Listening to Erhu in China Music Class

Continue to attend classes and study in a strong country in the afternoon. Teacher Ching Tien can speak erhu. The lecture notes are as follows.

Erhu is the most familiar and representative national musical instrument.

Before the Ming and Qing Dynasties, erhu was basically an accompaniment instrument for northern folk operas, which spread in the south. Only in modern times did it develop, and its development was related to Taoism.

The development of erhu is related to flowers and poplars.

Hua, also known as Taoists, Wuxi people, folk musicians. He can play and sing all kinds of things.

Yang is a famous music historian and educator in China, the founder of Chinese ethnomusicology and the pioneer in the field of religious music research.

When Mr. Yang was a child, he met Hua once and studied together. Before going to college, Mr. Yang met St. Louis, an American Christian missionary. Mr. Yang studied Taoist folk music, Kunqu opera, piano, composition, harmony and Chinese-foreign exchanges with American missionaries.

1950, Mr. Yang married Hua, which was a very important result in the history of modern music. 1950 During the summer vacation, Mr. Yang and Mr. Cao Anhe came to Wuxi from Beijing to visit Mr. Hua, who had taught him. At this time, Hua was called blind.

After middle-aged blindness, he lost the Hall of Lei Zun, and A Bing became a beggar begging along the street. No matter whether it is sunny or rainy, there will always be the sound of blind people honking their horns on the slate on the street with bamboo poles. Then you will hear a melodious erhu sound. In the second half of A Bing's life, in addition to the hardships of life, there are also his efforts and his feelings for home and country. He will quickly turn the current events he hears every day into the morning news sung by folk tunes.

1950 A Bing hasn't played musical instruments for several years. He is poor and ill. Only one rural woman, Dong Caidi, accompanied him and acted as his crutch. Dong Caidi said that a few years ago, A Bing's erhu drum skin was chewed by rats. A Bing felt that God had prevented him from playing musical instruments. So I changed the pipa and erhu.

1950 Mr. Yang and Mr. Cao Anhe came from Beijing with a wire recorder made in Germany, which was a very precious and advanced machine at that time. These belts are all made of steel wire. They came from Beijing to record for A Bing.

They found the musician who had been buried among the people for many years, and borrowed an erhu and a pipa from a music shop to A Bing. A Bing hasn't played a musical instrument for three years and doesn't even need to practice. Just pick it up and play. The first piece he played was the representative piece of today's national music "Two Springs Reflecting the Moon". When the song ended, Mr. Yang asked the title of the song, but A Bing said there was no name. So they discussed the title of the song. In fact, the title of the song has nothing to do with Wuxi Er Quan or the moon that has seen all the sufferings on earth in the sky. This piece of music comes from A Bing's heart and is a portrayal of A Bing's personal life. This piece of music he created never imagined that it would be recorded by such a machine one day, let alone become a representative work of national music a hundred years later.

In 1970s, the famous conductor Seiji Ozawa visited the Central Conservatory of Music. A few days later, a Japanese journalist wrote a report about the reaction of the famous conductor Seiji Ozawa after listening to this piece of music. It is said that Seiji Ozawa covered his eyes with his hand, because tears stayed. Ozawa said: You should listen to this music on your knees. This is an emotion that combines sacredness, solemnity and admiration.

Unfortunately, Mr. Yang brought too few steel belts at that time, and only recorded six songs for Mr. Yang, including three Erhu songs. The most regrettable thing is that after playing a few songs, I found a feeling, and so did Teacher Yang, so they played together in music, a kind of folk music and folk improvisation. It is to have an old six-board play together, echoing each other in the middle and improvising what you are best at. The performance was wonderful and everyone present was amazed. Unfortunately, there are not enough steel tape measures to keep them. This is an irreparable regret in the history of music.

Mr Yang and A Bing agreed to record again next year, and asked A Bing to stay and practice his instrument. How many songs are there in A Bing's belly like two springs reflecting the moon? According to himself, there are about 300 songs. If "The City of Three Hundred" can be passed down to this day, what a treasure house of music it will be. Unfortunately, A Bing was very ill at that time, and three months later, A Bing passed away.

Such a poor folk musician, or beggar, has no other occupation and relies on playing erhu and begging for a living. From ancient times to the present, I don't know how many folk musicians like A Bing grew up like weeds, and were lucky enough to see the sunshine and rain, and then died. Their music is like a gust of wind. Their music has given many people in this world artistic enjoyment and comforted many hearts that are as painful as him. Such a humble existence can't leave words in history, let alone sound.

Relatively speaking, A Bing said, fortunately, this machine recorded the eternal swan song of blind A Bing. Today, we are fortunate to enjoy A Bing's music. What we should remember is not such a machine, but a musician with a sense of mission like Mr. Yang.

Liu Tianhua (Liu Bannong's younger brother) later applied the playing techniques of violin, guqin and other musical instruments to the erhu, which made the erhu get greater development and gradually went to the world.