When it comes to traditional music, many people's first impression is of tradition and elegance. Nowadays, this art form has appeared more and more in front of people in a new way.
When "ancient style" meets modern times, in a series of cross-border collisions, more and more listeners at home and abroad begin to accept and love Chinese folk music.
How does Chinese folk music adapt to international expression?
What challenges will we face in the future?
Recently, Zhao Cong, head of the Central Chinese Orchestra and a famous pipa player, was interviewed by China News Agency's "East and West Questions" column.
[Subtitles] How do you view the international expression of Chinese folk music?
[Concurrent] Zhao Cong, head of the Central Chinese Orchestra and a famous pipa player
When I was promoting it before, it was actually me playing traditional works (time), telling me that the tradition was like this, because there would be no other works, and it was like this after I came out of school.
But at that time, I started to try to learn popular music, because I saw that in this (world) music section, probably all traditional music is added together, including some world music, plus classical music, all together may only account for % Fifteen or fewer shares, and the rest is all pop.
Then if you want your things to be more widely recognized, loved and passed on by everyone, you must have a better means and language of communication.
Then learn how pop music is expressed.
There was no symphony before, and it didn't take long for the symphony to appear.
Symphony appeared because it adapted to this era, and electronic music adapted to this era when it appeared.
So what do they have in common?
Why do people like them?
I found that it was more about adding rhythm and harmony, and the addition of harmony and rhythm made the music more full.
Chinese (folk music) has less harmony, more melody, and more charm.
But this way of expression is a little bit not particularly understood by Westerners.
Then if we take their harmony and rhythm as the base, and then add our flavor and timbre on top, they (Western listeners) become very acceptable.
I think it's a bit like food. If Chinese food is pure and authentic, they may not be able to accept it.
Then when a little Westernization of it turned into a fusion dish, he might have easily accepted it.
[Subtitles] Which method of communication is more effective, traditional folk music or cross-border works?
[Concurrent] Zhao Cong, head of the Central Chinese Orchestra and a famous pipa player
I think it's divided into two parts.
Part of it, China's national instrumental music technology is really amazing, which makes them (Western listeners) feel amazing.
But if you use his (Western) language and your culture to impress him, or convince him, the impact on him is even greater.
(hence both propagation modes).
[Subtitles] What challenges does Chinese folk music face on the road to internationalization?
[Concurrent] Zhao Cong, head of the Central Chinese Orchestra and a famous pipa player
More works are missing.
Because to tell the truth, for a period of time, China studied a lot of Western music and symphony.
They went out to study, all they learned was Western expressions, and when they came back, they wrote Chinese music according to Western expressions.
Well, what was written on this basis was considered very pioneering and good for a while, but it did not apply to Chinese instrumental music.
It is not suitable for Chinese music according to the Western framework.
Slowly I found that more and more young composers started to grow up and started to become more confident.
More and more composers (think) have to write a folk music work.
(So) it's getting better and more harmonious now, and they're more and more confident that they will write about it.
Now the performers are very good, and more and more composers like this need to start to change.
When our works are good, (Chinese folk music) will definitely get better and better.
(Reporter Gao Kai Produced by Liu Yinghan)
Responsible editor: [Li Ji]