It is said that the four famous Danzhi talk about Cheng Yanqiu

This article talks about Cheng Yanqiu, one of the four famous dans, and the Cheng Pai singing voice he founded. Cheng Yanqiu was born in 1904 in a poor Beijing household and died in 1958. His original name was Chenglin, also known as Ju Nong, the character Yushuang, when he was six years old, due to family poverty, he wrote an eight-year contract to Rong Dixian as an apprentice, the contract stated that he was not responsible for dying and fleeing within eight years, and he was often beaten and scolded by his master during his studies. He studied Qingyi and Daoma Huadan at the master's place, and began to take the stage at the age of eight, learning, singing, and being beaten while living the most tragic childhood. At the age of 13, his voice was choking, and at this time, he met Rong Diexian and the Shanghai Theater to sign a one-month performance contract of 600 yuan. If he continued to perform at this time, his voice would be worse and ruin his life, and out of sympathy, the literati Luo Gonggong loaned 700 yuan to the bank as compensation and ransomed him from Rong Diexian. Since the age of 14, he has been practicing his voice every day with the help of Luo Luogong, learning swords and horses from Yan Lanqiu, Kunqu opera from Qiao Huilan and others, learning Qingyi at Wang Yaoqing's house in the evening, and after the age of seventeen, he worshiped Mei Lanfang as a teacher. Cheng Yanqiu once wrote that he deeply felt the painstaking and kind cultivation of Luo Gonggong and Wang Yaoqing, which made me never forget it. At the age of 17, he began to sing in independent classes written by Luo Luogong, and Wang Yaoqing designed the singing voice director. At the age of 25, he was the vice president of the China Academy of Opera and Music. In 1932, at the age of 28, he began to study the theater and music of various countries in Europe, and successively went to France, Switzerland, Italy, Venice and the Soviet Union. In 1936, he also served as the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Private Chinese Senior Opera School in Beiping, and the main screenwriter was the monthly magazine of screenwriting. Cheng Yanqiu had a high degree of patriotism and refused to perform for Japanese imperialism during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, so he once encountered dozens of Japanese gendarmes and spies besieging and beating him when he returned to Beijing from Tianjin to get off the train at Yongdingmen East Station. He beats his enemies because he has martial arts roots. Once, when Japan forced the Pear Garden Guild to sing a compulsory play, Cheng said that he could not sing to the Japanese, asked them to buy a plane to blow up our Chinese, and said that I Cheng would rather die under the gun than obey! Later, he went to qinglongqiao, a secluded farmer on the outskirts of Beijing. After the liberation of the whole country in 1949, he participated in the first plenary session of the Chinese Political Consultative Conference and won the honorary award of the First National Opera Observation and Performance Conference. He served as the vice president of the China Academy of Performing Arts.

Cheng Yanqiu's repertoire is rich and varied, and because he learned sword and horse and Hua Dan in his early years, he rehearsed a large number of comedies. Such as swordplay and martial arts drama, after returning from a visit to Europe, he rehearsed plays such as "Tears of the Barren Mountains" and "Spring Dream", which advocated pacifism and opposed harsh government and fierce tigers. During the fall of Beijing, dramas such as "The Book of the Dead Shu" were choreographed to sow treason and surrender to the enemy and arouse patriotic enthusiasm. After liberation, he rehearsed anti-feudal works such as "Yingtai Refusal to Marry" and "Dou E'er". When he was young, he also rehearsed a play to compete with Mei Lanfang. Such as Mei Pai's "Red Thread Thief Box"; Cheng Pai's "Red Breeze Transmission" (when the fashion Xiaoyun also ranked red silk). Mei played Xiangfei in "Tai zhen wai biao", Cheng played "Mei concubine"; Mei played "FenheWan", and Cheng expanded to all of "Liu Yingchun". Mei performed the Kunqu opera single folding play "Zhen'e Thorny Tiger", and Cheng played the entire "Fei Gong Ren". Thus forming a fiery competition situation of the four famous Dan. However, in Cheng Yanqiu's life, the most representative is that he rehearsed a large number of Cheng Pai plays that enabled the development of Cheng Pai's singing voice. When Cheng Yanqiu was young, he was tall, but he was delicate and exquisite, his appearance was unworldly, and his eyebrows were heroic, and he was as beautiful as a begonia. After his voice was restored, Wang Yaoqing rehearsed "Qingba Sword", "Golden Lock", "Jade Hairpin", "Wen Ji Guihan", "Zhu Trace", "Mei Fei", "Tears of the Barren Mountains", "Spring Dream", "Liu Yingchun", "Dead Shu Jian", "Suo Lin Nang", "Yingtai Refusal to Marry", "Dou E'er Grievance", etc. according to the characteristics of his voice, and gradually formed a unique chengpai representative repertoire. Cheng Yanqiu was the only one in the poll of the four famous dans to score 100 points in the singer's examination. In the more than 150 years since the formation of Peking Opera, almost all the more famous Qingyi actors in Danjiao's line have a crisp, sweet, feminine, or wide, bright, clear and transparent voice. Mei, Shang, Xun, Cheng, etc. are mostly like this. Although there are advantages in singing methods, most of them are inseparable from the control and application of words, qi, sound and other aspects to sing in the cavity. Thus forming their own style characteristics. In general, it is supported by the timbre as the support point of the style, but the only difference is the Cheng Cavity. Cheng Pai singing voice constitutes a distinctive voice characteristics and a unique vocal method. After Cheng Yanqiu was 15 years old, his voice gradually began to recover, but it was no longer the crisp and bright timbre when he began to appear on stage, but the silk lala, the music was dim, forming a so-called ghost tone. Generally speaking, this kind of sound is not suitable for singing according to the convention in Danxing, but Cheng Yanqiu, with the help of Wang Yaoqing, after painstaking training, gradually formed a high-pitched and upright high-pitched voice with the back of the brain of the old student, using the so-called ghost tone to line the cavity, using the breath to control the murmur to dissolve its turbidity, thus forming a high-pitched circling nine turns, suppressing the steep, and complaining and euphemistic when low back, if intermittent, soft outside and soft in the cheng sect. Cheng Pai's singing, there are more things that are old, and the aforementioned back sound is not in the singing voice of Danjiao, but the old master Chen Delin of the early Si occasionally uses it. For example, the father and mother in "Wen Zhaoguan", as in "Zhan Taiping": plucking the armor and putting the second hall into, the words in the singing cavity are all back sounds, this back of the brain sound is the characteristics of the old Yu school of singing, it can make the sound heavy and powerful, in fact, it is a kind of head cavity resonance, its position is in the back of the mouth, the soft jaw below the sound is first lifted with air and then the tension of the pharyngeal cavity muscles is used to create a strong resonance effect. Due to Cheng's dull voice, it has lost the bright and crisp characteristics of ordinary actors, so he tries his best to play on the closed accent. Replace crispness with a heavy tone, thus enhancing the strength, thickness and gravity of the vocal cavity.

For example, in "Scolding the Temple": There is a posthumous scolding in the Golden Temple. The high notes in this singing, such as the back character, the golden word, and the high cavity in the sound word use the back of the brain, and the low back of the temple character is the so-called ghost tone. Although this kind of tone is low, it is not scattered, but it is carried out with the breath to stroke the cavity, which sounds like a complaint, and the low voice is a sense of sharpness. The bandage sound that people often say is also the ghost sound made by using breath control. For example, in "Tears of the Desolate Mountain": it turned out to be the sound of the autumn wind sweeping leaves. The sound of the word sound is very pronounced. In fact, this vocal method is used interestingly in all the vocal voices of the Cheng School, but the Gusu, Yiqi, and Qi obliques in the closed accent are more obvious. Some people say that the reason why the Cheng Sect became the Cheng Sect was because he had a voice that was different from other Danjiao, so there was the formation of a ghost sound. This statement is not comprehensive enough, through the analysis of the above vocal methods, it has been seen that he has gone beyond the scope of the actor's own natural timbre. For example, Zhao Rongchen and Li Shiji, the proud protégés of the Cheng School, all have a bright and crisp voice, but their achievements in singing the Cheng School have made the Cheng Cavity develop.

Another feature of the Cheng cavity is the use of the sound of the sound, the sound is actually in the process of the cavity with the breath to press the throat to vibrate the vocal cords, this singing method is rarely used in Danjiao, but also Chen Delin's old predecessors accidentally used, the old students yu Shuyan used more, and later Ma Pai, Yang Pai is also often used. For example: the word of the wheel in a round of the bright moon, the word of the moon is. Cheng Yanqiu softened it into the Dan horn singing cavity and used it continuously, so that the singing cavity swirled in the throat, light and exquisite, and did not put it. For example, the opening line cavity in the past has been added to the sizzle, giving people the feeling of a clear stream in the roundabout way to encounter a few small stones that make a clanging sound, adding the color of the tune and thus intriguing. Because Dan Jiao sings with a false voice, it is more difficult to use than the old student, the breath is too small to make a sound, too big is like smashing, forming a knotty cavity like an old student, making the voice clumsy.

The characteristics of Cheng Pai's singing voice are somber and dignified. This must make the bright tone have thickness, which is why such a crisp and bright voice as Zhao Rongchen and Li Shiji can also sing cheng cavity. To make the sound thick instead of increasing the intensity of the bright tone, or increasing the volume, but with the dantian to support the sound, is carried on the gas instead of the throat, the vocal cords are loose, and the sound emitted is deep, dignified, magnetic, gloomy, not vain. The use of Dantian Qi not only requires a high cavity to be full of energy, but even a low cavity must make the cavity as fine as a gossamer and continuous. At the same time, it is decorated with a cough tone, although the tone is low and the volume is not large, but the qi used is not more energy-saving than the high cavity.

Another feature of the Cheng school is round, to achieve round beauty of the sound cavity, it is necessary to make the singing cavity natural and smooth, do not focus on the word and cavity, keep the sound cavity integrated, seamless and round. To do this, it is quite important to whether the use of ventilation and stealing gas is appropriate, so that ventilation and stealing gas cannot be obviously difficult for people to detect. For example, there are several small air vents in the heart of the melancholy cavity, the first two are relieved in the pad head of the huqin, and the latter one uses the pause on the board followed by a short stealing breath, without showing a trace, so that the cavity is round and beautiful without interruption. This is also like the water sleeve of Cheng Pai, he created more than ten kinds of usages such as hook, pick, support, yang, etc., and the general requirement is to achieve natural, smooth, round and beautiful integration under the premise of conforming to the feelings of the characters. The performance actions of the opera Danjiao taught by Ouyang Yuqian are, in general, the combination of countless circles of positive and negative sizes, and life is also full of round beauty everywhere. Such as the horns of musical instruments, round luo, round drums, daily necessities of the round poor, round bowl, round spoon, it can be said that only round beauty can give people a rich artistic enjoyment, into the artistic realm of round beauty, which is fully reflected in the cheng cavity.

The last and most important point is the handling of words. Opera speaks of words as the mainstay, the cavity as the guest, the words should be heavy, the cavity should be light, embodied in the Cheng cavity, not the weight of the surface force, but the relationship between the master and the subordinate, the word is the content, the so-called heavy is to be heavy and powerful, highlighting the high-pitched content, the emotion is the focus, the cavity should be light and exquisite, fluent and beautiful, placed in the subordinate position of the word, the word and the cavity should be a rigid and soft relationship, the word should be strong and powerful, the cavity should be melodious and elegant. The processing cavity for words is the only one that uses Hu Cantonese in the Danjiao sound cavity. For example, he sang "Shilang Visiting Mother" peony open peony put has a different general Dan horn, he sang: peony open peony put so that the formation of the word positive cavity circle, because the word cavity, the word easy cavity to change the characteristics of the Cheng school.

Cheng Cavity pays attention to the five tones, four exhalations, and suppressed yang and frustration of the word, the word contains the cavity, the cavity contains the word, the word tone and tone are clearly distinguished by longitude and latitude, and at the same time, the word is led by qi. The word is divided into head, abdomen, and tail, before the word is issued, the qi must be first up, the dark potential is hidden, and then the word head is blurted out, and when the word is full of breath, the tone is full, and the end of the word is raised to rhyme and return to the sound, which is what Cheng Yanqiu said about hair, flying, and receiving, and the jujube core singing method. This is actually a kind of cut-tone singing method to achieve the artistic effect of clear tone and divine foot.

Cheng's pronunciation also uses reverse cut pronunciation (that is, the word split head, abdomen, tail) still uses the method of luck, lifting the qi, and relying on the qi, before pronouncing the qi, the qi is transported to a certain extent, the word tone spouts out, combined with the use of the back of the brain and the ghost sound, the higher the sound, the finer the back, if intermittent, heavy and light, the dragon head phoenix tail, the size is relatively slow. For example, in the "Dou E'e Grievance" dharma field, it is said: Heaven, the sky has no way, into the earth, the earth has no door, slowly saying that my heart is broken, and the pedestrians are also broken. Among them, the ground where the pedestrians enter the ground, the herringbs are all a kind of dragon head, using a standing tone (also the back of the head), and the slow breath in the middle of the recitation is based on the mood of the characters, presented with a short, thin ghost tone, so that there is no trace. The above are the characteristics of poignant and strong, dignified and depressed, and mournful and gentle, such as crying, soft on the outside and tough on the inside. This kind of singing voice is very suitable for expressing the personality characteristics of ancient Chinese women who are docile and soft and fierce. Therefore, Cheng Singing has become an important means of portraying tragic women.