What is folk music?

Chinese folk music refers to traditional folk music played by Chinese traditional musical instruments in the form of solo and ensemble. History of National Music China has a long history of national instrumental music. From the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, blowing sheng, hammering, drumming, percussion and playing the piano were popular among the people. At that time, Qin musicians such as Shi Juanhe appeared, as well as the famous piano music "Mountain" and "Running Water". Percussion music in Qin and Han dynasties, commercial music in Wei and Jin dynasties, pipa music in Sui and Tang dynasties, fine music and pure music in Song dynasty, top ten gongs and drums and strings in Yuan and Ming dynasties, etc. , there are various forms of performance. Modern genres and forms are the inheritance and development of traditional forms. The main repertoire of national instrumental music includes solos of various instruments and duets and ensembles of different instrument combinations. Different instrument combinations, different tracks and different playing styles have formed a variety of instrumental music. The solo music of various musical instruments is an important part of national instrumental music. Qinqu Guangling San and Meihua Sannong; Pipa song "House of Flying Daggers" and "Sunset Flute Drum"; Zheng Music "Fishing Boat Singing Late" and "Western Western jackdaw Playing in the Water"; Suona music "A Hundred Birds Facing the Phoenix" and "Open the Door"; Flute "Bangzi" and "Partridge Flying"; Erhu music "Two Springs Reflecting the Moon" and so on are all excellent solo tracks. Ensemble with pure percussion instruments such as gongs and drums, with rich timbre and strong sense of rhythm, is good at expressing warm, lively and light life interest. For example, preface to the Eight Immortals (gongs and drums in eastern Zhejiang), 18642 (beating southern Jiangsu), kite turning (Guagua Society in Shaanxi) and starling bathing (Tujia people in western Hunan). Suo Le, composed of various stringed instruments, is good at elegance, lyricism, simplicity and elegance, and is suitable for indoor performance. For example, sixteen boards (thirteen sets of strings), high mountains, flowing water (Henan Bantouqu) and so on. The combination of wind instruments and stringed instruments plays the music of silk and bamboo, and the playing style is meticulous, showing lively emotions, such as March 6, walking through the streets (bamboo in the south of the Yangtze River), rain beating banana, walking horse (Guangdong music), eight horses, plum blossom exercise (Fujian Nanyin) and so on. Percussion is composed of wind instruments and percussion instruments, with rough playing style, suitable for outdoor playing and good at expressing warm and cheerful emotions. Such as your legend (playing in southern Jiangsu), Dayuanmen (gongs and drums in eastern Zhejiang), Putian Music (advocated by Shandong) and Double Bite Goose (gongs and drums in Chaozhou). There are many kinds of percussion instruments, and stringed instruments are used in bands, so the music has the characteristics of silk and bamboo music, such as Fang (played in southern Jiangsu) and Wu (played in Fuzhou). Generally speaking, percussion music popular in the north emphasizes "blowing" and has high playing skills; The popular percussion music in the south emphasizes "beating", and gongs and drums play an important role in percussion music. Traditional national instrumental performances are mostly combined with folk customs such as weddings, funerals and celebrations, court ceremonies and religious ceremonies, and rarely take the form of pure instrumental performances. The practicality of national instrumental music makes many instrumental music tracks change because of different occasions. Traditional national instrumental music has a title, which is divided into two categories: standard name and standard meaning. The false name only gives a name to the music to show the difference between A and B, and it has no direct connection with the music content, such as Gong Shang Zhi, Si Duan Jin, Jiu Lian Huan and Ten Scenes of Gong and Drum. Symbolic titles use song titles, section titles, problem solving, etc. to express the content of music, such as running water, disarming the overlord and winning the dragon. Classification of national music According to traditional customs, national instrumental music can be divided into "solo" and "suite". Singles are mostly singles and independent tunes. The divertimento consists of several tunes or independent paragraphs. For example, North-South school pipa Daqu 13 sets and Northern Shaanxi school 8 sets. According to the types of music structure, there are mainly variations, loops, antithesis and polyphony, among which variations and antithesis are the most common. Various variation techniques are widely used in creation. Folk artists are good at decorating the melody with flowers by various playing techniques when playing a tune repeatedly, such as Welcome (flute) and Wedding Song (suona). "Slowly adding flowers" is also a common variation technique, which multiplies the structure of the "mother song" and makes it decorated with flowers. For example, Ode to Joy (Bamboo Silk in the South of the Yangtze River), Embroidered Pocket in the South (Song of Two People) and Liu Qingniang (Chorus Poetry in Chaozhou) all put the paragraph "Slow down and add flowers" before the "mother song". Another variation technique is to change the structure of the theme. For example, the theme of Erhu Opera "Two Springs Reflecting on the Moon" expands and contracts at the beginning, middle or end of a sentence in the next five variations. However, the "Voice of the Iron Policy Board" in Pipa's Spring Snow White adopts the inversion of structural order. This structural change is common in gongs and drums. Since the 1920s, Liu Tianhua and Nie Er have done some work on the inheritance and development of national instrumental music. Since the founding of New China, musicians have been sorting out, processing and adapting various excellent traditional songs, which has improved the original spirit of music and produced a large number of new works. In the aspect of musical instrument reform, great progress has been made in unifying melody, improving sound quality, expanding volume, facilitating modulation and increasing bass. New varieties such as large-scale national orchestra ensemble have been produced, and new development has been made in content and form.

[Edit this paragraph] Introduction to China's traditional music.

We can see the word "national music" in many folk music CDs. This "national music" refers to music handed down from ancient times and developed in modern times. It can be seen that the creation time of "national music" refers to ancient times; "New music" refers to music written by people who have studied western music, such as school songs. It can be seen that the creation time of new music was after 1840 Opium War. "China Music" not only refers to the music handed down from ancient times, but also refers to the music created and adapted by China people according to western theories. "China traditional music" refers to the music created by the people of China in their own ways and forms, including both ancient works produced in history and contemporary works. It can be seen that traditional music includes "national music" but not "new music", but they are all "China music". Traditional music is an extremely important part of China national music. The difference between traditional music and new music lies not in the order of music creation, but in its expression form and style characteristics. For example, Erhu solo "Two Springs Reflecting the Moon" and "Fishing Boat Singing Night" are modern music works, but their playing forms are inherent in the Chinese nation, so they are also traditional music. On the contrary, the school song and piano solo "Shepherd Boy Piccolo" are not traditional music because they borrow the musical morphological characteristics of western music.

[Edit this paragraph] New folk music

Folk songs are popular words in the late 1990s. It has its own clear meaning. Generally speaking, it is to reinterpret the original classical works of folk music, including instrumental music and vocal music, by using modern musical instruments and artistic means (such as electro-acoustic instruments, reformed national musical instruments, or traditional musical instruments combined with modern science and technology and modern vocal skills). ). There is also the use of traditional musical instruments to play works created by modern and contemporary composition techniques. Most of these works abandon the understanding of beauty and harmony in China's traditional artistic concept, and pursue the so-called color, impression, deconstruction and surrealism. In order to seek a special effect different from both modern music and classical music, it is an attempt to pursue the combination of classical and modern art forms. The new folk music mentioned at present is mainly the former. An important idea of new folk music is to pull down the sacred "art" in China people's concept from an elegant position and make it a popular product. It should be said that this has a lot to do with the influence of recent post-modern thoughts. The operation form of market economy provides a good opportunity and market for the development of new folk music. Generally speaking, new folk music is the necessity of a commodity society. Xinmin music has a strong expression of national style. However, the national frequency band lacks width in frequency response, especially in low frequency. Because each conventional national musical instrument has a strong personality, the overall sound integration of national bands is poor. Coupled with the limitations of musical instrument range and playing skills, it can not meet the growing aesthetic requirements of the audience. Xinmin music combines national instrumental music, electro-acoustic band and midi music, and adds popular orchestration techniques to complement each other. It makes the personality of folk music better displayed and actually enriches the artistic expression of folk music. However, the dazzle of folk music+pop accompaniment = Xinmin music simplifies the problem. Tradition and modernity, classicism and fashion, maintenance and development are a big topic. MIDI is short and folk music is long. The ingenious combination of the two is the direction of new folk music. 12 girl band, a popular erhu player, and Wang Xiaonan, a young man, all have many good songs. For example, Sleeve Shadow, Dancing Soul, Loulan Girl, Sunshine Shines on Tashkurgan and so on. But looking back, new folk music is sometimes not very successful. In order to cater to the market or the trend, some rhythms become incongruous with the tune itself, have no lasting appeal and sound chaotic; The adaptation of some classic tracks is a failure and very artificial. Of course, there are also many good works. In fact, my definition of new folk music is rather vague. But in my opinion, traditional folk music is relatively thin, the background is not thick, and it is not very atmospheric. The combination of western and modern music can make up for the deficiency, but it is not enough. If these things are abused excessively, the characteristics of national music can not be highlighted and appear nondescript.

[Edit this paragraph] China traditional national musical instruments.

There are many kinds of traditional Chinese musical instruments, such as Tanggu, tambourine, Taiping drum, Shu drum, elephant foot drum, cymbal, bell, chime, flute, paixiao, octagonal drum, flute, suona, sheng, sanxian, Ruan, pipa and so on. Tracing back to the earliest classification of musical instruments began in the Western Zhou Dynasty. Its classification is based on the materials of musical instruments. Master Zhou Guan * Chun Guan * wrote: "All eight tones-gold, stone, earth, leather, silk, wood, wood and bamboo." Although this classification is not completely scientific, it has occupied a traditional position for more than 3,000 years from the Zhou Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, which shows its great influence on the classification of Chinese traditional musical instruments.