Characteristics of Cantonese Opera

The traditional scale is a seven-tone one, with the intervals of the seven neighboring tones being roughly the same, without the difference between whole tones and half tones.

The general public mistakenly thinks that the seven-tone scale is Fa and Si, which is between Mi-So and La-Do (neutral scale), and most people even think that the phenomenon of Fa not Fa and Si not Si is due to the simplicity and inadmissibility of the instrument production.

Modern ethnomusicologists, as a result of their research, have recognized that this is a completely different legal system from the Western and even the traditional Chinese three-part loss and gain law, which is a self-contained system, and has therefore given rise to a number of tunes that cannot be replaced by Western scales, such as the B antiphon of the Cantonese Opera, the heavy six tones of the Chiu Chow music, the living five tones, the soft line of the Hakka Han music, the crying voice of the Qin opera, and the Northwest Bowl accent.

This kind of system, there is no chromatic. The intervals are as follows:

DoReMiFaSoLaSiDo

One One

One Thirty-Five Sixty-Eight Two

Eight Sixty-Six Two Nine Seventy-Three Zero

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Five 0 0

Partitioning

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/p>

One One One One One

Eight, eight, six, six, eight, six, six

0, 0, 5, 5, 0, 5, 5, 5

Score, score, score, score

From the above table, we can see that the scales of the Seven Rhythms, except for Fa, are all lower than those of the Western scales, and it is not just that Fa is a little bit higher, and Si is a little bit lower, and it is not as simple as that.

The most important connection between Cantonese opera and the seven melodies is the B Fan tune. The most famous example is [Zhaogun's Complaint].

[Zhaogun's Complaint] The first line of the original tune reads:

| 2 2 |4 245| 5 - |

-- ====

It is exactly the same as Zhaogun's Complaint, a heavy six-tone of the Teochew Ten Great String Poetry Music. See the following table:

| 212 |4 2 1 | 561 |

---- ----- . ----

Recently, Si has been translated as bSi, and the B antiphon is regarded as a transposed notation of the transposition, notated as

| 3 3 | 5 3 56 | 6 - |

-- ==== .

In fact, a few of the binary inversions are indeed transpositions, but most of the binary inversions are really scale shifts, as in the Western major and minor scale shifts.

The Western key of C major to C minor, to drop Si, drop Mi, drop La, and borrow the key sign of bE major. But the first key of C minor and bE major are different. (It is wrong to translate the Western C minor as La mode and translate it as the dominant =la.)

Chinese pentatonic scale system, to turn the lower two degrees of the key to #Mi, #La. just with the B countertone does not use Mi, La, instead of Fa, (#Mi), Si (#La = bSi) coincides with the situation with the Western modal transfer borrowed from the transposition of the key high, can not be identified as a certain transposition of the key high. The Cantonese opera "Lianhuan Buckle" has a B reverse line, and the B reverse line is especially clear.

B reverse line

(7171 2 2 2 2 04 24 24 5)

==== ----

B reverse line

(6161 2 2 2 2 03 13 23 5),

==== ----

This kind of transposition of the same tune in different scales is especially prevalent in Nanyin rap. is particularly prevalent.

If you use a traditional instrument, the two scores of [Zhaojun's Complaint] are not very different, but if you use a western instrument, you will not be able to play the original flavor of the B antiphon. The left index finger should be pressed in Si-Fa, called the empty finger.

The characteristics of Guangdong Xiaoqu, in addition to the above mentioned melodies and tunes, originated from the Cantonese Opera singing. Around the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, there was the Banyin Class, a group of Cantonese opera singers, who used Cantonese opera scripts, Cantonese opera tunes, and Cantonese opera's "official language of the opera house" to sing in different roles. Later on, there were blind female entertainers who traveled through the streets and alleys singing, and they were called "goze girls" and "shi niang". Each of them had to master the singing voices of different characters, and each of them sang multiple characters, which was a new development in their singing skills compared with the "Hachiban" (eight-voice class). This kind of singing prevailed for more than 60 years, which is called the "Shi Niang Period" in the history of Cantonese opera. They mainly sang the "Eight Famous Songs", such as "The Meeting of Thyme Xi's Wife", "The Burial of Flowers by Daiyu" and "Abandoning Chu and Returning to Han". After the Republic of China, women with bright eyes gradually appeared in teahouses singing Cantonese opera, and people called them "actresses". They changed the "official language of the opera house" to Guangzhou dialect, changed their fake voices to real voices, and divided into three singing styles, namely, big throat, flat throat (which was exclusively for male actors), and sub-throat (which was exclusively for female actors), and the Cantonese opera entered its heyday, which was called the "period of the divas".

Modern Guangdong has the least historical baggage and the greatest plasticity for free development. It is also located in the ports of commerce with foreign countries, and has the earliest contact with foreign cultures, and has been influenced and inspired by Western cultures.

The yangqin, a foreign musical instrument, was first introduced by Guangdong and successfully utilized in Cantonese music. Guangdong music was the earliest to adopt the bamboo method of the qin to notate the difference between

thirty-second notes and syncopation, front and back notes, and later the earliest to use simple scores, and the earliest to publish a collection of tunes signed with the composer's name, accompanied by an introduction of the instrument and the method of playing, and the Western theory of music. The earliest use of wire strings, the use of high positions and finger-sliding method. The earliest successful compositions using techniques such as halfway transposition and dark transposition. From comparing the collection of scores published in the early days, it can be found that within a short period of ten years, there are great differences in the performance of the same score, which is a phenomenon of evolution unique to Cantonese Opera. Cantonese Opera is also the only traditional music genre that is constantly being created. The modernization and socialization of the themes of the repertoire also fully demonstrates the prosperity of this music genre. Although modern scholars do not always agree with this direction, they cannot deny the existence of this fact.

Of all the traditional folk music, Cantonese opera is the only one whose authors can be identified and which has spread to all the provinces of China. In the early years of the Republic of China, a repertoire of about 500 pieces was produced in just twenty years. The hard bow system was quickly changed to a soft bow system. Twelve instruments were added, and even Western instruments were added. Compared with the Kunqu and Nanpipe, where the instrumentation, organization, notation, and repertoire had been stagnant for a long time, it was a refreshing change.

These evolutionary factors have contributed to its success.

Secondly, the influence of the West and the westernization of Cantonese opera is also a very obvious characteristic. Cantonese Opera has used western instruments such as violins, saxophones, amplified guitars, xylophones, trumpets, jazz drums, pianos, and so on, as mentioned above. Cantonese opera also adopts Western compositional techniques such as triple meter and dance rhythms, modal progression, melody, tonal progression and arpeggio progression. The notation method also completely absorbed the terms and symbols of western music. It can be said to be the music genre with the greatest influence from the West.

The earliest commercialization of Cantonese opera, and the most suitable commercialization has continued up to this time and place:

Cantonese opera records were firstly used for dubbing of silent movies. This stimulated record publishing and the establishment of professional bands. It led to the creation of musical compositions and the emergence of professional composers and performers. Dance clubs were also able to use it as dance music. Until today, in Taiwan, the Chinese bands in dance halls, restaurants, and tea houses are still mainly composed of Western qin and Cantonese songs.

Guangdong Xiaoqu's range is wider (can jump), speed can be faster, the melody is more dense (plus flowers), and a variety of styles (composers), the slow glissando playing method is a delicate expression, a variety of techniques can be soft and rigid. In addition, it has a wide range of plasticity and adaptability, and can be used to play ballads, pop songs, and dance music. It is hard to imagine the Nankan and Pinto bands playing popular and entertaining music. However, Cantonese operatic music, which is so beautiful and smooth and pleasant to the ear, is very familiar to the general public. The general public is also familiar with them.

All in all, Cantonese opera is an extremely progressive, westernized, and commercialized form of music.

In terms of technique, the glissandos and flurries of Cantonese Opera are something that everyone can enjoy and talk about.

The Gaohu was first played by Lv Wencheng when he changed the steel strings and set the height of five degrees to match the rhythm of the human voice, that is, he used the method of clamping the zither in order to play the high handles and change the handles. In addition to the front glissandi of other music types, such as the note and the nick, the back glissandi, such as the belt and the belt up, and even the big glissandi, are used when jumping in. The same note is repeated with a rotary glissando. The small third is often used in both the sound of the slide method (with the Jiangnan silk bamboo only in the treble slide, or only in the bass with the pad finger slide sound different), called the wipe play method.

Jiangnan silk and bamboo flowers, both the embellishment of the tune, especially good at the development of the tune. To have [five generations of the same hall] and other [eight boards] system of song examples.

But if you study the history of Cantonese Opera in depth, you can easily collect the sources of some of the famous songs and the scores of the songs passed down during different periods of time, so that you can know the process of their development in terms of addition of flowers and melody. In particular, after analyzing the process of Yan Laolie's four famous compositions - Chain Buckle, Spring, Inverted Curtain, and Dry Heavenly Thunder - we have to admit that the development of the addition of flowers, whether in terms of embellishment of the tunes or the development of the tunes, is considerable and not inferior to that of the Jiangnan Silk and Bamboo.

1, the Cantonese opera commonly used three boards to start the sound, before the sound of the clapper first played two boards to set the speed, which is called in the ting start, different from the first beat to start the sound of the Qikou board. The leading hand can be half a beat after the second beat, plus flower introduction, called the head.

The lead can be from one to four notes, usually two. These two tones are carried out in a scale with the starting tone, and with the addition of an auxiliary tone they become a tetrad, so that there are often two identical tones in the tetrad. For example:

|0 0 32 12 32|=|0 03532 12 32|

--==---- --- ====----

2, the long beat plus flowers changed to homophonic repetition or octave interspersed. The long wheel is used less, and the weak beat and short note of the belt wheel (single bamboo wheel)

|| 5 3 3 3 3 6 1 |=| 5555 3 3333 3 6 1 |

-- --- --- ==== --- ==== ---

3, between the two jumps into the sound, can be added to the middle of the meso tone, to add a sense of smoothness. Conversely between the two neighboring tones can be added to the outer tone, to increase the sense of jumping.

. . . ...

| 1-31 | 7 = |1 7 6 5 3 56 12|7

---- --- --== ----

4. A sparse melody can be made dense by adding the tonic dominant on the weak beat, which is called a seated melody.

6535|5 55 27 27 27 6 |5

------------

= 6535|5555 5525 7525 7565|5

======== ==== ==== ====

5. If the two beats before and after have the same tone, or if they are in a tonic progression, the strong beat The tone can appear once more on the weak beat, called the double holding tone. If a tone is the same on the first two beats, or if it is in a scale, the strong beat can appear again on the weak beat, which is called a double hold.

Double hold |0 0 32 1 23 5 |=|0 0 32 1 2 1235|

--== ------ --== --== --- ====

Single hold |0 0 32 1 23 5 |=|0 0 32 1 12 3 35|

--== ------ --== --== --==

--== ------ --== --== --==

6. Doubling a two-note beat and playing it twice over is called doubling.

| 00 321 23 5 |= |0 0 32 12123 5 |

--== ------ --== ==== --== --==

7. To insert a neighboring tone in the opposite line before playing the current type of tone to increase the downward momentum is called a consonant. This is the Chinese music grammar that prevails throughout the country.

| 00 321 63 5 |= | 00 32 1216 3235 |

--==------ --== ==== ====

8. Replacing homophonic repetitions with a scale progression is a bolder and more daring way of playing the addition of flowers.

|| 67654 350 |= |6765 4 356150 |

==== ---- ==== ---- ====

9. Long beats are added to the passing gate.

|216 2 12 3|

|61|2 - - - |5= |2 - 3-|= |2. 1 2 3| | 2. 12316 2123 |

10, after the short beat, you can use one hand with the wheel to join the next tone's neighbor.

|0 0 321 6 3 5 |= |00 321 6. 23 5|

--==---- --- --==- ====---

11, after the beat of the tone, can be used before the beat of the holding tone playing, constitute the beat of the doubling of the transformation, which is the customary use of the Cantonese Opera

3

|0 352 20 35 |= | 0 3522232 35 ||0 3522232 35 0 3522232 35 ||

--==------ --==----==-==

12, a tone into two or more, there are more changes, just to name a few:

6 5=61 56=6561 5356 6 1=65 61=6156 1761

5 6=51 65=5617 6765 2 3=21 23=2313 2123

Finally, we come to the repertoire of Cantonese opera. Gao Houyong, in his Introduction to Ethnic Instrumental Music, categorizes the repertoire of Cantonese opera as narrative scenery and narrative emotion. In fact, all local music repertoire,

if divided by the title of the piece, can be differentiated into scenery and emotion. This is the same as will be, fine, small, elegant said Jiangnan silk bamboo characteristics, is not extended.

In the music of silk and bamboo, Guangdong Xiaoqu is the most widely circulated type of music. Because of the melodious tunes, skillful, and varied repertoire, the novelty of the creation is a credit. In addition, the commercialization of the early Republic of China led to the emergence of professional bands and musicians, and encouraged the creation and improvement of musical instruments and publishing, which further contributed to the circulation of Cantonese operas.

The above summary can be summarized by the word "evolution". It is said that Cantonese opera has evolved because of this. For example:

˙Cantonese opera was formed in the period closest to the modern era.

˙The range of Cantonese operas is wider (with big jumps), the speed can be faster, and the melody is denser (with flowers), which is also more in line with the modern people's preferences

˙The contemporary and socialized themes of the repertoire also fully express the vitality of this kind of music, and its entertaining and commercialization ability is also the strongest

˙The origin of the music and the process of its variations, and even the style of its creation, are all examples of music that can be analysed and compared.

Guangdong had the earliest contact with the West, and its music was influenced by the West: for example, the importation of the Western zither, the introduction of the Gaohu, the adoption of violin strings, stringing method, playing method (folder, high handles, vibrato), and even the addition of guitars, saxophones, and other more complex and traditionally unavailable syncopated and triple meter, and the earliest adoption of the Western simple notation method. Western compositional methods such as transposition, modal progression, tonal progression, and arpeggio progression were adopted.

The first traditional music composition in modern times was published at that time, and it became a trend that the composers were not found in any traditional music genre.