From Juntian Guangyue to Jiangnan silk and bamboo, from the pipa that entrusts the ambitions of literati and scholars to the melodious bamboo flute, the national music that has lasted for thousands of years is a musical presentation of national culture, outlining the long-standing charm and elegance, and highlighting an inclusive culture. The strength of character has accompanied generations of Chinese people through the ages.
In recent years, with the renaissance of Chinese excellent traditional culture, the national music, which was once in trouble in inheriting it, has regained its vitality and continued to create new legends.
Lost national musical instruments "resurrected"
If you want to do good things first, you must first sharpen your tools.
To reproduce the ancient and wonderful national music, restoring the ancient national musical instruments is the foundation.
In recent years, one manifestation of the revitalization of Chinese music is the "resurrection" of many lost national musical instruments.
For example, the Central National Orchestra, in cooperation with the Dunhuang Research Institute and Shanghai National Musical Instrument No. Se, Leigong drum... let the ancient Dunhuang musical instruments that exist in the murals of Mogao Grottoes walk down the murals and make a pleasant sound again in the present.
Using these restored ancient musical instruments, the artists of the Central National Orchestra have successively created national musicals such as "Impression·Chinese Music" and "Seeing Chinese Music Again".
In addition to the restoration of ancient musical instruments, national musical instruments are also being continuously improved. It is through the continuous improvement of national musical instruments that Chinese music is developing step by step.
For example, Mr. Wang Huiran of the former Shandong Qianwei Art Troupe produced three-string and four-string high-pitched Liuqin based on the two-string Liuqin used for opera accompaniment, which has become an irreplaceable high-pitched instrument for plucked parts in Chinese national orchestras; Lu Wencheng, a famous Guangdong music master, will The traditional Erxian was improved into Gaohu, making it a symbolic instrument of Cantonese music.
With the restoration of a large number of ancient musical instruments and the improvement of national musical instruments, various forms of instrumental music dramas have emerged.
Since the birth of the world's first national instrumental drama "Xuanzang's Journey to the West" in 2017, art troupes at all levels have successively created different genres such as "Sailing the Dream of the Great Bay", "Tianshan Mountains North and South", "Sail Shadows and Songs Thousands of Songs", and "Yuanyuan Elegant Rhyme". , National instrumental dramas of different themes.
Chinese folk musical instruments were originally just tools for playing music, and folk music performers have mainly played music since ancient times.
In instrumental music dramas, erhu, guqin, bamboo flute, etc. are endowed with dramatic functions and become a role in the drama; folk music performers not only play music, but also interpret characters.
In this art form, performers should not only have superb performance skills and musical understanding, but also have strong performance ability.
Although the challenge is great, it has to be said that this has also promoted the innovation of gugak.
Cross-border integration for a new look
Compared with musicals, dance dramas, dramas, etc., folk music has always been a relatively "unpopular" art, and once fell into depression.
One of the most important reasons is that national musical instruments could not be effectively combined with modern music techniques for a long time.
In recent years, national musicians have made bold innovations. Western instruments such as piano, violin, cello, jazz drum, and electric guitar have been used by them to "dialogue" with authentic Chinese instruments such as pipa, erhu, bamboo flute, and Zhongruan, creating A large number of new Chinese music works with cross-border genres.
For example, "Sea Live Folk Music" produced by the Shanghai National Orchestra breaks the traditional folk concert viewing mode, integrates various cultural elements such as calligraphy and Chinese painting, and expands the boundaries of the performance field through digital multimedia technology. Interactively integrating modern aesthetic consciousness, constructing a multi-dimensional audio-visual scene, setting off a new wave of Shanghai-style folk music in the digital age.
Not only that, "Sea Living Folk Music" also created the first resident performance in the field of folk music with a pioneering attitude.
In addition to "Sea Living Folk Music", the aforementioned works such as "Impression·Chinese Music", "Seeing Chinese Music Again" and "Xuanzang's Journey to the West" are all successful works of cross-border integration.
They all integrate a variety of performance forms, carry out a new interpretation of folk music, create a new chapter of Chinese music, and demonstrate Chinese style, Chinese style, and Chinese spirit everywhere.
Traditional folk music is also combined with modern pop music to form national style music that is popular among young people.
The national style music works are inclusive and diverse in the form of expression. The music style is mainly a combination of popular and classical styles. In terms of lyrics, rhythm, arrangement and orchestration, it presents a strong flavor of traditional Chinese culture.
In 2022, a music research institution's "National Style Music Content Ecology Report" shows that from 2020 to 2021, there will be 51 popular national style music pieces with over 100 million plays; Many; the number of works with more than one million and tens of millions of broadcasts is on the rise.
The continuous emergence of national style music works not only reflects the creators' strong cultural awareness, but also shows that national music has strong vitality in modern society.
Online live broadcast opens up a "second stage"
In August of this year, more than a hundred artists from the Central National Orchestra joined Douyin, striving to create a "second stage" online, creating a precedent for national-level troupes and even national professional art troupes.
This is a microcosm of Guole's active embrace of new communication methods such as webcasting.
In addition to national teams such as the Central National Orchestra, there are also a large number of folk musicians from the folk that have already "started broadcasting".
Recently, the "2022 Douyin Folk Music Live Streaming Data Report" released by Douyin shows that as of now, Douyin live broadcasts cover 87 types of ethnic musical instruments, and the number of viewers has exceeded 6.1 billion.
In the past year, there were more than 1.78 million Douyin folk music live broadcasts, a year-on-year increase of 95%; the cumulative live broadcast hours reached 2.33 million hours, a year-on-year increase of 101%.
Based on a performance of 1.5 hours, it is equivalent to 4,270 folk music concerts performed on Douyin every day, with an average audience of 2,319 per show.
In sharp contrast, before the epidemic, there were only about 100 offline performances per day in a first-tier city.
Webcasting has brought new opportunities for the development of folk music.
On the one hand, folk music people can get reward income through live broadcast, and found the "blue ocean" of folk music.
In the past year, 87% of Douyin folk music anchors were able to earn tipping income.
Among them, relatively small ethnic musical instruments such as duxianqin, konghou, and xun have also created tens of thousands of "box office".
On the other hand, some niche and endangered folk music intangible cultural heritage regained attention through live broadcasts.
For example, the unique musical instrument of the minority Jing nationality, the duxianqin, was once only in the single digits among the people in China who could play it.
Today, Zhao Xia, the intangible heritage inheritor of Duxianqin, has gained more than 400,000 fans on Douyin.
Relying on the income from live broadcast rewards, Zhao Xia operated two intangible cultural heritage teaching sites for Duxianqin, keeping the fire of inheritance of Duxianqin.
Chinese music has gradually become a "national trend"
"The genes in the blood have been awakened. How can you not love this soul-stirring music." Last year, as soon as the folk music short video "Lanling King Enters the Battle" was launched, it immediately became popular all over the Internet. , with more than 13 million hits.
"The Song of Lanling King Entering the Battle" is not the only one that has become a hit.
On Station B, the folk music area has been particularly popular in recent years.
Young UP masters use folk music to adapt animation, film and television, and pop songs. Many works not only become the responsibility of traffic, but also continue to "break the circle" through the active forwarding of Generation Z.
And mainstream folk music practitioners are also working hard to promote the creative transformation and innovative development of folk music art.
For example, Zhao Cong, head of the Central National Orchestra, combined traditional Chinese culture with games, and released the theme music "Red Flames" for a certain game. After 00, there was a wave of folk music craze.
In addition, some Chinese music works have also become popular overseas. For example, a video of a Chinese girl playing the guqin called "Left Fingering the Moon" has tens of millions of views on YouTube alone.
It can be said that the folk music that was once regarded as "old-fashioned", "conservative" and "unpleasant" is now sending out the most "fashionable" confident voice to the world.
Of course, there is no end to the inheritance and innovation of Chinese music.
How to use original works to bring more possibilities to Chinese music and further activate the traditional cultural heritage carried by national music should be a new topic for folk music practitioners to seriously consider next.
(Author: Wang Xiuting, dean and second-level professor of the School of Music of Linyi University, this article is the result of the Shandong Provincial Social Science Planning Research Project)
(Source: Guangming Daily, December 21, 2022, page 13)