China News Service, Hong Kong, July 16th, title: The simplicity and freedom of the guqin-an interview with the "intangible heritage" heirs of the guqin
China News Agency reporter Han Xingtong
In a small room, the apprentices were sitting around the master, Cai Changshou (also known as Liu Changshou), the third-generation heir of the Cai Fuji Chinese and Western Musical Instrument Factory.
One person is playing the piano by the side, and the sound of the piano is solid and lingering, adding a touch of simplicity to the conversation and laughter.
The century-old shop Cai Fuji moved from Shantou to Hong Kong in the 1930s. As a third-generation heir, Cai Changshou adhered to this millennium craft. He is one of the few masters who inherited the craftsmanship of the Zhejiang School which was the founder of the Southern Song Dynasty. He was selected as a national non-material. The representative inheritor of representative cultural heritage projects is also the third inheritor of "intangible cultural heritage" in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
In the year of Mi Shou, Cai Changshou smiled, and the teenage "boy" in his memory hurried back.
At that time, he was the Shaodong of Cai Fuji, and he lingered in his father's piano shop all day. Since childhood, he was familiar with Chinese and foreign instruments such as the guqin, zither, pipa, and violin.
Once, he was ordered by his father to return the repaired guqin to Xu Wenjing, a guqin player of the Zhejiang school.
Cai Changshou often played truant from school, sneaked into Xu's house to watch the elegance and fun, and literati and poets chanted poems and complimented him, which always made him fascinated.
This Yaxing has led Cai Changshou through the seventy years of fuqin and piano making. "Guqin is a literati instrument, and it also matches my introverted character." So far, more than 200 guqins have been born from Cai Changshou, the most expensive. It is a Zhongni style guqin, which was purchased by a mainlander at an offer of 1 million Hong Kong dollars.
Guqin uses green paulownia wood as the surface, catalpa wood as the base, lacquering, and ashing. There are a total of nine processes, and it takes about 200 hours to make a guqin.
The key to making a violin lies in finding wood. “It’s the best one or two hundred years old, and the older the wood is, the fiber in the wood degenerates and the sound will be better.” The luthier often ran away to wait for the "wood" when he heard that the house was going to be demolished. A batch of wood came from an ancient bridge that was demolished in San Francisco, USA.
In 1992, Cai Changshou suffered from esophageal cancer. After he recovered, he decided to accept an apprentice, but there is an iron rule: apprentices must be able to play the guqin, otherwise they will not teach.
Just because the sound of the guqin is small, there are many subtle differences that cannot be trusted by the eyes and ears, but only by touching the guqin to perceive one or two.
It’s also a coincidence that Guan Jiahui, a Hong Kong resident who lives in New York, USA, returned to Hong Kong during the holiday. When he went to the Sanlian Bookstore to buy books, he ran into a solo exhibition by Cai Changshou, "I have learned Guqin, but I can’t play well. The pianos used are all made in the factory. Yes.” He was surprised to see that there were still craftsmen making guqins. As for the card he received at the exhibition, he put it in his wallet and brought it back to New York. The matter was put on hold for four years.
After returning to Hong Kong many years later, Guan Jiahui came to apprentice. "Master (Cai Changshou) listened to me playing the piano and couldn't help but say, how good you are." So he started with learning how to play the piano.
In his eyes, Cai Changshou knew the secrets of the guqin, like an inexhaustible treasure.
The most popular technique is not superb skills, but "remedies". For example, there is a hole in the wood for no reason, and a certain step is wrong. What should I do at this time?
The interpretation of the meaning of piano making by the two masters and apprentices is exactly the same-for fun.
The master is fascinated by the elegance of the ancient literati, and the apprentice sees the freedom of hand-made pianos against the freedom of assembly line production. "The hand-made guqin is free and unrestrained in sound quality, feel, and design. This is the real thing. The artistic tradition of the piano."
Therefore, when making a piano, Guan Jia must think about some innovations, such as a few more layers of brilliant colors when painting.
Painting layer by layer is also a skill. If the intensity of two or three strokes is uneven, uneven particles will appear on the piano surface.
This is the case with a piano, and he has done it for fourteen years.
On the wall behind Cai Changshou, a set of twelve pieces of guqin that he and his master Xu Wenjing had co-produced is hung. The years have passed, and now Guan Jiahui and other apprentices have imitated and produced the second under the guidance of master Cai Changshou. On behalf of twelve Zhang Qin.
Qin, chess, calligraphy and painting, the piano ranks first, people are quiet at night, plucking the strings to listen to the sound of the piano, it is also the voice of the heart, "In history, the guqin is a Confucian and Taoist practice path, a medium of communication with oneself, and represents a unique Chinese tradition Aesthetics." Guan Jiahui said, based on this, our preservation is very important, and we also have the responsibility to pass on to the next generation.
(Finish)