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Preface
Lu Huabai is an artist who graduated from Wuchang Art College.
As a result of his tutelage with famous teachers such as He Luting and Chen Xiaokong, he gradually made a name for himself in the fields of harmony, composition, music theory and piano.
Despite the late start of his artistic career, Lu Huabai is still able to leave a strong mark in the history of Chinese music with his unique creative style and profound academic background.
But what kind of masterpiece has Lu Huabai created, and he has received such high praise?
Lu Huabai's dual contribution
Lu Huabai was an important composer and music educator in early China.
Born in Jingkou, Hubei Province in 1914, he moved to Wuchang with his family as a child.
Since then, he has experienced the great historical changes of the Chinese nation, which have also had a certain impact on his artistic creation.
But what everyone doesn't know is that Lu Huabai didn't have much interest in music since he was a child, just because he loved literature before high school.
According to Lu Huabai's recollection, when he was in primary school, his grades were the first in the class, and he was quite favored by teachers.
Due to the partial subject of arts and sciences, he was finally admitted to the art normal major of Wuchang Art College.
After entering school, he studied both music and painting, so after nearly a year of hard work on drawing, he realized that he also developed a strong interest in music.
Therefore, he studied harmony Xi, composition, music theory and piano under He Luting, Chen Xiaokong, Miao Tianrui and Russian expatriate Xiao Qihaot.
He graduated with honors in 1935 and stayed on campus.
During his stay at the school, Lu Huabai studied hard, was diligent and studious, and taught himself the theories of composition techniques such as music form and orchestration, which also laid a solid foundation for the golden period of his life.
In the following ten years, Lu Huabai participated in many anti-Japanese singing movements and served as a teacher, and participated in orchestra conducting and performance, piano, chamber music and other performances, and his masterpiece "Hometown" came out in 1937.
After that, he was also engaged in education, teaching and music creation activities in Fujian Music School, Hunan Music School, Hunan Hengyang 46th Army Art Troupe, Chinese Opera and other places, during which he composed or arranged more than 130 works.
More than 50 of them are anti-Japanese war songs, in addition to piano accompaniment, opera, dance drama music, piano music and other music genre works.
These works are not only a non-negligible part of the history of mainland music development, but also play an important role in promoting and learning from the future development of music.
What is even more surprising is that in addition to music education and creation, Lu Huabai has also published more than 130 essays on various essays, and compiled and translated many textbooks with more than 800,000 words, which has high historical value.
It is precisely because of this that it also provided strong theoretical support and consolidation for his later creations.
And Lu Huabai's "Copper Inspiration" is a powerful proof of his strength.
First of all, the rhythm of this piece changes from sparse to dense, from half notes to quarter notes to eighth notes to sixteenth notes, from slow to fast, constantly changing, and the syncopated rhythm is mixed with it to bring a corresponding sense of rhythm.
In measures 1-4 and 5-6, the emphasis is on a single rhythmic pattern and continuous, and the dynamics are undiminished, giving the melody a more brass rhythmic feel.
Therefore, in the process of playing, rhythmic blending is done with both hands, such as the left hand in measures 29-32 for major syncopation, two eighth notes, and one quarter note.
At this time, it is necessary to pay attention to the contrast and tone of syncopation and pre- and post-notes, in which the emphasis is on the quarter notes, and at the same time, it is also necessary to highlight the main and subordinate double tones of the right hand as an imitation of the rich sound of the brass drum.
However, due to the melody lines of the left and right hands circling and interlacing, if the wrong accent is highlighted, the rhythm of the whole section will be destroyed.
Therefore, strength and strength also play a crucial role in the sense of rhythm. For example, in measure 57, the melody of the left and right hands is facing each other, and in just 5 notes, it is necessary to achieve a crescendo and a decension change, and the most prominent of this change in intensity is this syncopation.
However, as the name suggests, the copper drum does not have a fixed pitch, and the rhythm is the soul of this piece.
The rhythm pattern of the original copper drum is: 2/4X a|X-|X I|X-|。
It can be seen that Lu Huabai's works are arranged from sparse to dense, giving full play to the advantages of piano instruments, so that the performance effect is very prominent.
But what everyone doesn't know is that in Ding Weiping's paper, there are actually seven rhythmic patterns in "Copper Inspiration".
Although he summarized it from the perspective of performance, it is actually a variety of rhythmic variations and mix-and-match.
Measures 33-36 are the major syncopated rhythm with the left hand and continuous sixteenth notes with the right hand.
The performance effect is richer than the first 4 bars, showing more people singing and dancing on the brass drum.
Lu Huabai, on the other hand, enriches and changes the rhythm of a single copper drum to make his works more distinctive with national characteristics.
In this way, "Copper Inspiration" can reproduce a variety of copper drum percussion sounds with a variety of rhythmic patterns, conveying a joyful and joyful atmosphere.
The details of the performance of "Copper Inspiration": a combination of technique and emotion
Although the piano may seem very different from a percussion instrument, it is impossible to achieve the desired sound effect by simply playing it in a crude way.
The quality of the sound is determined only by the method of touching the keys, and the different parts of the keys and the difference in direction will produce different timbres.
Therefore, when playing, it is necessary to consider the timbre characteristics of the piano itself, and use the most appropriate playing method to interpret the timbre effect of the brass drum.
After all, the first priority of the work is to imitate the sound of the drums in "Copper Inspiration", so different staccato techniques are used to pursue different performance effects, and the dynamics and speed of touching the keys are strictly controlled.
In the introductory part, the half notes express the timbre of the brass drum, which is rough and powerful.
This means that the arms should be slightly higher so that the wrists and forearms can exert force, while the palms of the hands should be supported, and the power of the entire waist should be used to quickly drop the keys, so that the sound is full and loud, in line with the timbre characteristics of the brass drum.
The opening part is the fusion of drum sound and vocals, when playing, it is necessary to pay attention to the soft and slow touch of the keys, the smooth and coherent between the notes and a certain singing, but also pay attention to the melodic clarity and phrase direction between the voices, make the consonants slightly weaker, highlight the melody line, and play a beautiful and soft timbre.
Then in measures 80-83, it becomes 4/4 time, so that the left and right hands are matched with continuous descending sixteenth notes, and when playing, attention should be paid to the coherence of the left and right hands, only because the left hand skips prominently as the main theme, and the right hand should not have obvious "heads", so the touch position should be close to the fingertips, so that the timbre is softer and continuous.
In addition, Lu Huabai has some experience in the study of the second voice of the Zhuang people, and he believes: "The intervals used in the sound of the second voice of the Zhuang people are pure fifths in many cases, and the use of these intervals is not blind and casual. ”
Therefore, in "Copper Inspiration", he made extensive use of pure fifths to reflect the color of Zhuang tunes.
For example, in measures 1-4, he repeats the sound and performance of a brass drum by repeating the pure fifth of the main A and E in two beats in the lower register.
And starting from the introduction, the relationship between the fifths of the main and subordinate (A and E) remains unchanged, and then after frequent transposition, rhythm changes, and sound enrichment, the harmony is carefully designed under the premise of the sonata-style tonal layout.
In "Copper Inspiration", Lu Huabai used his own harmony style of "random imitation of harmony".
Lu Huabai himself explained this harmony rule: from the perspective of horizontal structure, any tonal fragment of folk song music, whether it is a section, a phrase, a section, or even a motive or a few fragments, will be a factor with national style characteristics.
The reason for this is that in the process of playing, these raw materials and their derivative materials (natural imitation, displacement imitation of different degrees, free imitation, contrapuntal parts of similar or similar nature) can be interwoven and reconciled to form multi-part music, which can maintain the definite and unified national style of the whole composition.
For example, measure 11 of the Bronze Inspiration is a random imitation of the previous measure one octave lower, and measure 22 is a random imitation of the previous measure two octaves higher.
In the opening section, measures 72-79 are devoted to the concept of "random imitation harmony".
This section not only reflects the melodic characteristics of the national style and the polyphonic concept of the two voices horizontally, but also composes the charm of the national harmony in the longitudinal harmony point.
And this intermingling makes the sound of brass drums, singing and dancing merge into one, one after another.
Copper inspires a modern interpretation of folk music
As we all know, the use of pedals plays a crucial role in the performance of the piano, and the playing process of "Copper Inspiration" is no exception.
It is reported that the notes and rhythms can be polished through the right pedal during the performance, but due to the special timbre of the brass drum, the pedals in this piece are mostly used on single notes or single chords.
First of all, in order to highlight the strong timbre of the brass drum, you can use a straight pedal to step on the notes together, and change it one bar at a time.
In measures 5-8, the left hand chromatic melody changes so that the pedal is pressed with the note of the left hand for an eighth note, hence the "non legato" mark.
In measures 9-14, the stress is the first note of each measure, so in order to accentuate the stress, the pedal needs to be placed on the first note of each measure.
On the contrary, measures 16-28 are accented in the same way as before, except for the interposition of the left and right hand melodic lines, and the pedals are still on the stress of each measure.
However, from measure 29 onwards, a large syncopated rhythm pattern appears, and in order to play the crisp and powerful rhythm of the brass drum, the pedal should be used for the long notes of the syncopated notes according to the syncopated rhythm of the left hand.
The accent of the next measure is on the second beat, so the pedal is also applied on the second beat.
By analogy, the stress from measure 41 onwards occurs on the first beat of each measure, so the pedal should be used on the first beat of each measure.
However, in measures 46-48, it is necessary to ensure the staccato strumming with the left hand, and the main theme of the right hand needs to be clear, and since the hands cannot be mixed, there is no need to pedal.
In measures 54 and 55, the pedals need to change according to the harmony and ensure the independence of the main melody above, so the staccato only lightly presses the pedal on the first note of each beat.
However, in measures 58-66, the major syncopated rhythm appears on the right hand, and the pedal needs to be used on the quarter note length according to the syncopated rhythm of the right hand.
However, the first note of the left hand in measures 67 and 68 is a half note, but the remaining three notes are too far away to be maintained, so in order to continue the time, the pedal should be changed one measure at a time.
It can be seen that measures 69-71 are accented on both the left and right hands, so that the last high note of the left hand arpeggio is down at the same time as the right hand chord, so the pedal should follow the right hand chord change with each beat.
It is not until measures 72-80 that the vocal part of the whole piece is ushered in, and in consideration of the polyphonic nature of the left and right hand parts, the pedals should be used according to the melodic line, starting with the accented second note in the syncopated rhythm of the right hand and ending with the first segato.
In measures 80-83, in order to play a continuous sound, the first note of each measure is stepped on the back pedal, so that the sound sound is continuous and not mixed.
It can be seen that Lu Huabai knows how to use chords to show the powerful sound of the brass drum.
And with the change of rhythm, when the atmosphere gradually comes alive, a dance melody is added, so that it also shows the atmosphere of ethnic minorities singing and dancing with copper drums.
And then at the end, the rhythm is changeable, and the voice is thickened, which pushes the mood to a climax, and here highlights the joyful and jubilant atmosphere of the people.
epilogue
In "Copper Inspiration", Lu Huabai shows people what it means to have a sense of picture in music through his own artistic creation.
Therefore, this is also the reason why Lu Huabai can promote the development of Chinese music through his music creation and education work.
It can be seen that his music career is not only the embodiment of his personal artistic pursuit, but also an important part of the history of Chinese music.
And his life is the best proof of his infinite love and deep understanding of music and art.