[On the artistic beauty of Meishan folk song "Zishui Beach Song"] Ningbo Beimeishan Shawantan Park
Meishan Culture is one of the remaining primitive cultures in southern my country and one of the components of the Huxiang Culture Series. However, due to the geographical characteristics of the Meishan area, Meishan culture has always been little known, and scholars of all generations have not set foot on it. After modern times, especially since the founding of the People's Republic of China, this unique cultural system has attracted people's attention. Meishan folk songs are a wonderful branch of Meishan culture. It has a long history and profound traditional cultural accumulation. Through long-term development and variation, it has become a complete folk song system. Zishui Tange is one of the oldest forms of Meishan folk song and rap music art, with simple and sincere emotions, unique expression skills and rich creative techniques.
Zishui was once a river that Meishan people relied on for survival and development. On this river, generations of Meishan ancestors lived. Zishui is one of the four major water systems of Xiang, Zi, Yuan and Li in Hunan. It flows into Dongting Lake through Wugang, Longhui, Shaoyang, Xinshao, Lengshuijiang, Xinhua, Anhua, Taojiang, Yiyang and other counties (cities) in Hunan. Zishui has two sources, Fuyi River and Nan River. Fuyi River, also known as Luojiang River or Fuyi River, originates from the Tongmu River at the northern foot of Yuecheng Ridge in Ziyuan County, Guangxi Province. It goes northeastward, enters Hunan from the south of Yao City in Xinning County, and then flows out of Qingjie Mountain and Huangmajie in Chengbu County. The Nanshui River met at the mouth of Shuangjiang River in Shaoyang County and was first called Zishui. Zishui comes out of Tangjiu Mountain, a hundred miles southeast of Suining County, Jingzhou [1]. Ban Gu said: Zishui came out of the capital Liangzhidao Mountain. Li Daoyuan said: It is the Jiu Mountain of Tang Dynasty. Zishui flows northeast, passing through the north of Wugang Prefecture, Baoqing Prefecture, and the north of Fucheng, where Shaoshui River meets Yan, or is called Shaojiang River. It flows north to the east of Xinhua County, then enters Anhua County, Changsha Prefecture, to the west of Jingxian County, and then northeast to the south of Yiyang County, the north of Ningxiang County, and enters the southwest of Yuanjiang County, Changde Prefecture, where it flows into Dongting Lake.
There are many steep shoals in Zishui. There are 72 dangerous shoals, among which there are 53 dangerous shoals in Xinhua County. The Zijiang River Basin has high mountains and deep valleys, and is isolated from the world. In the era when there were no roads, People on both sides of Zishui rely on river transportation to communicate with the outside world. During the days and nights of sailing and returning, under the threat of death, the boatmen need to sing to strengthen their courage. The boatman needs to sing to relieve the fatigue and loneliness on the waterway; the boatman needs to sing to express the homesickness and family affection on the way back; the boatman needs to sing to record what he sees on the road and go out to create the world. Thus, ballads were born, first one or two sentences, and the longer they were sung, the longer they became. The most outstanding of them was "Zishui Beach Song". From Shaoyang to Wuhan, it means sailing along the river down the beach, and vice versa, it means sailing up the beach. Therefore, "Zishui Beach Song" is divided into two parts: Lower Beach Song and Upper Beach Song.
The formal beauty of Zishui Beach Song
"Zishui Beach Song", also known as "Zishui Zhouzi Song" , Meishan area is densely forested and traffic is blocked. River shipping has become an important economic and lifestyle in Meishan area. In order to make a living, many Meishan people make a living by driving boats. "Zishui Beach Song" is a tune improvised by Meishan boatmen in the past, who worked together to fight against dangerous shoals and named each beach while sailing. Beach songs include both relaxed and soothing slow oars, and highly tense and shouting oars. According to the changes in the mood of the boatmen, there are folk songs and high-pitched tunes, as well as wild songs that have no lyrics at all and can compete with the wind and waves. Shouting, the rhythmic foot pedal and the singing are integrated into one, emitting the rich and powerful singing voice of "Hang Yu Hang Yu". It has a unique taste. If you taste it carefully, you will have endless aftertaste and give people a beautiful enjoyment.
(1) Lively and diverse structural beauty
Zishui beach songs are rich in content and can be composed orally at any time. A boatman's song has a tight structure and consists of getting on the boat, There are five basic rows: urging the oar, starting the oar, slow oar, and paddling. They describe different labor scenes during the boat trip. Its artistic beauty is first reflected in the rigorous and lively form, and the formal beauty is first reflected in the complete formal structure. Above:
1. "Boarding call". It is sung when setting sail. The leader uses a long and slow tone to call his companions to get on the boat and set sail. The boatmen also respond with peaceful tones, narrating a moving artistic conception of the boat leaving the shore.
2. "Paddle chant".
When the boat sails into a pool where the waves are calm and the current is slow, the boatman is in a joyful mood, gliding with the oar and oar at the same time, and singing beautiful rowing chants. The songs come and go, which is very interesting.
3. "Use the oar chant". When the ship sailed into the dangerous shoal, waves of bad waves rushed towards the bow, like strong winds, thunder and lightning, and the ship was teetering in the wind, waves and whirlpools. At this time, the boatmen were not afraid, and under the leadership of the lead singer, they sang the oar urging call. Fighting against the wind and waves and bravely rushing through dangerous shoals, the scenes are fierce and spectacular, giving people an earth-shattering shock.
4. "Raise the oar and chant". When the boat was sailing against the current, in order to speed up the sailing, a group of boatmen went ashore to draw fiber, and a group of boat rowers rowed on the bow. The shore and the bow sang in harmony. In the high-pitched and unrestrained singing, the fiber-drawing boatmen took firm steps and arduously moved forward. , thus forming the oar-raising tune.
5. "Slow oar, rock the oar and chant." When the boat reached the end and got closer and closer to the dock, the boatmen looked at their homeland with great excitement. They ended the arduous and long voyage amidst the vast and stretched slow oar song, and landed to reunite with their families. The long tone is like a call to a loved one in the heart.
The complete form of Zishui Beach Song describes the whole process from sailing to triumphant return, vividly showing the process of boatmen from calm sailing to encountering storms, crossing dangerous shoals, and finally overcoming wind and waves, depicting The majestic and touching paintings also reflect the tight formal beauty of Zishui Tange. (2) The improvisational beauty of the singing form
The form of collective labor determines the singing form of Zishui Beach Song. The boatmen use the trumpet to achieve concerted efforts, unified rhythm, and unified strength. Its singing is diverse and improvised. The improvisational beauty of the singing form is thus formed. It has solo singing, duet singing, chorus singing and other forms. Usually there is one person who leads the singing, singing the lyrics in the leading verses and singing the function words in the harmonious sentences, with more words and less language; the lead singer is the trumpet conductor, and the boatmen respond during the singing, thus forming a call and a response, a call in front and a response in the back. It is a singing style that leads the crowd by asking questions and answering questions. Common singing forms include: "half-sentence harmony", "sentence harmony", "one-section harmony", "joint-sentence harmony" and "overlapping harmony", etc. For example: a dynamic oar, sometimes the lead trumpet has a long harmony phrase, sometimes it is sung loudly and sometimes it is shouting, the harmony part always inserts the response from the weak position, short, rapid, sonorous and powerful, neat and unified, improvised into a song, lyrical on the spot . Especially for the oar urging chants sung in turbulent waters, the chants and sentences are slightly shorter, the rhythm is sharp and short, and the density at the top and sparse at the bottom form a contrast, which creates a tense atmosphere and invigorates the boatmen to overcome difficulties and dangers. Rapids.
The linguistic beauty of Zishui beach songs
The Zishui River runs through Meishan (Xinhua County, Anhua County) A sacred place for folk literature and art. The people of Meishan convey their feelings, speak for themselves and sing their ambitions with songs. Zishuitan songs are the pearls of beauty contained in Meishan folk songs, and the beauty of the music and the beauty of the lyrics are inseparable. Therefore, its artistic beauty is reflected in the improvisation of lyrics, which contains the beauty of artistic language. The lyrics include long narrative poems and short colloquial life songs. Long narrative poems are composed of seven characters and four sentences in a group, while short stories are composed of seven characters and four sentences, and seven characters and six sentences. The lyrics pay attention to rhyme and rhyme, and often use metaphors, exaggeration, personification and other techniques to vividly show Zishui's geographical features, people's customs and the bitter life of the boatmen and their yearning for a better life. The unique style exudes fragrance and vividly displays the open-minded, simple and tenacious character of Meishan men in front of us.
(1) The image beauty of language
Hegel said: "Beauty can only be seen in images." [2] Sincere feelings are difficult to use abstract concepts To express, only concrete, vivid, and figurative language can express abstract inner feelings. Without language, there would be no literature, and there would be no deep and simple Zishui Beach songs. The beauty of language is reflected in the use of language, and highly visual language is an important feature of its artistic beauty [3].
The skillful use of metaphor is one of the most important expression techniques of language visualization.
Cleverly express the unspeakable feelings, indescribable appearance and implicit meaning, giving people a vivid image and rich ideas. For example: four lines of the lyrics in the long narrative poem - the oar chant, which is extended from seven words and four sentences and is widely circulated in Xinhua County to this day:
Maoban boat, disaster; import It's the Lotus Beach; in the garden with one oar and two oars; the beauty is sitting on Comb Tou Rock.
On the surface, this poem only describes the specific location of the boat, "Lotus Beach" and "Shu Touyan", but it actually has a deep metaphorical meaning. The singer here seems to be painting a scene, but in fact it is lyrical; There is not a word "love" in the whole article, nor are there any words of eternal love such as "the sea will dry up and the stone will rot", but with the help of the comparison of "the wonderful union is boundless", the "lotus" is compared to the "beauty", which cleverly and vividly depicts the love of the Meishan man. Those deep and passionate feelings.
In Zishuitan songs, singers often use empathy and personification techniques to enhance the image of language. This is also one of the commonly used techniques to express the beauty of language. For example:
The boss' boat docks at Huanggu'ao, and everyone comes here to have tea and soup. Don't miss the lady who buys groceries. There is a pair of Yuanyang Rocks in front.
"Yuanyang Rock" is originally a ruthless thing, indifferent to sadness and love, but here the singer gives the rock human emotions and empathizes with things, making the rock possess human joy, anger, sadness and joy. , embodies the boatman's longing for love, which makes even the heartless things moved, which shows his sadness. The skillful use of empathic personification makes the boatman's chant lively and vivid, thus greatly enhancing the appeal of the language.
(2) The lyrical beauty of language
1. Visual exaggeration is an important expression method of the lyrical beauty of language
Oral improvisation of the lyrics of Zishui Beach Song In terms of creation, it reflects the singer's deep understanding of life and flows from the depths of the singer's soul. Singers often use figurative exaggeration techniques to expand or reduce things by "exaggerating them", thereby intentionally highlighting certain characteristics of things. It implicitly expresses the singer's strong inner feelings, and the words between the lines are filled with the simple, noble and pure feelings of the working people of the Tujia ethnic group. For example:
Don’t touch my brother on the boat. The first boat is near Lao Chong (referring to Tiger) Rock; Lao Chong Rock, Buffalo Beach, and the Tiger King is sitting on Maoer Mountain.
Don’t touch me, brother, on the boat. The yellow dog is in love with its nest and roars. The boat is close to Leigongyan, and the Nine Heavens King is at the mouth of the river.
This poem is a narrative on the surface, but it is actually lyrical. "Bi" is a Meishan dialect word, which means "waiting, delaying, dilly-dallying, and enduring". "Laochongyan" and "Buffalo Beach" are the names of the dangerous shoals of the Zishui River. The boatman compared himself to a "buffalo and a yellow dog" and his daughter-in-law to the "tiger king and the nine-day king", implicitly and vividly showing his feelings of missing his family, achieving an implicit, euphemistic and thought-provoking effect. It deeply penetrates the hardships of life of a boatman, and at the same time reminds people of the image of diligent, thrifty and fierce Meishan women.
2. The typical beauty of language is another important expression method of the lyrical beauty of language
The typical beauty of language is discussed from the aspect of material selection, that is, the material is single and specific, the design of artistic conception, and the galloping of associations , all center on basic emotions. Although it seems to be a single theme, it can often vividly reflect the singer's thoughts. It mainly focuses on one thing and one chant, and uses specific representative typical emotions to make the language It has ideological and emotional weight, complete structure, vivid images, and profound artistic conception. This is the success of Zishui Tan Song from content to form. The typical beauty of language is its directness. Such as:
Boatmen are full of courage, not afraid of rapids and dangerous shoals, make contributions to the construction of the motherland, and brave the wind and waves to move forward.
This is a short, colloquial life song composed of seven words and four sentences. It focuses on rhyme and rhyme, and is a single-themed chant with the motherland as its basic sentiment. It expresses the boatmen's praise for a better life. The straightforward language embodies the simple and typical lyrical beauty of language.
The musical beauty of Zishui Beach Song
Zishui Beach Song is rich in content and lively in form. Its artistic features are rich in beautiful form and beautiful language. Rich in musical beauty.
The lyrics are very particular about rhythm and rhyme. It is both a poem and a song. It can be sung and read, catchy, and has the characteristics of bright rhythm and beautiful melody. The development of the melody revolves around the five tones of Gong, Shang, Jiao, Yu and Zheng. The material is simple but has strong local characteristics and aquatic life flavor. It is resolute, rough and heroic in music. It is a musical language, so the beauty of music is One of the main features of the artistic beauty of Zishui Tan Song, and here we mainly discuss the musical beauty of Zishui Tan Song in terms of sound structure and melody.
(1) The melody beauty of music
Zishuitan songs are mostly based on the five-tone feather mode and the four-tone Zheng mode, supplemented by the palace mode, and lack the Shang tone. There are various forms of music, and the most common one is the four-line structure; during the singing, the complete single is repeated, expanded, and compressed into sections, and the theme music image is deepened by repeatedly singing the main phrase. Lining words are often added at the beginning or middle of the sentence, with a front cavity before and a tail cavity after, forming a complete musical structure. The characteristic sound sequence is the basis of melody beauty.
The characteristic sound sequence is the carrier of the beauty of lyrics and language, and is also one of the main contents of the beauty of melody. Basically there are three major types:
The first type is composed of a four-tone sequence (la, do, mi, so) consisting of minor third, major third and minor third. The four row numbers of boarding, rowing, launching, and slowing are all composed of this type. This type is most commonly used in Zishui boatman chants. The melody is simple and unsophisticated, with colloquial characteristics. It is mainly composed of a steady downward progression, a narrow range, and a narrow sequence of notes. There are often melody jumps in fourth and fifth degrees without big jumps. , the last sentences all end on the main note, giving people a calm and firm sense of beauty. The downward tone subtly exaggerates the emotions and adds color to the melody. The language is simple and beautiful, and the melody is beautiful. The second type is a five-tone sequence structure composed of minor third, major third, minor second, and major second (la, do, mi, fa, so). Often seen in paddling chants. For example, example (1)[4]:
This chant has a rigorous language, the syllables are connected one after another, the rhymes are connected to the end, and the tone is smooth, thus making the melody of the song The back and forth creates a soul-stirring melody. The third type is a four-tone sequence (re, mi, so, la) consisting of a major second, a minor third, and a major second. The Zishui oar-driving chant belongs to this type. The song has no lyrics and only has four function words similar to shouting (oh, ha, ah,), just like a boatman shouting in the waves, with heroic momentum. For example, Example (2)[4]:
The table *** shows more than a dozen intervals in Example (1) and Example (2). There is no minor second in the tune, so It is a typical national pentatonic mode. It has four-note series and five-note series structures, among which the five-note series structure is the most common in songs, which illustrates the uniqueness and diversity of the Zishui boatman's chant mode.
(2) The rhythmic beauty of music
The melody beauty of Zishuitan song is also reflected in the rhythm of the typical structure. The important content of rhythmic beauty and melody beauty is expressed in the seven-character and four-sentence format. Take the Zishui Boatman's Song as an example. The number of words in each sentence is neat and the rhythm is roughly the same. Generally, there are eight beats per sentence and two beats per measure. The rhythm changes in various ways according to the syllables of the seven-character lyrics, so it is summarized into the following rhythm patterns:
1. Moderate average type. This kind of rhythm is reflected in the music examples: for example, the music example (2) urging oars and chants completely reflects this rhythm. Boatmen like to use the pedals to create this kind of rhythm, which involves labor intensity such as rocking and paddling. The rhythm is strong, the rhythm is regular, the alternation of strong and weak is even and accurate, and the syllables are neat and have a unified rhythmic beauty. This type of rhythm appears frequently in Zishui boatman songs, while complex rhythms such as syncopation are rarely used.
2. Short and long type. It is free, flexible in structure and has a distinct rhythm. It is sung with ups and downs, high and low, and reflects the typical rhythmic beauty of changeable rhythms. For example, in Example (1), the paddling chant has this kind of rhythm. Of course, there are also individual types, so I won’t give all examples here. Rhythm changes are inseparable from the melody composition of the song. The two are organically integrated and form the structural framework of the musical beauty of Zishui Boatman's Haozi.
Conclusion
Zishui Beach Song is the spiritual product of the struggle and collision between Meishan people and nature. Its art Beauty originates from folk labor creation. It has the aesthetic characteristics of literature, aesthetics, labor aesthetics, and musicology, and has interdisciplinary cultural and artistic research value. With the progress of social civilization, the cultural heritage of national folk music has attracted more and more people's attention. With the increasing development of transportation in Meishan mountainous area, shipping has gradually shrunk. Zishui has evolved from Meishan's water Silk Road into an important tourism development project in Meishan area. The ancient Zishui boatmen's chants are gradually being lost, so it is urgent to protect and promote Meishan's excellent musical cultural heritage. Study the artistic beauty of Zishui boatmen's chants, let more people understand it and explore it, and make it a popular cultural heritage in China and even the world. A treasure of musical cultural heritage.
] Hegel: Volume 1 of "Aesthetics", People's Publishing House, 1990
[3] Zhang Qian, Wang Ci: "Basics of Music Aesthetics", People's Music Publishing House, 1992
[4] The musical examples are selected from "Meishan Wencui" compiled by Wu Zhuxian, Xiangxinwen Zhunzi (1999) No. 14, 1997
Yang Jiannong: Hunan University of Humanities and Science Department of Music
Shen Lue: Department of Music, Hunan University of Humanities and Science
Editor in charge: Zhang Huiyu