The Advantages and Disadvantages of the Development and Reform of National Instrumental Music in China

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. Practitioners in the field of traditional music in China have made unremitting efforts to gradually "modernize" traditional music, and finally formed an overview of today's "national music": all major conservatories in China have "national instrumental music departments" to teach the performance of various national musical instruments; There are "national orchestras" in major cities, as well as national-level central national orchestras and central broadcasting national orchestras; We have top national instrumental musicians and popular national bands, such as Twelve Music Square. Looking at today's national instrumental music, compared with traditional instrumental music, we can find three changes: voice change, system change and thinking change. The change of sound refers to the change of music sound and form. We can see this change from the following aspects. (1) musical instrument reform. Reforming the making materials of musical instruments, innovating the structural form of musical instruments, changing the timbre of musical instruments and making new musical instruments all reflect the pursuit of new sound concepts, which are consistent with the sound concepts of western music. (2) The development of composition theory. The introduction of western harmony and orchestration techniques can be seen everywhere in China's instrumental music creation. The A-B-A mode of western music embodies the main musical structure of China's "New Folk Music" works. (3) Establish a national orchestra. From the "Datong Concert" in the early 20th century, after more than 50 years' efforts, China people finally established China's own national orchestra. In the history of China, there have been various large-scale bands: Zeng Houyi's chime band, Han Dynasty's advocacy band, Sui and Tang Dynasty's court band and so on; There are also various bands in China: Xi 'an Drum Music, Chaozhou Big Drum, Fan Shi Drum, Northern Drum Music and so on. However, today's national orchestras are based on western symphony orchestras. Because the Western Symphony Orchestra is regarded as the "standard mode", there are still many problems in China's national orchestra compared with this "standard mode", such as treble, bass, brightness, dynamics, intonation and so on. But after all, it is composed of Chinese musical instruments, which has represented China's entry into the world music stage. (4) The appearance of new works. Over the past decades, countless national instrumental music works have been adapted or newly created, which has become an important part of China's music life. Institutional change refers to the change of music inheritance mode and education mode. According to the general understanding, the traditional mode of music education in China is "oral communication", but "oral communication" contains inherent artistry, that is, personalized artistic creation process, or "improvisation" and "personal creativity" in the process of music evolution. Because China's traditional notation "Miyachi notation" only records the backbone notes, it is necessary for each player to treat the score differently. On the one hand, this treatment comes from the teacher's oral communication, on the other hand, it comes from the player's own understanding and treatment methods, which forms the changeable characteristics of traditional music such as guqin and pipa, and is also the main reason for the formation of different performing schools. At the same time, the inheritance of national instrumental music performance is completed through the two processes of "singing" and "playing", which forms a unique phenomenon of "Akou" (that is, the rhyming treatment other than the basic sound) in Gongchi music aria. However, "Akou" is a strange concept for most of our students who study national instrumental music now. Nowadays, students can play the works written on the staff several times, but it seems that no one can play 52 Xiban ditties when they get the traditional pipa score "Hua Pipa Score", because this score only records the backbone sounds. Nowadays, learning Chinese musical instruments requires playing scales, etudes, modern compositions, concertos and so on in various modes. Chinese musical instruments are no different from western musical instruments in the hands of teachers and students in conservatory of music, because they interpret western musical thinking. This leads to the third change, that is, the change of thinking.

Decades of music education have changed our thinking. Although China's tradition has not been completely lost at the voice level, it no longer exists at the thinking level. What is the thinking of China's traditional music? This is a big problem that this paper can't solve, but the following three examples can illustrate the loss of China's traditional musical thinking. First, without western musical terms, there would be no traditional music in China today. Some scholars have established "China's Music Theory", trying to understand the spirit of China's music with China's traditional thinking. However, in today's social reality, leaving the western musical terms means that there is no basis for understanding. Secondly, today's music aesthetic standards have undergone fundamental changes. As we all know, China's national instrumental music is often dominated by D key, and the first key roll call method is used in practice; At present, in the conservatory of music, the key is C, and the fixed key method is adopted, so students who study folk music in solfeggio teaching often can't adapt. Students who study violin and piano are more eager to learn. If students who study folk music are generally worse at solfeggio than those who study western music, what is the difference in personal musical ability reflected by this result? Or the difference in musical ability between cultures? Is China music culture inferior to western music culture in musical ability? Or is there something wrong with the method of music ability test? Thirdly, as we all know, the creation of new national instrumental music is influenced by western music, but it is also influenced by western music in the process of adapting traditional music. The structure of the song "House of Flying Daggers" is organized according to the course of ancient wars. From the beginning, the camp was lined up, the general arrived at the point, the team went, the beating, the skirmish, the big fight and the shouting ... The three tunes at the end of the music showed the scene of the victory camp and the people fighting for merit (taking Li's version as an example). The modern version of House of Flying Daggers is no longer structured according to the war process, but ends the whole song after the "Scream" section. "Scream" is the climax of the war. How could it suddenly end? According to traditional thinking, such treatment is incomplete. However, modern musical thinking and westernized musical aesthetic habits feel that the full set of performances is too long, so today's version is available.

There are a pair of contradictory categories in China's music reality, that is, the relationship between tradition and modernity. On the one hand, society needs development, and China traditional music is also formed in the process of development; On the other hand, thousands of years of history in China endows modern people with a special mission, that is, the cultural traditions left by history need to be carried by today's people. Therefore, today's people, one shoulder should bear the heavy responsibility of development, and the other shoulder should bear the inheritance of tradition. This is the historical mission and the need of China culture. Unfortunately, in the development of China national instrumental music, we were dominated by one hand, which gradually made us lose the most important thing in the tradition, that is, the thinking of traditional music. In fact, tradition is not a burden to us and will bring us great benefits. In the context of modernity, any product of human beings appears in a standardized form, and it is difficult to distinguish "you, me and him" even in artistic creation. Tradition not only brings us cultural enjoyment, but also helps to distinguish "you, me and him". Therefore, tradition still provides us with historical, cultural and aesthetic values in today's society. What is beauty? Beauty lies not only in the beautiful and harmonious proportion of aesthetic objects, but also in the beautiful soul of aesthetic subject and the historical and cultural spirit of aesthetic objects.