What is Chaozhou music?

Chaozhou music is the general name of all kinds of traditional folk instrumental music circulating in eastern Guangdong. Chaozhou music is characterized by simplicity, elegance and beautiful lyricism. Its main musical instruments are percussion instruments, such as erhu, dulcimer and gongs and drums. Let me give you some information about Chaozhou music!

The Historical Origin of Chaozhou Music

Chaozhou music is the general name of all kinds of folk instrumental music circulating in eastern Guangdong. In addition to eastern Guangdong, Chaozhou music is also widely popular in southern Fujian, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Taiwan Province Province, Hong Kong, Macau, Southeast Asian countries and places where hipsters live. Chaozhou is the center and birthplace of Chaozhou music. Its origin can be traced back to the Tang and Song Dynasties and matured in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Chaozhou music has a long history, which is closely related to the historical and cultural development of ancestors in eastern Guangdong. The ancient Chaozhou in the Spring and Autumn Period is called Nanman and Baiyue, and it is the residence of the ancient Yue nationality (Min Yue nationality). But there was bronze culture at that time, indicating that the Central Plains culture had penetrated here. Bronze culture and Shang and Zhou cultural relics are often found in ancient Chaozhou tombs. There are bronze bells in Chaoyang District and Huahu Town, Huilai County, which are ritual vessels in temples and belong to Western Zhou culture. The bronze drums of the Western Zhou Dynasty were salvaged from the seashore of Shenquan Port in Huilai County, indicating that ancient Chaozhou ancestors had used Shang and Zhou cultural utensils. Due to the "Yongjia Rebellion", "Anshi Rebellion" and "Jingkang Difficulty" in history, the Han people in the northern part of the Central Plains migrated southward on a large scale.

For example, in the first year of Jin Dynasty, Shanxi and Shaanxi residents who moved south with Jin Yuan Emperor lived in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and later moved to Fujian to escape the war. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, some residents moved south to Fujian to prevent border bandits. Later, after several military disasters in the late Tang Dynasty, the late Song Dynasty, the late Yuan Dynasty and the late Ming Dynasty, there was a historical fact that they moved southward on a large scale, living in Jiangxi and Zhangpu, Fujian, and then entering the tide one after another. As a result, it is self-evident that the music culture of the Central Plains, which came with the people, was introduced into the tide. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, a foreigner named Pai had a whim and wrote a poem "Chaozhou Fu Ci": "From the New Year, I will go to the spring scenery, and the green fields are full of fragrant dust. I blame him for his different customs. His skirt looks like A Jin. " This word reflects the historical fact that descendants of Han nationality in Central Plains live in Chaoshan area. It was not until Qin Shihuang unified China, sent troops to Guangdong and set up Jieyang garrison that Shi Lu, a general of Qin Dynasty, and his family stayed in Jieyang and introduced Central Plains culture to Guangdong. The long-term assimilation process of ancient Chaozhou ancestors and the Han nationality in the Central Plains gradually merged into the Han family, which also accelerated the mutual infiltration and integration of the music culture in the Central Plains and Chaozhou local music culture. This is the accumulation of history and culture and the source of Chaozhou music.

The Artistic Features of Chaozhou Music

As a part of Chaozhou traditional music, Chaozhou opera music had a great influence on social life and citizens' cultural consciousness in this period. It can absorb the essence of many foreign operas, be eclectic, integrate, evolve and improve day by day, thus making Chaozhou opera music play an increasingly important role in social life, making Chaozhou traditional music tend to be diversified in music structure, thus forming a rich and unique Chaozhou music art system.

From the comparison of the mode forms of Chaozhou Melody Scale and Shaanxi Melody Scale, we can also see that there is a source relationship between them in terms of interval structure, characteristic interval, characteristic sound and its expression connotation, and there are many similarities in the mode color contrast caused by the mode alternation caused by the special interval relationship, such as "changing palace", "jumping palace" and "changing palace into angle", which promotes the development of melody tonality.

The "fire dance" in Chaozhou music can be regarded as the pedigree of China's variant Gu Yan scale, and "Liu Chong" can be regarded as the pedigree of China's variant Guyadong scale. The polysemy of "change" and "jump" also has the characteristics of Le Yan scale.

After Wei, Jin, Sui and Tang Dynasties, "column mourning for strings" became a major feature of Qin Zheng. The continuation of Chaozhou Zheng's method of "rushing strings to promote columns" has gradually led to the change of the playing technique of "Light and Heavy 36", which is exactly the same as the tunes of "Happy Tone" and "Bitter Tone" in the Qin Dynasty. This is another example of Chaozhou music inheriting the traditional music of the Central Plains.

Chaozhou music is characterized by simplicity, elegance and beautiful lyricism. Its main musical instruments are erhu, erhu, dulcimer and percussion instruments such as gongs and drums. Chaozhou music has retained a large number of ancient rhymes of Nanyin, which has attracted more and more attention from the world. It originated from local folk songs, songs and dances, and minor tunes, and absorbed the materials of Yiyang Opera, Kunqu Opera, Shaanxi Opera, Han Opera, Taoism and French Opera, and it was eclectic and self-contained. It is rich and varied, which can be roughly divided into square music and chamber music. The former includes Chaozhou big gongs and drums, Waijiang gongs and drums, Chaozhou small gongs and drums, Chaozhou Huayin gongs and drums, and Chaozhou eight-tone gongs and drums, while the latter includes flute collection, Chaozhou string poems, Chaozhou fine music and Chaozhou temple fair music. The Thrushcross Jumping Frame and Pink Butterfly Picking Flowers, which are often played and widely circulated, are excellent works of Chaozhou Xiaolong Drum. Xiansi music, also called Shixian music, is a kind of music played by many people. This kind of music is light and lyrical, harmonious and pleasant, and has the charm of southern music. It is the most popular and popular music in Chaozhou (prefecture). Paixiao music can be divided into Paixiao gongs and drums and Paixiao music, which is a solemn and simple court music. Chaozhou Fine Music is a variant of Chaozhou Xiansi Music, which is a kind of music with Sanxian, Pipa and Guzheng as its main instruments. It is fresh and delicate, and has a very lyrical charm. Temple music is a kind of music played in Buddhist activities, melodious and elegant, and it is something played by temples. Therefore, Chaozhou music is a huge and complete music system.

Chaozhou music is rich in connotation, which can not only express the interest of small bridges and flowing water, but also interpret the epic of magnificent mountains and rivers. The unique "Si Er score" of Chao music is a very old music form. In its unique music system, the flexible changes of "four" and "method" reflect the unique charm of Chaozhou music, and at the same time, it forms a variety of Chaozhou music modes, such as ignoring six, emphasizing six, living five and reversing, and emphasizing the full play of rhyme and improvisation.

The structural form of Chaozhou music

The music structure of Chao Yue has national characteristics and conforms to national aesthetic habits. The rotation is dominated by five tones. Although there are six tones and seven tones, the essence is the relationship of "taking five tones" The music law basically adopts the law of gain and loss of three points, but in the seven-tone scale, there are often 3/4 whole tones and 1/2 semitones because of the low si tone and fa pitch. The so-called neutral interval of neutral four degrees and neutral seven degrees goes beyond the limitations of the three-point law of gain and loss. Due to the slight increase, slight decrease and wandering of some tones in pitch, the spinning method attaches great importance to polishing and rhyming, which makes the mode color change and makes people memorable.