, after watching his performance, Mr. Tan Fuying went backstage to the backstage and said, "Mr. Liu, your knife and gun rack is really amazing, even those of us who specialize in singing are out of reach!" Admire, admire! "Everyone in the industry knows that Mr. Tan is a sincere gentleman, and he is definitely not a compliment to deal with casually, but a heartfelt admiration." Another time, Mr. Ma Lianliang's young son made a birthday, Mr. Liu sang a passage of "Zhan Daizhou", at this time Mr. Yu Shuyan was also present, Mr. Liu made a figure in the performance, and won a full house of color. Third Master Yu immediately said, "Yes! I lost another hand. This is by no means a resentment that Mr. Yu thinks that his things have been "stolen" by others, but a praise and admiration for Mr. Liu's "take-ism" artistic concept, and also contains an expression of his own content being appreciated and borrowed by artists like Mr. Liu, and a kind of satisfaction in his heart.
"Changsaka Slope" Yang Xiaolou as Zhao Yun Qian Jinfu as Zhang Fei
Wang Yaoqing
On the other hand, many famous Peking opera actors also draw useful things from Mr. Liu's performances and serve their performances. For example, Yang Xiaolou and Wang Yaoqing, two masters, once listened to Mr. Liu's "Changsakapo", and they agreed that Mr. Liu's portrayal of Zhao Yun and Mi Shi could be absorbed by Peking Opera in some places. The "well covering" of "Changsakapo" performed on the Peking Opera stage is now adapted by Wang Yaoqing based on Mr. Liu's "Changsakapo". It can be seen that the laws of art are common everywhere. Mr. Liu once said: "My toys can be recognized by your pear garden community, and I will talk about masturbation." ”
Yan Jupeng
Ye Delin, stage name rack winter melon
In his later years, Mr. Cao Baolu recorded a single string "Wu Shi Hui" in the apartment of international students in Peking University Spoon Garden
Yan Shaopeng, Zhang Shaolou and their son Yan Xingpeng
From the left in the front row are Shan Songting, Guan Baoqi, Zhang Jieyao, Guan Songpeng and Su Shijie, and in the back row are Li Villagers, Bai Ping, Sun Yanxia, XiaoXing, Zhang Yalu, and Qi Cuncai
As far as the situation at that time was concerned, it was difficult for famous actors to compare with famous actors in Peking Opera in terms of social influence and economic income, and the exception was Mr. Liu Baoquan, who was not only highly respected by famous Peking opera artists, but even the economic income was quite considerable. For example, in the spring of 1938, Mr. Yan Jupeng picked a class at the Beijing Jixiang Theater. On a certain day, the drama codes are: the opening "Playing Dragon Robe" by Shui Shaoshan (Jin Paihua face, later joined the Tianjin Innovative Peking Opera Troupe) and He Shengqing (famous Lao Dan, later joined the Beijing Peking Opera Troupe), the second is Zhang Diefen (famous Danjiao, Jiu Gong Mei Lanfang, who has been guiding Mei Baojiuduo) and Chen Shengtai's (famous Xiaosheng, who has been taking major classes for a long time, and later engaged in teaching), the third is Wu Yanheng's "XiaoshangHe" (who once asked Yu Shuyan about art, performed disciple ceremonies, and later changed to Wusheng), and the fourth is Yan Shaopeng (son of Ju Peng, Ma Lianliang's disciples) and Shen Manhua (originally sung Danjiao, later changed to Xiaosheng) of the "Three Niang Godsons", the main axis is Yan Jupeng, Qiu Shengrong, Song Yuchun and others' "Wen Zhaoguan" (with the battle of Fancheng, Changting Hui). This play, although not an excellent choice at the time, was also considerable, and the ticket price was two pieces of five in the first class box, five corners in the front row of the pool seat, and four corners in the back row. Two months later, Mr. Liu Baoquan picked a class at the Halfei Theater (its site was later Xidan Shopping Mall), and most of the people in the audience were Beijing opera actors, including Zhang Jieyao and Gao Deming's cross-talk, Cao Baolu's single string, Guo Xiaoxia's plum blossom drum, the funny drum of the winter melon, Jiao Xiulan's Xihe drum, etc. The ticket price was the three-piece two corners of the first-class box, the front row of the pool seat hexagon, the back row of five corners. It can be seen from this that Mr. Liu's ticket price is actually higher than that of the famous Mr. Yan Jupeng. This fully demonstrates that Mr. Liu's artistic attainments and reputation among the audience are extraordinary.
Bai Yunpeng Liu Baoquan