Artistic characteristics of Changde Sixian

Changde Sixian music has a unique charm and touching charm with its complete structure, unique singing method, flexible and free performance form and colorful accompaniment techniques, which is enduring and deeply loved by people.

Changde Sixian's music and language, melody and mode tonality have all formed their own systems, and its theme and genre have the characteristics of typical rap music. What is more noteworthy, worth studying and studying is that its music structure is complete, its singing method is unique, its performance form is flexible and free, and its accompaniment techniques are rich and colorful, which is incomparable to many kinds of music. These factors constitute Changde Sixian's strong personality characteristics.

Music structure and singing method

Changde Sixian music has a relatively complete system, and its musical function is also unique. It has the characteristics of combining narrative and lyric, which can not only express historical stories, but also rap folk customs. Moreover, in the creation and singing, we pay attention to lyricism, especially the methods of moistening the cavity with singing, singing with words and turning rhyme into sound. While emphasizing colloquialism and rap, we also pay attention to the beauty, elegance and lyricism of melody.

(1) In the traditional Changde Sixian music, there are more than 300 kinds of tunes, most of which are based on historical stories and Han folklore. It is divided into three types: Qupai style, plate cavity and mixed style.

Qupai style, also known as Sixian, is a kind of divertimento music, which connects many qupai with complete and independent contents and reflects a theme. It is the most basic and common form of Changde Sixian singing. There are more than 100 tunes commonly used in Changde Sixian. These tunes with different contents, styles and techniques, after a long period of ups and downs and twists and turns of singing practice, fully demonstrated their respective characteristics and elegant demeanor. Some of these tunes can be combined with other tunes to sing alone, and some are only suitable for singing alone, but most of them are combined with other tunes to play a good overall function. Because several tunes with different melodies, different structures, different rhythms and even different tonality are used for singing, the expressive force of music is greatly enriched, thus achieving a more perfect artistic effect.

Banqiang, also known as banqiang Sixian, is a kind of banqiang music with the characteristics of China traditional opera music and an important part of Changde Sixian music. It has a systematic, complete and sincere singing style, and is an essential basic music for singing large-scale plays (that is, Sixian Opera). Including the old road and Sichuan road. According to the introduction of the old artists in Sixian County, the old road evolved from local folk music. Lu Chuan and Sichuan local operas are inextricably linked. Most of the old roads are deep and vigorous, magnificent and stirring; Sichuan Road is generally clear and broad, vigorous and powerful. Old Road and Sichuan Road include three basic plates: Grade I, Grade II and Grade III respectively. "First class" and "second class" are usually structured and unified, with distinct levels, melodious melody and orderly organization, which can not only describe rap, but also express feelings, and have strong expressive force and popularization; [Third-rate] is a loose plate shape with tight lines. Its rhythm is free and flexible, the melody is ups and downs, and it is good at expressing sadness, resentment and agitation.

In addition, there are hybrids. According to records, it is a new musical structure form that appeared after 1930s. It refers to a piece of music with both Qupai style and Banqiang style, or Qupai mixed with one plate, or a variety of plates mixed with one or more of time-honored brands and Sichuan Qupai. This structure is mostly used for medium and long tracks.

In Changde Sixian music, whether it is short stories, novellas or long stories, whether it is Qupai style, board cavity or mixing, it pays great attention to the structural principle of rising, leveling and falling. Its musical melody is characterized by a five-degree jump.

The sentence structure of Changde Sixian is mostly two sentences, four sentences and long and short sentences. Two-sentence style is very common in Qupai style tunes, and the basic structural principle is that the board cavity is composed of upper and lower sentences. Four-sentence style usually constitutes a musical paragraph according to the principle of continuous rotation, which is a common structural form in Qupai style tunes. The style of long and short sentences changes with the structure of decontamination sentences.

Changde Sixian has various patterns and colors. Qupai music is dominated by demand mode, business mode, palace mode and feather mode, with less angular mode. Sichuan road singing in banqiang music is mostly six-tone G quotient mode. Most of the old-school vocals are C-quotient mode.

(2) Changde Sixian sings in Changde dialect with Laogaoshan Street as the center, which is understandable not only by southerners, but also by Renye Fang North Renye Fang. Its singing method not only conforms to the aesthetic habits of the broad masses of the people, but also has its own characteristics. Changde people speak dialects like singing, especially women, with a gentle and graceful tone, like a breeze blowing on their faces. So some people say that Changde Sixian's music is language music, but language is music language. Two well-known words "Yi Er You" and "Ya Yi You" seem to have put a label on Changde Sixian, so it is easy to see where they are placed. (Example 3) Changde Sixian pays more attention to the beauty, lyricism and musicality of the melody while emphasizing colloquialism and rap, making the line cavity soft, graceful and euphemistic, or cheerful, jumping and humorous. The artist thinks that the strong pronunciation will automatically be tolerated by the listener. Artists pay attention to the pronunciation of words, and the sound turns with rhyme, making the melody more lively and dignified.

Due to dialects, artists' hobbies and interests, and the needs of plot development, different artists will sing different charms for the same tune and the same track, resulting in different works with the same tune; Even if the same tune is sung by the same artist, different intonation techniques may be used when using the cavity, and the melody changes can be obtained by moistening the cavity. Li Yucheng, a Taoyuan artist, sings like running water, sometimes smart and light, sometimes subtle and deep, and sometimes vigorous and heroic; Changde artist Dai plays and sings, and his voice is rich and powerful. Tianjin artist Huang's singing is unpretentious. Artists' different singing characteristics have gradually formed different styles and genres.

The traditional singing method of Changde Sixian attaches great importance to self-playing and self-singing, and one person has many angles. It requires an actor to have a sweet and crisp voice, plus a cavity-moistening technique suitable for the characters in the plot. By changing the tune, they can rap stories and portray various characters. According to the needs of rap and storytelling, actors should be able to enter the role at any time, that is, enter and exit, sometimes as rappers and sometimes as characters in the play. Changde Sixian is classified as a traditional opera in the book Investigation Report on Hunan Folk Music edited and published by China Conservatory of Music on 1955. It can be seen that some tracks of Changde Sixian have adopted some performance techniques of traditional operas at that time. There have always been many singers with profound singing skills in Sixian County, Changde. Through their continuous inheritance and development, Changde Sixian is catchy, easy to sing, easy to remember and easy to learn, and is deeply loved by the masses.

Performance form and accompaniment method

Changde Sixian is a kind of folk rap performance art of Han nationality, which is mainly based on singing, supplemented by speaking, and has both rap and variety. It can not only sing short and pithy tunes, but also sing large-scale tracks with plots and stories. When singing Sixian jokes, the singer is often one person with many angles, and going in and out is just a simple form of quyi; When singing a large-scale play, it is a dramatic structure (that is, a string play). Especially different from the former form, the singer has to enter the role from beginning to end, and there are as many people as there are in the repertoire. In addition, stringed paragraphs can be divided into two different forms of expression: one is lyric short paragraphs. This type generally does not pay attention to the story, but only pays attention to praise and eulogize one thing or one thing. Usually, when singing, multiple lyrics accompany the same tune, but the melody changes slightly. The other is a single paragraph of narrative. This type mainly deepens the theme with relatively complete story lines and detailed descriptions of characters, and combines several different tunes into a complete set according to the needs of different contents, artistic conception and styles, which is widely used in Changde Sixian singing.

(1) The traditional singing form of Changde Sixian is sitting singing, mostly long Sixian songs with stories and characters, and the number of singers is generally six. During the performance, we pay great attention to sitting posture. These artists include dulcimer and drum board, Gao Hu and erhu, Sanxian and Pipa. Performers should be able to play (play) and sing by themselves, one person from multiple angles, and shape various roles and rap stories with vocal cavity. If there are more roles than singers in the repertoire, everyone will play a main role and then play concurrently. Li Yucheng, an old artist in Sixian County, commonly known as "One Man, One Play", is the most famous one. She is good at playing, playing, playing, singing, and singing with her own accompaniment. Changde Sixian singing places are generally houses, halls and teahouses.

With the continuous progress of the times, people's increasing pursuit of cultural life and the continuous improvement of appreciation and identification, Changde Sixian's singing art has also been constantly reformed, matured and diversified, including solo, duet, group singing, performance singing and so on. And it was also put on the stage as a stringed opera. Since the late Qing Dynasty, artists from Sixian County have tried to hang clothes on the stage (perform in costumes). After liberation, this dramatic exploration has been strengthened. Changde and Taoyuan have produced a number of string operas, some of which participated in provincial and local drama exhibitions and won prizes, and some participated in performances of Beijing Opera Research Association. At the same time, there are special bands, no longer using actors as musicians, and the number of accompaniment instruments has also increased.

(2) The main accompaniment instrument of Changde Sixian is Huqin, whose drum is bigger than ordinary Jinghu and smaller than Erhu, and Hu Si is the main instrument in Lixian area. Sometimes, according to the needs of the program, it is also useful for Jinghu or Gao Hu.

The traditional bangu used in Sixian County of Changde is a special kind of small bangu, which looks like an inverted rice bowl and is made of a big bamboo bag. In the early 1940s, Sixian was added to the percussion music of Han dramas and dramas, and used in paper-cut music to enhance the atmosphere.

There are five basic methods for accompaniment of silk string aria: supporting cavity, wrapping cavity, lining cavity, padding cavity and adding flowers. Tuoqiang, that is, the accompaniment melody is the same as the aria, only changed in some places, and set off with a relatively fixed rhythm to highlight the aria. The accompaniment melody is basically the same as the aria, but some places require flowers on the basis of the aria melody to achieve the harmony between the two. Accessories, which need accompaniment to show the charm of singing, are colorful and do not usurp the theme, and accompaniment and singing are at arm's length. Cushion cavity, in some pauses or singing mouths of tunes, is padded with accompaniment music, which plays the role of connecting the preceding with the following and singing coherently. Accompaniment with flowers is a common skill. Accompaniment is often decorated with adjacent sounds and overtones in the process of supporting the cavity to enhance the expressive force of music.

In order to adapt to the changes of people's aesthetic psychology, hobbies and appreciation habits, Changde Sixian's band accompaniment has been innovated on the basis of tradition, and bold attempts have been made in the expansion of band organization and the techniques of mixing Chinese and western musical instruments. Since 1957, the traditional repertoire "Double Down the Mountain" of Changde Sixian has been arranged and performed, and most of the repertoires performed by professional Quyi (literature and art) groups have simple accompaniment scores. The number of musical instruments has also increased from six to more than ten, including Jinghu, Zhonghu and cello.

According to the data, in 1975, in the stage art film Flower of Popular Literature, a small Chinese and western orchestra was used to accompany Changde's string piece A Red Sun in the Chest, which consisted of dulcimer, jinghu, erhu, pipa, cello, flute, clarinet, bassoon, horn and trumpet. Since then, the accompaniment of Changde Sixian has added a lot of colors and produced new artistic effects, which has taken a key and fruitful new step in shaping the characters more completely, directly and vividly and deepening the story.

Musical form

Changde Sixian mainly sings, supplemented by spoken language, interspersed with rap. Sing both lyrical short paragraphs and long paragraphs with characters and plots. Its elegant lyrics, beautiful tunes, rich repertoire, complete structure, diverse cavity systems and catchy melody are common forms of Quyi music in mass creation and singing activities.

There are more than 100 traditional tracks in Sixian County of Changde, most of which are based on historical stories and folklore. Among them, excellent traditional songs, such as "Baoyu Crys for the Soul", "Drunkenness Beats the Mountain Gate", "Double Down the Mountain", "Wang Po Curses Chicken" and "Zhaojun goes out to the fortress", have been deeply loved by the masses. After the founding of New China, a number of new tracks reflecting real life emerged, such as Many New Things, Kua Huolang, Visiting Family in the Snow, etc., which were widely sung all over the country. Since 1980s, Changde Sixian has been revived. For example, Melody in Melon, Hanging a Gold Tablet, Qiaopo Going to College and other tracks won the national "Stars Award" gold medal, and Lan Zhi Yayun and other tracks went to Malaysia to perform, which was deeply loved by overseas friends. Changde Sixian has produced a wide range of social influences at home and abroad, with high cultural and artistic value and social practical value.

Changde Sixian has unique local characteristics and local flavor, and its unique musical style, aria and performance form are of great protection value. However, due to the lack of professional performing groups and the death of the older generation of stringed artists, more than 100 songs have been lost and are on the verge of extinction.

The protection of the excellent traditional repertoire of Changde Sixian has attracted great attention from relevant departments. Changde Municipal Party Committee, Municipal Government and Municipal Cultural Bureau have held special meetings for many times, formulated practical rescue and protection measures, and are organizing their implementation.