The Decline of Guqin Music

The Decline of Guqin Music

The qin, also known as the guqin and the seven-stringed zither, is one of the oldest musical instruments in China. There are legends that Fuxi made the zither and Shennong made it, and it was very popular in the Zhou Dynasty more than three thousand years ago. It is mentioned many times in the Book of Songs: "My fair lady, the qin and the qin are friends", "I have a guest, the qin and the qin", "the qin and the qin are in the royal court, and there is nothing that is not quiet and good". The qin in ancient Chinese music occupies a very important position, the ancients believe: "the qin, the music of the unity also". Oracle bone "music" word written "music", that is, the strings on the wood of the hieroglyphic, in fact, is to refer to the zither class musical instruments. Not only that, since the time of Confucius, the qin has been vigorously advocated as a mandatory course of study for the literati, to the extent that there is "no reason not to withdraw the qin and sepals of the scholar," said. Further, it is believed that the qin can also improve the moral cultivation while improving the musical cultivation, and the main role is also in the latter, the so-called "qin, forbidding also, forbidding in the evil in order to correct the human heart also", "the qin for the thing, is the saint's sound of the rule of the world, the gentleman to maintain the repair of the thing". Ancient emperors and officials, sages and scholars, literati, monks and nuns, and so on, are not short of those who are good at drumming the qin, such as Confucius, Jikang, Wang Wei, Su Shi, Ouyang Xiu and so on. After more than 3,000 years of development, guqin music has formed a complete and more scientific system in theory, composition, performance, appreciation and other aspects, becoming the most important part of Chinese traditional music and having a great influence on all aspects of Chinese music. The music theory of guqin is based on the music theory developed in the Zhou and Qin Dynasties. The aesthetic realm it pursues is "clear and quiet, and moist and far away", "beautiful but not colorful, sad but not hurt". It has the entertainment function of "drumming the qin is enough for self-entertainment" (Zhuangzi - Let the King), and the social function of "understanding morality, sensing ghosts and gods, and beautifying styles" (Han - Liu Xiang, "The Qin"). Tang Xue Yijian summarized the music of the guqin as "a way to view the wind and religion, to take in the heart and soul, to discern joy and anger, to please the emotions and thoughts, and to calm the mind; it can strengthen the courage and bravery, and it can eliminate the dust and vulgarity, and it can frame the ghosts and gods". "The aspirants play, sound rhyme are some of the main also". JI Kang of the Wei and Jin dynasties made the "Zither Fugue" to praise the wonderful music of the guqin, "Contemplating the beautiful, what perversion of the infinite", "solemn zither virtue, not measurable Ruoxi, the body is clear and the heart is far away, far away from the extreme!" In the thousand years since then, the aesthetic theory of guqin music has continued to develop and enrich, and many specific discussions have been made on the art of performance and creative thinking, but there has been no transcendence in principle. In terms of creation, guqin music is extremely rich, and its subject matter touches on almost every aspect of social life. There are more than 150 kinds of zither books and zither scores*** in existence; the total number of zither songs with different titles is more than 700, and the total number is more than 3,000 if the zither songs with the same name and different versions are included. What a rich cultural heritage. In it, there are "Guangling San", "Su Wu Si Jun" and "Zheng Qi Ge" which extol heroic struggle and national integrity; "Xiaoxiang Shuiyun" which is full of patriotic passion; "Shanju Yin", "Woodcutter's Song" and "Fisherman's Song" which describe the opposition to foreign invasions and the hermit's life in the mountains and fields; "Wine Mania", "Peach Orchard Yin" and "The Rhetoric of Returning to the World" which are cynical and feign madness in order to make clear the will of the world; and "Zhaorun Out of the Blockade", "Zhaojun Out of the Blockade" and "The Rhymes of Returning to the World" which sympathize with or glorify the ancient outstanding females. Zhaojun Out of the Frontiers", "Autumn Moon in the Han Palace", "Eighteen Pieces of Barbarian Barbarian Pipe"; there are also "High Mountains and Flowing Water", "Flat Sand and Falling Wild Geese" and "White Snow in Yangchun", which glorify the motherland's great rivers and mountains. These songs are of great significance to our study of ancient music, literature, history, philosophy and social life.

Since the Tang Dynasty, the guqin music has been gradually neglected, and on the surface, it seems to continue, but in fact, it has retreated to the circle of the feudal literati, and has become an art in the "ivory tower". From some Tang poems, we can see that the art of qin music had already distanced itself from other popular folk instrumental music. "It is not as skillful as the sheng-yu, and it is as pleasant to the ear as the ballad of Zheng Wei" (Li Shanfu's "Gift to the Qin-playing Li"), and "If the sound of the qin is similar to the sound of the pipa, it should have been bought with the people of the time for a long time" (Zhao Bo's "Song of the Qin"). The reason for this phenomenon, first of all, some of the piano people hold on to the remnants of the mud of the ancient not to change, "only play the piano home still spread the old sound of the Chu Han" (New Tang Dynasty - Rituals and Music Zhi), indulging in the ancient tune, refused to accept new things. "Although the ancient tune of self-love, today's people do not play" (Liu Changqing "listening to play the qin"), "the ancient sound is tasteless, does not say that today's human feelings", so that there is "jade emblem colorful, Zhu string dust born" phenomenon. Not only that, some literati will be the piano music and general music isolation, antagonism, as a way to boast their own "noble" and ordinary people's "ignorance", "played by the non-new sound, the common ear Anken hear! (Sima Za, "Playing the Qin"). Secondly, after Song and Yuan, the feudal literati, in order to improve the status of guqin and make it further detached from the people, engaged in retrogression under the banner of respecting the ancient, created some works for the ruler to sing praises and propaganda of feudal ethical thinking, such as "Taiping Zuo", "Qingjing Jing", "Kong Bible", "Song of Filial Piety", "Daming Yitong", "Zhonghe Ging", "Zong Ya Cultivation", "Si Shun", etc., which is more and more far away from the reality of life and not to speak of the breath of the times. talk about the atmosphere of the times. Thirdly, they do not respect the artistic law of guqin music itself, and compose some prose texts that are not suitable for singing, such as "The Former Master's Table", "The Former Master's Table", "The Table of Chen Emotions", "The Chapters and Verse of the University", and "The Inscription of Ugly Rooms", etc., into guqin songs and tunes. Where these, are greatly hindered the forward development of the art of the guqin.