Appreciation of Huang Haibei's Prose Qin Xin Ji You

It's April on earth again-my "piano student" started from this April of wheat straw.

Life is a hundred years, but 36,000 days and nights. Before I met Guqin, I never thought that there would be other fates besides 36,000 cycles. It was not until I met Guqin that I gradually realized that there is a "piano student" outside of life-an existence that makes "life" more fulfilling and comfortable.

The Buddha said that all actions are impermanent and all leaks are bitter. But why is this life full of many "hardships" still desired and attached by people? Perhaps it is because of the unknowability of life. Unknown is the greatest charm of life, the existence that can bear the most expectations, dreams, experiences, values and meanings, and the place that can bring great mystery and happiness. For example, I met Guqin in the middle of my life journey. At the age of 30, I have lost my crazy curiosity and * * *. For life, I am more "used" and "numb". However, the appearance of guqin made me feel like, like drinking sweet plum, and the sound of gujing and elegant seemed to wash away all my senses in an instant and pointed directly at my heart. I regained my "curious" nature and sprouted the idea of exploring.

When I met Guqin, I met a good teacher-Master Rushan. Rushan, a Korean monk, grew up in a temple. At the age of 30, I went to Fu Jen Catholic University in China and got in touch with Guqin. Later, because of Guqin, he came to Chinese mainland, was admitted as a doctoral student in the Philosophy Department of Peking University, visited famous Guqin schools all over the world, and devoted himself to Guqin art for 20 years. Learning piano from a teacher with such a "legendary" experience has increased my curiosity about guqin and piano players, and my "piano life" has also begun.

Guqin is one of the oldest plucked instruments in the Chinese nation, and it is full of rich cultural elements only in its shape. "Shangshu" contains: "Shun plays banjo, sings poems in the south, and governs the world." It can be seen that it has a connotation beyond ordinary musical instruments and is called "Daoqi". No matter Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, they all have their own unique Qin Tao, and they all pursue the harmonious way of "harmony between man and nature".

Guqin, because of its natural sound, is thought-provoking and conforms to the aesthetic taste of China traditional culture. It ranks first among the "Four Exquisites of Chyi Chin Painting and Calligraphy" and has the reputation of "the crown of Qinde". Fathers and men of letters are practitioners and disseminators of China culture. Guqin, as a personalized "string song" in their hands, is the carrier for them to express their spiritual feelings. Therefore, Qin music, also known as "literati music", is the profound sustenance of China literati's ideals, morality, sentiment, interest and feelings.

Your seven strings are like that voice, more than these grand narratives? In my little piano student, I don't know how many wonderful things I have learned from this star and moon treasure, and I have benefited a lot:

Guqin seems to have the magic of reversing time, so that I always know the scenery of the Millennium, singing and crying;

Guqin, with the ability to move around Gankun, allows me to gallop freely, enjoy the spring flowers and autumn moon, and face the mountains, rivers, lakes and seas;

Because of Qin, I have made many mentors and friends;

Also because of the piano, I regained my original heart and got it all the way.

"The flowers are not in full bloom and the moon is not round", I want to take this opportunity to win the realm, and I am full of expectations and wishes for the future piano students.

If you have something to send, write down the story of Qin and me and encourage them with your bosom friend.

First meeting

I have seen the guqin.

I saw guqin on TV and in books a long time ago. In my impression, guqin is like a black-and-white photo, lifeless and emotionless. Guqin, like erhu and violin, is nothing more than a musical instrument.

I really "met" Guqin at my aunt's house.

My aunt is a well-educated and versatile intellectual woman. She graduated from Waseda University, Japan, specializing in the history of oriental art. Now she is a professor in the Fine Arts Department of a university in Beijing and a doctoral supervisor in historical archaeology. He has long devoted himself to the theoretical research and practice of art history, art appreciation and China opera.

As early as 1980, my aunt joined the Beijing Kunqu Opera Research Association, and the president at that time was Mr. Yu Pingbo, a famous writer, poet and red scientist. My aunt has studied Kunqu Opera for many years under a group of old gentlemen such as Zhou Quan 'an, Ma Xianglin and Wang Chuanxiang. Since then, she has been promoted to the chairman of the learning society by her colleagues. In her spare time, my aunt will "vote" for Du Liniang in The Peony Pavilion. Her appearance, figure and singing skills are all authentic. When I watch her perform on the stage, I am often in a trance. I don't know which is true, Du Liniang in this "beautiful moment" or menstruation intoxicated with "pleasure".

My aunt has been learning guqin. The first time I saw her practicing piano in the study was unforgettable. She burns incense and cleans her hands. Sitting in front of the desk, with a flick of your right finger, the sound of the piano is warm and mellow, bright and clear, and ancient and ethereal, as if you caught a glimpse. Just a song. She woke up, but I was still immersed in fantasy.

I pestered my aunt to learn guqin from her. My aunt said that if you want to learn, you must learn from others.

I don't know what the "master" she said would look like. I'm looking forward to seeing him as soon as possible.

On a winter afternoon in Wu Zixu, my aunt and I drove away from the noisy city to an old residential building in Wenquan Town, a suburb of Beijing, where the Guqin class of Peking University Jingkun Guqin College (referred to as Guoyiyuan) was held.

Ordinary three rooms and two halls, one of which is arranged as a teahouse, where three or five people sit together and have tea and chat. My aunt greeted one of the middle-aged men and told me in a low voice: This is the Rushan master who taught us guqin and the chief pianist of Guoyiyuan.

Oh, that's what my aunt said. I quietly caught a glimpse of Master Rushan. He is about fifty years old, wearing a coarse coat, and looks safe and gentle. Before I could say hello, Master nodded to us.

The students arrived one after another and started classes.

Next door is a classroom less than 20 square meters. There are seven piano stands and seven guqin in the room. The first one naturally belongs to master. My aunt and six other students, plus Master, all seven of them were seated. I, a free man, also found a chair and sat in the corner.

The piano music I learned this day is "High Mountain". Master didn't teach the piano first, but talked about the classics of "high mountains and flowing water" first. I know this story, but listening to Master's explanation at this time is completely different-

Liezi Shangwen said that Yu Boya and Zhong Ziqi were Chu people in the Spring and Autumn Period, and Boya was good at playing the piano, so he would appreciate it in the early stage. Once upon a time, Boya played the piano for the first time. When he played a tune describing the mountains, Zhong Ziqi heard great praise: "OK, I am as tall as Mount Tai!" " Boya turned to play the music describing flowing water, and praised it in the second issue:' Good, like a river!' Boya can't help sighing again and again:' bosom friend, bosom friend! The two became brothers and met again next year. The story of' bosom friend' comes from this. "

Making friends with Qin is the most famous allusion in the history of Qin. But this is really fate. When I first came into contact with Guqin, I heard this famous song.

When Master Rushan played "Mountain", the audience was fascinated.

The mountaineers are broad, powerful, powerful and profound ... I listened attentively, trying to hear the charm of "I am as high as Mount Tai" from the flowing piano music directed by Master, but the "mountain" is really dreamy and vague in front of me, which is difficult to capture. ...

After the snow outside the window of Chu Qing, the white world is more exquisite, and the sunshine flows to the bottom of my heart with the sound of the piano, as if it can iron out the wrinkles of the years bit by bit. It suddenly occurred to me that there was a guqin song called Snow White, and I wanted to ask Master to play it, but I was afraid to speak.

"Snow White" and "Yangchun" are lofty and unhappy, which has made people stay away from them since ancient times. I'm just looking forward to enjoying such ancient music. The idea of learning guqin is precisely because of this "coincidence".

Aunt said that Guoyiyuan was a folk art institution founded in 2003 by Mr. Lou Yulie, a professor of philosophy at Peking University. For more than ten years, we have persistently carried out rescue, protection, inheritance and research on Kunqu Opera and Guqin, the two representative works of oral and intangible heritage of mankind, and held seminars and learning activities on a regular basis.

After leaving the National Art Garden, the rich and warm piano sound still echoes in my ears.

My aunt said to me, "Do you know that Master Rushan is a Korean monk and graduated from the Philosophy Department of Peking University?"

Korea.

Monks.

Doctor of Philosophy, Peking University.

I am full of curiosity about this mountain master who is going to be my Guqin teacher!

spring

"The willows blow in the wind and the grass is cut in the rain."

Another new class in Guoyiyuan has started. As a beginner, I formally studied piano with Master Rushan.

"If there is a sound on the piano, why not ring it in the box? If the sound is on your fingers, why not listen to it on your fingers? " For example, Master Rushan quoted Su Shi's poem "Qin Shi" as the opening remarks, explaining the mystery of Qin music for us, and our journey of Qin learning began in a philosophical and poetic atmosphere.

Master plucked the strings with his fingers, and the guqin made a clear and elegant sound, making the podium clear. He went on to say that it takes too many causes and combinations for a piano to fall into the ear-the creation of guqin can be traced back to the ancient times of Fuxi, Shennong, Tang Yao and Huangdi. The foundation and inspiration of the sage's piano-making comes from the nature of the universe and human beings themselves. The five strings of the piano symbolize the five elements of gold, wood, water, fire and earth; Now, Wen and Wu join to become a lyre. The piano is three feet, six inches and six minutes long, symbolizing 360 days a year; Piano accessories, such as Yueshan, Lu Cheng, Longchi, Fengfen and Yanzu, are related to everything in the world. Some parts of the piano are also named after people, such as forehead, neck, shoulders and waist. It is no wonder that Huan Tan, a famous philosopher and pianist in the Eastern Han Dynasty, commented on the guqin in New Theory: "Shennong came to the world, and after the sacrifice, he looked up at its method, took its hair down, took its body near, and took its things far away, and then cut the tung into a piano and tied it into a string. With the virtue of the gods, the sum of heaven and man. "

Listening to Master's story, quietly staring at the ancient piano in front of us, not to mention the distant historical origins related to the piano, how much karma does it take to leave time, space and people on the piano? And I can walk into the guqin so carelessly, isn't it a kind of karma?

Plus Master's heart and hands, plus his decades of experience in practicing the piano-I can only be awed and moved: the awe of the invisible fate and the feeling of the piano sound.

Master said, "Guqin is not only one of the oldest ancient musical instruments in China, but also a Taoist instrument. It is like a civilized ship, carrying thousands of years of civilization in China. Guqin was originally an instrument for sacrificial ceremonies, but it was gradually separated from the imperial temple and became a personalized' string song' tool in the hands of literati in past dynasties. Therefore, this unique Qin music is called literati music. Because it is closely related to the spiritual temperament of literati, and fully embodies the virtue, affection, interest and affection of China's ancient ideal personality, it has long been regarded as a standard of literati's moral cultivation. In ancient society, playing the piano was an important part of the life of Tao Zhu literati, and it was also a way for them to wash their spiritual world. With the rapid development of science and technology, the pace of human life is accelerating, and society is surrounded by money and material desires everywhere. If you can get a moment of peace and rest in the ancient art form of guqin, what luck and enjoyment it will be! "

Master also said, "Ouyang Xiu, a famous politician and writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, once wrote in his Three Ji Qin that' Yu Zishao doesn't like Zheng Wei, but only loves the piano, especially Little Running Water'. I've been in trouble all my life, running around north and south, forgetting the curvature of the piano. I have never forgotten the song "Running Water", but now that I am old, I can still do it from time to time. The rest are just a few tricks, enough to entertain themselves. You don't have to learn more, you must adapt yourself ...' Obviously, you don't have to be insatiable in practicing the piano, even if you are only good at one or two piano pieces you like in the end, it will bring infinite fun to your life. "

This is the first piano lesson that Master Rushan gave us. After that, Guqin will reveal all kinds of life and everything in the world to us; It will also take us through time and space and meet thousands of years of civilization.

I remember the poet Gu Cheng once wrote: "The grass is bearing his seeds, the wind is shaking his leaves, and it is beautiful when we stand and say nothing." I never imagined that the time with Qin was as appropriate, natural and beautiful as the scene in the poem. I didn't even think that Guqin would open another life for me, or I could call it a "piano student". Just as God has added a landscape to my world, even the flowers in my left hand and the years in my right hand are far less than those in my hands dancing on the strings.

peaceful

Xiangjiang River is far from a sad feather, drifting from the era of E Huang Nvying, drifting with the wind. Xiangling is misty, misty and rainy. Now, apart from searching in Qu Yuan's "Nine Songs", we can only vaguely understand the meaning of this song by the lyrics of "The Second Princess wants to obey" in The Complete Works of Qin Shu: "I miss you all day long. Heartbroken, tears add more marks ... "

"The overtones should be like dragonflies." Master demonstration. Notes wander between the strings, turning into a boat in Xiangjiang River, with ups and downs.

For beginners, fingering and intonation are difficult to grasp, and sad emotions cannot be controlled and expressed.

"Express your emotions in a silent and moderate way, and the listener will forget what he said." The master explained.

Be complacent and get carried away.

Keep what you say and carry out what you do.

Between the lines.

Space and time are both spaces. Space for thinking and imagination.

This room is hidden.

Implicit is great beauty.

As Si Kongtu said in the "implicit" column of the poem: If you don't write a word, you have to be romantic. Words are unbearable, if you are not in a hurry. This is a real massacre, ups and downs. Full wine leads to autumn. Dust in the sky, suddenly the sea. Shallow and deep gather and disperse, one in ten thousand.

According to Master, in the field of guqin, there was a pianist Xu Shangying in the late Ming Dynasty. On the basis of summarizing the previous piano theories, his works put forward "twenty-four piano conditions", that is, twenty-four aesthetic categories of the so-called guqin performing arts. "Article 24" is:

Harmony, tranquility, clarity, distance, antiquity, elegance, elegance, beauty, brightness, mining, cleanliness, smoothness, roundness, firmness, macro, fineness, smoothness, health, lightness, heaviness, slowness and speed.

What is particularly valuable is that "Xi Shan Qin Qing" is based on the means of guqin performance and guided by its aesthetic thought of Qin music, which provides rich aesthetic thought and performing art theory for future generations to study Qin art.

In "Twenty-four Situations", Xu Shangying first emphasized "harmony", which is what the preface said: "The most important thing is harmony". Later, he talked about the aesthetic significance of "harmony" from the relationship between "string, finger, sound and meaning" in guqin performance. What other "situations" are also related to this.

Later, I read China's Character by Mr. Lou Yulie, and Mr. Lou also gave an incisive explanation of "harmony". "Harmony" and "China" are both proper meanings. Confucius emphasized that "harmony is precious" and regarded "harmony" as the value judgment standard of governing the country and being a man. "Gentlemen are harmonious but different, while villains are not harmonious". His thought of "harmony but difference" not only admits differences, but also demands harmony and prosperity, so that the world and everything can reach a harmonious state. Taoism also has the theory that "everything is negative and holds Yang, while everything is negative and thinks harmony", while Laozi thinks that everything contains two factors, Yin and Yang, which are contradictory and interdependent and constitute "harmony".

Back to Xiang Jiangyu, no matter sadness or implication, it should be based on "harmony", tone, implication, intonation and urgency. As the saying goes:

"God leisurely and quiet, but ecstasy, drum full, know not to speak. This ancient road is difficult to restore, and it doesn't accord with my temperament, but I think it is a skill. The longer you walk, the more you lose. "

Ruozhuo

In the season of bloom, the Chinese flowering crabapple is romantic, lush, and the magnolia is graceful, and Shen Feng is superb.

Just like the warbler flying season, prosperity always reminds people of Qiantang, Luo Qi, flutes and drums, and the beautiful scenery written by Liu Yong and Zhou Bangyan.

In this class, Master said that he would teach us to plow and fish.

After living in the city for a long time, I heard that "agriculture and fishing" immediately boiled in class, and everyone was eager to try.

The host smiled and sat down at the piano table. For a moment, he fingered it, and the quaint old piano sounded like an idyll.

Hoe, hoe, hoe * * in the soil, sweat rolled down the black back, the sun was scorching, the soil was fragrant, and the air was filled with a simple and vigorous atmosphere.

Boating on the lake, fishing nets suddenly scattered in the water, waiting, waiting, watching fish and geese flying in the water, who knows, including nature. ...

A song "Plowing Shen Yu Wei" allows us to enjoy the prosperity of spring ploughing without leaving home. The most unforgettable thing is the pause outside the emblem, which is meaningful When the last cut tobacco on the boat on the edge of the ridge changed from crimson to dying, like the meditation of an old monk, it slowly recovered, broke out, rose, and repeated.

"Do it at sunrise, rest at sunset, dig wells and drink, plow fields and eat, what's good for me!" Singing ancient ballads is Yi Yin's calmness when he tills the fields, as if Lu Shang was calmness when he was fishing in Weishui.

This song was passed on by Taoist Xu Tonghua of Sichuan School to Mr. Mei Yueqiang, and then passed on by Mei Lao to Master Rushan. Now Master has passed it on to our generation orally. Because of Qin people's love and care, Guqin music is like a secret book of martial arts, handed down from generation to generation, not fade away.

"Don't treat farming and fishing as a rarity, and don't deliberately show it for the sake of performance, otherwise the original appearance of the piano music will disappear." Master told us: "Farming, fishing, eating and sleeping are the normal conditions of life. If there are exaggerated emotional twists and turns in this piano piece, it will not reflect the authenticity of the work, but show off the skills. "

Coincidentally, you can do Ning Zhuo, but you don't want to? So it is often not worth the loss. I don't know, simplicity, innocence and nature are the great beauty in the world, such as clouds on the mountain and orchids in full bloom in an empty valley. They never show off their arrogance, but they are full of nature, subtle and vast, and full of the magical power of the universe.

It is a spiritual realm, a life wisdom, and the highest realm advocated by China's traditional aesthetic thought. Sun said "books are old", Dongpo said "gorgeous and plain", Liu Xizai said "ugliness to the extreme is beauty to the extreme", Dong Qichang said "books must be mature before they are born", and Fu Shan put forward that "Ning Zhuo is not smart, and would rather be ugly than flattering". Chen Youci, a pianist in the Qing Dynasty, emphasized in On the Qin that "when playing the piano, playing is forbidden": the husband school is nothing more than taking notes with delicate fingering, playing along the fingers, and winning by familiarity. Therefore, when playing the piano, Xi Shu's guzheng is confused and even decadent, which greatly loses the elegance of the piano. The listener did not distinguish at first, but became proficient in fingering, so he misrepresented and did not know the vowels of piano and harp. He takes his heavy and solid body as the body, recites and pauses slightly, only plays fast and thinks he is proficient. So what is the purpose of ancient music? Don't ask for it! Thus, the "ancient" of Guqin and the "clumsy" of Daqiao have a natural echo in spirit.

What does it matter if there is ploughing in the deep fields and fishing in the Wei River, and the old tune of Gu Zhuo in late spring is too easily drowned and covered up by the prosperity of the imperial city? We can always find it from those hard backs and leisurely moods. ...