[Reported by Zhang Le from China News] The clappers struck each other, the pipa strings moved, and the dongxiao sounded... The famous Fujian Nanyin score "Hundred Birds Returning to Their Nests" was recently played at the Nanyin Concert of Fujian and Taiwan Artists.
Fujian Nanyin, also known as "Nanguan", "Xianguan" and "Langjun Music", was included in the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.
Thousands of years of ancient music have entered the modern era, facing the "question of the times": how to spread ancient art?
How does the successor team grow?
Lin Sumei, the representative inheritor of Nanyin intangible cultural heritage at the provincial level in Fujian, accepted an exclusive interview with this reporter, saying that Nanyin has its own rules and regulations. For thousands of years, there has been no "audience", only participants. You need to slow down and experience its essence.
In the past 43 years, she has spread Nanyin from Malaysia to China, from Taiwan to Fujian, all over China and overseas, in fact, singing "Xiangyu" for herself.
And if you understand this, you will be able to understand the "high and low" of Nanyin, and you can also find the way to spread it.
Lin Sumei (Photo courtesy of the interviewee/Reported by China News)
From Taiwan to Fujian "The roots of Nanyin lie in Quanzhou"
Nanyin, originated in Quanzhou, Fujian, has been handed down for more than a thousand years since the Han Dynasty, and is known as the "living fossil in the history of Chinese music".
Recently, the children of Guanyin Mountain Music School in Siming District, Xiamen City, Fujian Province under the guidance of Lin Sumei, are rehearsing the program to compete for the 5th Fujian Provincial Quyi Dangui Award Children's Competition.
In recent years, cultivating the next generation and spreading Nanyin has become one of Lin Sumei's busy daily life.
"I'm just a janitor behind the scenes," she said with a smile in an interview with China News.
Due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic, Nanyin's performances, exchanges and teaching activities have been affected, but the fate of Lin Sumei and Nanyin has not been interrupted.
She said that from her experience with Nanyin for more than 40 years, singing Nanyin is actually singing the local accent, and every moment of intersection with Nanyin is a dialogue with herself.
Lin Sumei was born in Malaysia. In her memory, when she was a child, her grandfather's house was a Nanyin "rehearsal hall and social room". After tea and dinner, elders played Nanyin, and she also learned little by little while singing along.
From the age of 10, she joined the Nanyin Group of Klang Yongchun Office and the Nanyin Group of Klang Selangor Tongan Association. She studied under Zhang Hongqiang, Zhuo Shengxiang, Zhang Dongya in Xiamen, Fujian, Quanzhou, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and other places. Waiting for famous teachers to study Nanyin singing and musical instruments.
In 1989, Lin Sumei went to Taiwan to study, and when she was studying at Kaohsiung Normal University, she was transferred from the Department of Mathematics to the Department of Chinese Literature, "only for Nanyin".
"After all, there are many mathematicians and few nanyin researchers, and it is necessary to strengthen the cultural heritage and accumulation related to nanyin," she said.
After landing in Taiwan in 2001, Lin Sumei began to travel frequently between the two sides of the strait to participate in the exchange of nanyin.
In 2006, she settled in Xiamen, "Fujian Yongchun is the ancestral place, Quanzhou is the birthplace of Nanyin, in Fujian, Nanyin has its roots, fallen leaves return to their roots, everything comes naturally".
Today, Lin Sumei is committed to the inheritance of Nanyin in southern Fujian, and her footprints have spread to Nanyin clubs in many towns and villages in Xiamen and Zhangquan.
From kindergarten, primary and secondary schools to college classrooms, she carefully taught Nanyin's singing and playing techniques, and looked forward to Nanyin's successor.
Lin Sumei (second from right) participated in the Nanyin performance in the "Fujian National Music" project of the "Chinese National Music Inheritance and Publishing Project" of the Publishing Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department in 2020.
(Photo courtesy of the respondent/Reported by China News)
Five tones to express homesickness, use music to heal the soul
For some listeners who are new to Nanyin, listening to Nanyin is like listening to "Books from the Sky". This kind of classical music is not as catchy as pop music, nor is it as unrestrained as rock music. If you don't understand Hokkien, the pronunciation of the lyrics will become Understand the "stumbling block" of this music.
How can I truly understand Nanyin?
In Lin Sumei's view, the first thing to do is to understand the music theory of Nanyin.
She showed the "band" that composes Nanyin: taking the five-person system as an example, the person in the middle holds a percussion instrument "clapper", playing like the music picture in the Dunhuang frescoes, and is responsible for the "director" of the band.
On the left are the dongxiao and erxian players, and on the right are the pipa and sanxian. The pipa players maintain the horizontal embrace of the Tang Dynasty pipa.
The participants ensemble produced the five tones of "Gong, Shang, Jiao, Zheng, Yu" in the Chinese pentatonic tones, which also correspond to the five elements, in the order of "earth, metal, wood, fire and water".
Lin Sumei believes that Nanyin pays attention to the "integration of the whole". After the tune is raised, the orchestra resonates, and each instrument enriches the "flesh and blood" on the basis of the backbone tones, and plays the participants' hearts in the seemingly simple five tones, forming a self-contained one. Fan weather.
"Nanyin pursues plain and natural, slow and delicate. According to the traditional notation convention, the four words 'a piece of love' needs to be sung for about five minutes." Lin Sumei said that in this "slow", participants can release their hearts. Emotions, see your true self.
Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to call Nanyin a kind of "health" music.
Music expresses affection, Nanyin expresses homesickness.
On both sides of the Taiwan Strait, people turn to words and songs for ups and downs; in Southeast Asia, the ancestors who went to Southeast Asia at the same time as the patriotic overseas Chinese Tan Kah Kee have experienced nine deaths.
Actively promoting the ancient music of the millennium can not become an absolute sound
Lin Sumei said that at present, the age of Nanyin participants is somewhat polarized. One is the elderly, who are learning and playing the slow-paced Nanyin, which is a good choice; the other is mostly young people. Walking into the campus, children have more and more opportunities to get in touch with Nanyin.
In 2018, Lin Sumei started teaching in Xiang'an District, Xiamen, and launched the "Oucuo Nanyin Mud Project" for young students.
Although she is delighted that the young force has joined, she also has regrets.
"Some children do not continue after reaching a certain level. In fact, those difficult pieces constitute the most essential part of Nanyin, which is the wisdom of the ancestors and the wealth of today's people. Moreover, the number of masters of difficult pieces is very small. They have limited opportunities to display their talents. If latecomers fail to keep up, it may cause 'antique-level' repertoires to be lost, which is a pity. 'Living fossils' need to be 'alive' to make sense."
In recent years, Lin Sumei has consciously increased her investment in the difficult Nanyin repertoire.
In addition to carrying out the inheritance of the difficult "Daqu" for adults when she was teaching in Xiamen, she also planned and promoted the "China-Austria Yachting Cup Nanyin Seven Songs", "Broken Heart", "A Piece of Acacia" and "Singing" in 2019. I Only Heart" and other tracks were staged in turn.
The "Qi Tiao Qu" in Nanyin is like a long and slow-tuned song in Song Ci, with multiple cavities, extremely soothing, and difficult to sing. It is regarded as the essence of Nanyin.
Lin Sumei believes, "To spread Nanyin, the traditional oral transmission method has a limited audience and needs to be promoted through multiple channels."
Over the years, Lin Sumei and other promoters have performed and disseminated Nanyin on different occasions, such as participating in the Nanyin Singing Festival and performing many "Cross-Strait Music and Art Festivals" performances; composing Tang and Song lyrics or other classic poems into lyrics; establishing a public welfare website Fujian Nanyin Network, which classified Nanyin's music scores and music theory, etc. online; in 2018, the Nanyin rap show "Zheng Chenggong Zuxun", in which she served as the singing guide and Erxian performance, won the finalist award for the 10th Chinese Quyi "Peony Award" program award. He also trained nearly 100 teachers for the "Nanyin Singing of Ancient Poems for Primary and Secondary School Students" sponsored by the Nan'an Education Bureau. The two deeds made key contributions to Nan'an's success in being awarded the "Hometown of Chinese Quyi"; "The National Key Publication Plan and the National Publishing Fund-funded project "World "Intangible Heritage" Nanyin Music Library" has 200 difficult pieces of musical instruments playing the dongxiao, the two-string and the three-string...
In order to adapt to the stage performance, Lin Sumei, who insists on the original flavor, sometimes makes changes, such as changing from "one character with multiple cavities" to "more character with fewer cavities" to meet the needs of short stage performances.
Performing and teaching at the same time, Nanyin has been spread and inherited through frequent exchanges.
So far, Lin Sumei has trained thousands of students at home and abroad, edited and published 17 Nanyin audiobooks, and sang, accompanies and recorded more than 1,000 Nanyin repertoires.
At present, the demonstration course for inheritors of the National Publishing Fund Project "One Hundred Lessons of Nanyin in the World Intangible Heritage" has been completed. In the near future, learners can hear the cordial greetings on the screen again: "Hello everyone, I'm Teacher Sumei... …”
【Personal profile】
Lin Sumei, ancestral home in Yongchun, Fujian, was born in Malaysia in 1968 and settled in Taiwan in 2001.
Chairman of Taipei Cross-Strait Nanguan Music Promotion Association, Taiwan representative of the 11th National Cultural Congress, founder and editor-in-chief of Fujian Nanyin.com, and resident artist of Xiamen's "Oucuo Nanyin Mud Project".
Since 2000, he has traveled to and from both sides of the Taiwan Strait. In 2006, he settled in Xiamen to carry out in-depth and extensive inheritance and promotion of Nanyin.
Nanyin has been in the arts for 43 years, and has been engaged in Nanyin performances, teaching, singing (playing), recording and exchange activities for a long time. It is known as the "Envoy of Nanyin Inheritance". In 2021, it will be recognized as the fifth batch of provincial intangible culture by the Fujian Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism. The representative inheritor of the heritage "Nanyin".
(Finish)