China News Agency, Guiyang, June 15th: Why did the Dong nationality's great songs get the "three-span" aesthetic recognition?
——Interview with He Songyu, Head of the Department of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages, School of Literature, Guizhou Normal University
China News Agency reporter Pu Wensi
The intangible cultural heritage of human beings, the great songs of the Dong nationality, originated in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period and prevailed in the Ming Dynasty, with a history of about 2,500 years.
In the 1950s, it was accidentally discovered by the modern music industry, not only rewriting the history of Chinese folk music, but also bringing the world's understanding of Chinese folk music into a new milestone.
Since the 1980s, Dong nationality songs have shown a "hot phenomenon" on the world stage, and have won wide acclaim overseas.
Why can Dong nationality songs get cross-ethnic, cross-border and cross-cultural aesthetic recognition?
Recently, He Songyu, head of the Department of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages, School of Literature, Guizhou Normal University, accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency "Dongxiwen" to explain this.
The following is a summary of the interview transcript:
China News Service reporter: Why is the discovery of Dong nationality songs a milestone in the history of Chinese folk music?
He Songyu:
Before the 1950s, the Western music industry always held the view that "there is no polyphonic music in Chinese folk music" and "Chinese folk only have monophonic folk songs".
These views have even been recorded in the history of world music as proof that Chinese music is not comparable to Western music.
At the same time, the lack of polyphonic music has also greatly restricted the comprehensive development of Chinese folk music.
It was not until the ancient folk song "Dong Nationality Song", which was bred in the mountains, was discovered and made a stunning appearance on the world music stage, that the inherent appearance of Chinese folk music was changed and the important position of Chinese folk music was re-established.
In 1952, workers from the Guizhou Music Association Xiao Jiaju, Guo Kesu and others accidentally discovered the great songs of the Dong nationality in the form of chorus in Liping County, Guizhou, and began to study the great songs of the Dong nationality.
In 1956, Zheng Lucheng, a well-known Chinese musician, came across a performance of Dong nationality big songs during his inspection tour in Guizhou. He was shocked and moved: the existence of Dong nationality big songs broke the lies of bourgeois musicians and scholars and filled China’s unharmoniousness. The gap in the history of sound seems to be rewriting the university's music history textbooks.
Mr. Zheng's remarks attracted the attention of the famous French ethnomusicologist Louis Dandelaire.
From September to October 1986, at the invitation of Louis Dandelaire, the Dong Nationality Song Choir composed of 9 Dong girls from Qiandongnan, Guizhou performed at the "Paris Golden Autumn Festival" in France and was a great success.
French ethnomusicologist Gerard Comte wrote in Le Monde that the Dong nationality song was "one of the important discoveries and achievements" of this festival.
Since then, Dong Dage has received widespread attention from the Western music industry. In 2009, it was officially included in the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, becoming a business card representing Chinese culture and a treasure shared by all mankind.
In 2010, the Liping Dong Nationality Choir sang Dong nationality songs in Vienna Golden Hall.
Photo courtesy of Liping County Rong Media Center
China News Service reporter: How did the Dong nationality song come about?
He Songyu:
The big song of the Dong nationality is a cultural practice of the Dong nationality, and it is also a summary of the experience of this nation in a wordless society for a long time.
Its production is closely related to the regional culture, institutional culture and spiritual culture of the Dong nationality.
The living place of the Dong people is mainly located deep in the mountains where the four provinces (regions) of Guizhou, Hunan, Guangxi and Hubei meet.
The living environment that is far away from the hustle and bustle and surrounded by mountains and rivers has cultivated the concept of advocating nature among the Dong people. They are good at imitating and depicting natural things vividly, and they like to simulate natural harmony such as frog calls and cicadas. The characteristics of multiple tonal values are the basis for the formation of polyphony in Dong Dage songs.
Living deep in the mountains and being isolated from the world has contributed to the self-sufficiency and self-management of the Dong people in a small society, and thus formed the "Kuan" organizational form, the "Zhai Lao" consultation system and the Drum Tower culture, "Kuan" and "Zhai Lao". The "system" is a mass social organization, and the Drum Tower is a place for group activities.
The Dong nationality has only language but no writing, but the history of migration, struggle, and mythology of the Dong nationality needs to be recorded and passed down.
"Han people have texts to pass on books, and Dong families pass on songs without words".
"Rice nourishes the body and song nourishes the heart". For the Dong people, singing is as important as eating. "Song" is the spiritual food that supports the Dong people.
As time goes by, there is no one who does not sing in Dong society, everywhere does not sing, and does not sing in everything, and everyone who is good at singing will appreciate it.
Young men and women in Xiaohuang Village, Congjiang County sing Dong nationality songs.
Photo by Hu Yan issued by China News Agency
China News Service reporter: What are the characteristics of Dong nationality songs? How is it similar to Western polyphonic music?
He Songyu:
Multi-voice music is a kind of music that not only relies on a single melody, but also needs to add other textures in various ways to complete it together. It mainly includes three types of key music, polyphonic music, and support music.
The singing of multi-part music needs to rely on harmony singing, and harmony plays an important role in multi-part composition, music structure and content expression.
In Western music, the generation and development of harmony has a history of thousands of years, and has had a great impact on the creation and performance of musical works all over the world.
In the early 20th century, in the process of learning from Western music, Chinese music also began to use harmony.
However, because Western music has seven scales, while the melody of Chinese music is mostly pentatonic, the inability of harmony to adapt to the melody has become a major problem for Chinese composers, so many musicians such as Zhao Yuanren began to experiment with China in the process of music creation. melded harmony.
The Dong nationality big song is a kind of multi-voice music that leads the harmony and divides the high and low parts. It changes the "imported" attitude of the harmony, and gets rid of the "tree without roots" of the Chinese harmony. Provides nutrients for planting the soil.
As Mr. Qian Zhongshu said in "Tan Yi Lu", "the East China Sea and the West China Sea share the same psychology", the Dong nationality's great song confirms the common "music heart" of Eastern and Western music, but it also blooms with the same brilliance.
Different from the accurate and mellow harmony singing method of Western music, the Dong nationality chorus adopts the form of no conductor, no soundtrack, and the low and the high. The formal characteristics of harmony singing also burst out with unique and abundant power.
This natural and harmonious folk chorus form is mixed with an original momentum and vitality, which has injected a fresh source into Chinese folk music.
In Xiaohuang Village, Congjiang County, men, women and children gather around the fire pond and sing the great songs of the Dong nationality.
Photo by Hu Yan issued by China News Agency
Reporter from China News Service: Why can Dong nationality songs get the aesthetic recognition of cross-ethnic, cross-border and cross-cultural?
He Songyu:
From a formal point of view, the melody, harmony performance and other musical forms of the Dong nationality's great songs reflect the common aesthetic interests of human beings.
The main melody is in the low part, and the high part is the sub-melody derived from the main melody.
The high part is usually sung by one person or two to three singers in turn, and the low part is sung by everyone. The two are combined or opposed: when the high and low voices are integrated, the yin and yang complement each other, which is harmonious and beautiful; Each has its own merits.
The unique musical form of the Dong nationality song crosses the language barrier, builds a bridge between Eastern and Western music cultures, and makes the world resonate with the beautiful melody.
From the content point of view, the great songs of the Dong nationality mainly sing about nature, labor, love and other content, reflecting the common aesthetic tendencies of human beings.
It originated from the unconscious imitation of nature, such as the harmony of nature, such as the singing of birds, the gurgling of water, and the sound of Lin Tao, into the song, which reflects the aesthetic characteristics of natural simplicity.
In addition to imitating nature, Dong nationality songs also truly reflect the production, life and interpersonal relationships of the Dong nationality.
Chernyshevsky believes that "beauty is life", and "beauty" is based on the understanding of social material life, that is, "truth".
The authentic reflection of life in the great songs of the Dong nationality provides the basis for "beauty".
The Qiandongnan Dong Choir of Guizhou Province participated in the Paris Autumn Art Festival and sang Dong songs.
Photo courtesy of Liping County Rong Media Center
From the spiritual and cultural point of view, the great songs of the Dong nationality express the moral qualities of unity, fraternity and harmony, and reflect the common aesthetic consciousness of human beings.
Songs of the Dong nationality are collective activities, reflecting the art form of communication within the collective or among different collectives. This collective representation demonstrates the group consciousness of the unity and fraternity of the Dong nationality, and is also an external expression of the aesthetics of the Dong nationality.
Since the pre-Qin period in China and the ancient Greek period in the West, philosophers have linked beauty and virtue. Confucius put forward the view of "perfect perfection" in "The Analects of Confucius", Plato in "Utopia" from "the unity of beauty and goodness" The perspective requires the combination of literary and artistic creation and moral education.
The moral qualities shown in the Dong nationality's great songs are closely related to the "beautiful" things, which are in line with the common aesthetic consciousness of human beings.
(Finish)
Interviewee Profile:
He Songyu, Ph.D., third-level professor, doctoral supervisor, director of the Department of Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages, School of Literature, Guizhou Normal University.
He is also an interviewer for the International Chinese Teacher Certificate, a member of the International Comparative Literature Society, and a visiting assistant professor at Yeongnam University in South Korea.
He has presided over the "Chinese Bridge" project with the theme of Guizhou national culture for many times, spreading Guizhou national culture for overseas youths.