In recent years, a new music style has gradually developed in popular music, namely Chinese style music. Its outstanding features are: filling in lyrics with classical cultural connotations, combining with new-school arrangements, and focusing on vocal singing and stage performance to achieve a song style that combines historical nostalgia and the spirit of the times. Some people in the industry have condensed the characteristics of Chinese style music into "three ancients and three news", that is, ancient poetry, ancient culture, ancient melodies and new singing methods, new arrangements, and new concepts. It can be seen that Chinese style music covers almost all aspects of performing arts creation. Only when lyrics, arrangement, singing, interpretation and other musical elements are harmoniously blended can a high-quality Chinese style song be generated. With the joint efforts of many musicians, Chinese style music has become popular and has become a very important song style.
Achieve effective communication between classical culture and the aesthetics of the times
Among the many characteristics of Chinese style music, the absorption of Chinese classical culture is particularly prominent. A large number of Chinese classical cultural symbols often appear in the lyrics, arrangement, singing, and interpretation of Chinese style music. Through different artistic techniques such as construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction, effective communication between classical culture and the aesthetics of the times is achieved. Chinese style music draws nutrients from classical culture, expresses people's current emotional needs, realizes the mutual integration and resonance of ancient and modern, and enables the continuation and inheritance of classics and traditions.
In terms of lyrics creation, the more commonly used techniques in Chinese style music include the use of poems and allusions, the continuous use of images with rich connotations, and the eulogizing of the spirit represented by cultural symbols. The use of poetry and allusions can make the lyrics antique and have a long-lasting and profound charm. For example, the lyrics of "Grandpa's Tea" revolve around the tea-making craftsmanship, noble conduct, and long-standing tea-tasting culture of the tea sage Lu Yu. Imagery, artistic conception, and connotation are the inner emotional and rational structures that constitute classical poetry. The integration and interaction of the three can effectively enhance the emotional tension of lyrics. Various images such as old boats, distant mountains, plantains, winter plums, and spring swallows appear intensively in the lyrics of "Broken Bridge with Remaining Snow", which strengthens the writing of the homesickness of a traveler. In the long-term historical accumulation, many symbols representing Chinese culture have been formed, such as tea, porcelain, calligraphy, embroidery, kung fu, traditional Chinese medicine, etc. These symbols have also become common images in Chinese-style songs, "Chinese Language" and "Shadow Puppet Play" "Shu Embroidery" and "Along the River During Qingming Festival" fall into this category.
In terms of arrangement characteristics, commonly used techniques in Chinese style music include borrowing or imitating elegant ancient music, absorbing opera tunes, using musical instruments with national colors, and using traditional five-note compositions. The title of the song "Ambush from Flying Daggers" comes from "Ambush from Flying Daggers", one of the top ten ancient songs. The prelude adopts several sections of this pipa martial arts song. "Susan Said" cleverly uses the famous Peking Opera segment "Su San Qi Jie". The singer himself directly performed "Su San left Hongdong County/came to the street in front of the street/I have never spoken out, but my heart is miserable/the gentlemen of the past listen to me" in Beijing accent. Several sentences. Traditional Chinese musical instruments such as chimes, bamboo flutes, dongxiao, erhu, guqin, guzheng, konghou, reeds, tambourines, etc. often appear in Chinese style music, such as the erhu in "East Wind Breaks" and the guzheng in the prelude of "Blue and White Porcelain". Conveys the spirit of the song well. In traditional music, the five tones of Gong Shangjiao Zhengyu are equivalent to the pentatonic scale in modern music theory. "Chrysanthemum Terrace" belongs to the six tones of F Gong plus Bian Gong, and "Cao Cao" belongs to D Zheng Qing music. They are all compositions based on traditional five tones. effective attempt.
▲On August 22, 2023 local time, the first concert of the 2023 London International Chinese Music Festival was held. The picture shows the London Orchid Qin Society performing "Three Plum Blossom Alleys". (Picture from China News Service)
uses Chinese arrangements and ethnic singing to express sincere emotions
In addition to the profound influence of Chinese classical elements on Chinese style music, Western pop music has also had a certain impact on the development of Chinese style music. In the 1990s, Western music styles such as rhythm and blues and hip-hop entered the Chinese music scene. Their strong sense of rhythm and free and spontaneous rhythm attracted the attention of the younger generation. However, some Western pop music has shortcomings such as negative themes, vulgar lyrics, and weird tunes.By adding traditional Chinese arrangements, melodies and vocals, Chinese style music removes the dross and extracts the essence of Western pop music, eliminating its shortcomings to a certain extent.
In terms of singing techniques, Chinese style music mainly combines Western rhythm and blues transposition with traditional Chinese opera singing. Rhythm and blues is characterized by a strong sense of rhythm and flexible transitions, which can well express complex emotions. This coincides with the long transitions in traditional Chinese opera and forms the basis for the integration of the two. There are two ways to combine the two. One is to intersperse opera singing with rhythm and blues style music. For example, "Huo Yuanjia" adds Peking Opera Hua Dan singing; the other is the blending of rhythm and blues and opera singing. For example, "Susan said" falls into this category. In addition, Chinese style music also draws on popular singing methods such as rap and rock to express one's aspirations. The rock version of "One Night in Beijing" is a shocking and exciting performance, which is a typical example of the fusion of pop rock music and the quintessence of Beijing accent. Rap refers to a special form of singing that speaks rhythmically, and Chinese style music also draws lessons from it. It usually inserts a large section of rap with a strong sense of rhythm into the song. The songs "Lady" and "Chinese" are all such attempts.
In terms of the use of musical instruments, Chinese style music organically integrates different types of Western instruments such as woodwinds, brass, bowed strings, plucked instruments, keyboards, and percussion instruments with traditional Chinese instruments. For example, "East Wind Break" includes both Western-style musical instruments such as piano, jazz drums, and acoustic guitar, as well as traditional Chinese musical instruments such as pipa and erhu. The piano timbre is loud and broad, the jazz drum timbre is rich and diverse, the acoustic guitar timbre is elegant and simple, the erhu timbre is mellow and soft, and the pipa timbre is clear and bright. The alternation and transformation of various timbres can better express the complexity and depth of emotions. In "Thousand Years of Love", the strong heavy metal accompaniment, the heart-rending shouting style of singing, the erhu interlude after the chorus, and the alternation of Chinese and Western instruments create emotional ups and downs, and the use of erhu interlude becomes the highlight. Here, the sad and sad Chinese instrument timbre echoes the theme of the song very well.
We still need to solve the problems of similar melodies and lack of originality.
Excellent Chinese style music is often a masterpiece of heartfelt emotions, expressing friendship, love, family affection, feelings of family and country, compassion for the world, etc. People share this and the same heart. Only in this way can the common emotions of this principle arouse widespread resonance among the audience. The reason why excellent Chinese-style music is so popular is that it has exquisite melody techniques, rhythmic beats, musical forms and tonality, and accompaniment and orchestration. At the same time, it uses emotion as the connecting and through-going theme to firmly capture people's hearts.
For example, "Fireworks Easily Cold" is based on "Luoyang Jialan Ji" written by Yang Xuanzhi during the Northern Wei Dynasty. It tells the story of a general and a woman who fell in love at first sight, but lost their lifelong love due to the war. In terms of melody creation, "Fireworks Easily Cold" is a two-part form, which not only has the simple and natural characteristics of the A-feather six-tone mode of Chinese music, but also has the delicate and complex characteristics of the A-natural minor of Western music. The melody attempt of combining Chinese and Western styles is more It fits the sad tone of the entire song. In terms of orchestration, "Fireworks Easily Cool" uses guitar as the main body, piano as an auxiliary, and is embellished with modern instruments such as electric bass, which combines classical connotations with modern trends. In terms of singing skills, breath control, timbre application, articulation, and emotional mastery all affect the presentation of a song. It is the combined effect of lyrics, melody, orchestration, singing and other aspects, as well as the deep emotions running through it, that create an excellent Chinese style music work.
Over the past twenty years, Chinese style music has grown from its infancy to maturity. While it has achieved many achievements, it has also faced some development bottlenecks caused by commercial operations and the limitations of musicians themselves. Typical problems include serious homogeneity, simple collage, and lack of stamina caused by lack of originality. Serious homogeneity is manifested in three aspects. First, the themes are highly similar, and love and hate are overly written; second, the melodies are almost identical, and the orchestration is mostly limited to a mix of several common instruments; third, the singing methods are often similar, and the usual techniques It is to implant various dramas into the songs.On the one hand, being prone to simple collage refers to the accumulation of some unrelated images in the creation of lyrics, lacking the connection of the central theme; on the other hand, it refers to the low degree of fit between the lyrics and the melody, and simple collage leads to A feeling of fragmentation and alienation. Chinese style songs have a huge audience and broad market prospects, and a large number of musicians have invested in their creation. Such a large creative group should have produced more high-quality works, but it has not shown strong originality and innovation, and the continued development of Chinese style music is insufficient.
looks back and summarizes the characteristics of Chinese style music and the development bottlenecks it faces. To create more local and original music with Chinese elements, Chinese taste and Chinese characteristics, we need to continue to draw nutrients from Chinese classical music and be creative. Transformation and innovative development; abandoning the dross and shortcomings of Western pop music and absorbing the essence to innovate; use exquisite lyrics, arrangement, singing, interpretation, etc. to write the common true feelings of mankind. (End) (Original title: Chinese style music has become popular)
Author/Li Hui Wang Hongwei
