The water cascades down the disk of jade ten million sounds--Appreciation of ancient poems on music (I)

The water cascades down the jade plate ten million voices

--An Appreciation of Ancient Poems on Music

Wang Chuanxue

Chinese classical music is very rich, and it has left a large number of musical works, as well as poetry and literature on music. In the poems of the Tang and Song dynasties, there are quite a few masterpieces describing music.

The zither is an ancient Chinese traditional folk musical instrument consisting of five or seven strings. Among the ancient musical instruments, the zither is the most commonly used, and the appreciation of zither music is also the most depicted music appreciation works in ancient poems.

Bai Juyi, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, has a poem "Good Listening to the Qin", which shows his love for music:

? The nature of the good silk tung, dust machine smell that is empty.

? The sound of a voice comes to the ear, all things are away from the heart.

It's a good way to get rid of illnesses, and it's a good way to raise a family.

? The first thing you need to do is to listen to the three music, and you will be comforted.

This is one of Bai Juyi's famous poems on music, which begins with the statement that the love of music ("Silk and Tong" is a nickname for the zither, which refers to music in general) is his "nature", and that with music, he can "leave everything in his heart", and that he can "leave everything in his heart", and that he can "leave everything in his mind". Everything from the heart", hear the music can forget all the troubles and sorrows of the world, especially "listen to the three music", where the poet found his own thoughts, sent their own feelings, found a trace of comfort.

The poet believes that: music can make people "peace of mind", the mind is cultivated and purified, so that the listener's heart is relaxed and happy, and sometimes can achieve "dust machine smell that is empty", "everything away from the heart! "Sometimes the listener's heart is relaxed and happy. The sound of music into the ear, sparing the five viscera, bath snow spirit, in order to transcend the dust and vulgarity, to achieve "such as listening to immortal music ear temporary bright" point. Shows the poet's high level of appreciation. Bai Juyi also believes that: when appreciating music, people's situation and mood often play an important role.

"The mood is smooth can be canceled disease, quiet and good to raise Meng." Not only affirmed the function of music, but also said that the music has the role of "dispel disease" and "eliminate disease". As early as in the pre-Qin period, people have realized that "to worry about more than music" ("tube - music"), Wei and Jin period of Jikang also said that the music "can guide to raise the spirit of gas, and declared and emotional, in the poor and alone and not bored with the people who are not close to the sound of sound." ("qin fu") East Jin Dynasty. ("Zither Fugue") Tao Yuanming of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there are "happy relatives of the words of love, music and books to eliminate worry" ("Return to the Ruoxi Rhetoric") of the famous sentence.

"Strings" as an important part of the zither, was just a kind of emotionless object, in Bai Juyi's poem "Five Strings Play", each string has a different emotion:

? The first and second strings are soothing, and the autumn wind brushes the pine with sparse rhymes.

? The third and the fourth strings are cold, as the crane remembers its son in the cage.

? The fifth string of the song is the most repressed, the water is frozen and cannot flow.

? The five strings are played together, and you can listen to them, but the sound is very clear.

? Iron strikes the coral one or two songs, the water is pouring out of the jade plate ten million sounds.

(Excerpts from Five Strings)

The poet uses a series of vivid metaphors, resonant language, and hyperbole to depict the player's skill in playing the five-stringed zither. The five strings in his hand are different: the first and second strings sound like the autumn wind, the third and fourth strings sound like the lowing of a crane in the night, and the fifth string sounds like the whimpering of a frozen stream; the five strings are played together in a mournful and resonant manner, and the killing sound and tragic atmosphere soak into the skin, and the effect is absolutely marvelous and infinite. Performers will be their own understanding of the emotions, dissolved into the "string" (music), and ultimately produced a "water lagging jade disk ten million sound" strong effect.

Li Bai, the great poet of the Tang Dynasty, had an extraordinary feeling for music. First, let's look at "Listening to Shu Joon, a monk playing the qin":

Sichuan monks hold the green qin, and go down to Emei Peak in the west.

I waved my hand for me, like listening to ten thousand ravines and pines.

The guest's heart washed the flowing water, and the remaining sound entered the frosty bell.

I don't realize that the blue mountains are in the twilight, and the autumn clouds are dark and heavy. [

This poem is about listening to the qin, listening to a monk named Joon playing the qin in Shu. The first line, "The monk held the green qi, and went west to Emei Peak." It shows that the qin master is from Sichuan Emei Mountain down. Li Bai grew up in Sichuan, the beautiful landscape of Sichuan cultivated his broad-mindedness and inspired his artistic imagination. The moon on Mount Emei appeared more than once in his poems. He was always nostalgic for his hometown, and of course he felt particularly close to the qin masters from his hometown. That is why the poem begins by stating that the zither player is from his hometown. Si Ma Xiangru, the Han Dynasty writer who played "Phoenix" for generations to come, was also a Sichuanese, so the poem begins with the association of his famous green qin, where "green qin" is used to refer to the famous qin in general. In ten short words, the musician is written in a very elegant manner, expressing the poet's admiration for him.　　The first line positively describes the monk playing the zither. The "waving hand" is the action of playing the zither. Jikang's "Zither Fugue" says: "Boya waved his hand, and Zhongqi listened to the sound." The word "waving hand" is from here. "For me a wave of the hand, such as listening to ten thousand ravines pine", these two sentences with nature's magnificent sound analogy zither sound, make people feel that the sound must be extremely powerful. The first sentence of the neck link is to say that after listening to the sound of the zither of the monk of Shu, one's heart is like being washed by running water in a generally smooth and pleasant. But it also has a deeper meaning, which contains an ancient allusion. Liezi Tangwen said: "Boya is good at playing the zither, and Zhong Ziqi is good at listening. Bo Ya drums the zither and aspires to climb high mountains, and Zhong Ziqi says: 'Good, E'e Ruoxi is like Mount Tai! The goal is to reach the flowing water, and Zhong Ziqi said: 'Good, the ocean is like a river!'" This is the allusion to "High Mountains and Flowing Water," which expresses the sense of confidantism established between the Shu monk and himself through the medium of music. The five words "the guest's heart washes the flowing water" are very subtle and natural, and although they use the allusion, they are not difficult, showing the poet's excellent language skills.　　"The remaining ringing into the frost bells" is also used in the canonical sense. "Frost bell" out of the "Mountains and Seas - Zhongshan Jing": "Fengshan ...... has nine bells, is to know the frost ringing." Guo Pu note: "Frost is the bell, so the word know." "Frost bell" two words point out the season, and the following "autumn clouds dark a few heavy" according to. The meaning of the phrase "after the music ends, the sound of the bell will continue for a long time, blending with the sound of the temple bells at dusk". There is a saying in Liezi Tangwen that "the sound of the afterglow lingers around the beams for three days". This is the imagination of the mesmerized listener who is immersed in the artistic enjoyment after the termination of the music. The same is true of the "afterglow into the frosty bells". Crisp, smooth sound of the zither gradually far away and weakened, and twilight bells *** chiming, and only then realized that it was already late in the day: "do not feel the blue mountain twilight, the autumn clouds dark a few heavy." The poet listened to the Shu monk playing the qin, raised his eyes and looked around, I do not know from when onwards, the green mountains have been covered with a layer of twilight, gray autumn clouds overlapping, covered the sky. Time flies!　　The uniqueness of this poem in describing music is that there is no other metaphor to describe the sound of the zither except "ten thousand ravines and pines". Instead, it focuses on the feelings when listening to the zither, and the exchange of feelings between the player and the listener. In fact, the phrase "like listening to ten thousand ravines and pines" is not a purely objective description, the poet from the sound of the qin associated with the sound of ten thousand ravines and pines, associated with deep valleys, is combined with his subjective feelings to write.　　 Li Bai another "moonlit night listening to Lu Zishun play the zither", lamenting the difficult to find a soulmate:

Idle night sitting in the moonlight, the ghosts play the veiled zither.

I suddenly heard the sad wind tune, like a cold pine chant.

The snow is a mess, the green water is clear.

The bells are long gone, and there is no soul mate in the world.

This poem is about listening to a man playing the zither, and uses narrative, metaphor, personification and other rhetorical devices to lament the sadness of the hard-to-find soulmate, and the words are filled with the bitter pain of the poet's life of hardships and difficulties. In the poem, "Sad Wind", "Cold Pine", "White Snow", "Green Water" are the names of ancient songs, which are meant to depict the hermit Lu Zishun's high level of art in playing the zither, and then issued the sigh of "the bell period has been gone for a long time, and there is no soulmate in the world".

"Idle night sitting in the moonlight, the ghosts play the zither" using the technique of narrative, depicting a picture of the night sitting idle, the moon in the sky, listening to the ghosts play the zither lonesome scenery, for the following "the world has no soulmate" feelings of loneliness and despair as a pad, ambush.

"Suddenly heard the sad wind tune, like a cold pine chanting" with the metaphorical technique: suddenly heard the "sad sound tune", like a "cold pine chanting", noisy dyeing the atmosphere of sadness, to deepen the sadness of the sentiment The first time I saw this, I was able to see it in my own words, and I was able to see it in my own words.

"Snow chaotic hand, green water clear heart" with anthropomorphic techniques: snow chaotic "hand", green water "clear heart" to facilitate the author to play to the fullest, in a contextualized manner, the author of the difficult to find a soul mate. The way, the author's friend is difficult to find the lonely true feelings into the poem, and then to achieve the effect of fascinating.

"The bell period has been gone for a long time, and there is no soulmate in the world", borrowing "Zhong Ziqi", "Yu Bo Ya" allusion metaphor, closely linked to the above, the beginning and the end of the echoes, so that the structure is more rigorous, expressing the poet's difficulty in finding a soulmate. The first and the last echo, make the structure more rigorous, express the poet's lonely and despondent feelings of the hard to find a soulmate.

From the writing point of view, the first written playing the piano, written in the piano music, the end of writing lament. In the writing of the piano, the poet to "Cold Pine" than the "sad wind", although the piano song than the piano song, but people can think of the inevitable connection between them from the name of the song, because the "sad" and "cold" are all cold color words, emotional color is the same, "wind" and the "wind" and "cold" are the same. The words "wind" and "pine" make people think of pine waves, and then think of the characteristics of the music. And piano music has "wind into the pine", rumored to be made by Jikang, "wind" and "pine" connected to make people think of this piano music. This can be seen in the poet's metaphor is how apt! Moreover, "the snow" chaotic hand "sentence, the poet not only to a" chaotic "word, write the characteristics of the action of the piano, and from the" snow "can also make people think of the delicate hand of the white, such a word, it is really wonderful!

The Tang poet Liu Changqing's "listening to the zither" shows the poet's feelings of solitude and self-appreciation:

The seven silks on the sound, quietly listening to the pine wind cold.

Although the ancient tune is self-love, many people today do not play.

The zither is made up of seven strings, so the first sentence to "seven strings" as the zither pronouns, the imagery is also more specific. The word "pine wind" implies the sound of the zither with the wind in the pine forest, which is very graphic and leads the reader into the realm of music. The words "listen quietly" depicts the listening to the zither's mesmerizing mood, which shows the sound of the zither is superb. The elegant and peaceful sound of the zither can often evoke a sense of serenity and solemnity in the listener's water flow on the stone and the wind under the pine. And the qin song has "wind into the pine" of the tune name, a double entendre, the intention is very wonderful.

If the first two sentences are describing the realm of music, the last two sentences are argumentative lyricism, involving the background of the music change. Han, Wei and six dynasties in the south of the Qing music still use the zither. In the Tang Dynasty, the music changed, "Yan music" became the new sound of the generation, and the instrument was mainly the pipa imported from the western region. "While the pipa began to dance to a new sound, the public's taste for music also changed. What was popular was the new music that expressed the joy of the world. Although the sound of the qin of Mu Ru Song Feng is beautiful, after all, it has become an "ancient tune", and there are not many people who can appreciate it with elegance, which reveals a sense of loneliness in the words. Although the word "although" turn, from the praise of the sound of the piano into the fashion of the sentiment. The word "more" in the phrase "today's people do not play" reflects the scarcity of people who know the qin. Some people use these two sentences to say that people nowadays tend to be fashionable and don't play the ancient tunes, which is intended to show the author's anachronism, and it is very right. Liu Changqing Qing talent champion of the world, a lifetime of two times moved to reprimand, have a belly anachronism and a kind of and commonplace fell out of harmony with the mood. His concentration of the "ghost qin" ("miscellaneous chants eight on the Ministry of Rites Li, one of the") poem said: "the moon is full of white, the sound of the qin suitable for the end of the night. Soughing of the green silk, quietly listening to the cold pine wind. Although the ancient tune is self-loved, many people today do not play it. To the gentleman to throw this song, the noble knower is difficult." Four of the lines are from this poem, which is about listening to the zither. The "difficulty of knowing one's soulmate" is also the theme of the poem. The poem is about listening to the zither, but it is just a way to send a kind of sentiment of self-appreciation.