China News Service, Beijing, January 17th. Question: How did Taiwan become a center of Chinese pop music?
——Exclusive interview with Huang Haoran, the son of Zhuang Nu, the "master of Chinese poetry"
China News Service reporter Zhang Xiaoxi
Chinese pop music is a music type that is widely spread in the Chinese world around the world and is very popular with listeners. How did Chinese pop music originate and develop? What are the uniquenesses? Why did Taiwan once lead the development of Chinese pop music? What problems are you encountering now?
Recently, Huang Haoran, the son of Zhuang Nu, the "master of Chinese poetry", accepted an exclusive interview with China News Service's "East-West Question", detailing the development of Chinese pop music and focusing on analyzing the reasons why Taiwan has become a major center for Chinese pop music.
The interview transcript is summarized as follows:
China News Service reporter: In your opinion, what is the basic development trend of Chinese pop music?
Huang Haoran: As I understand it, at the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese people with lofty ideals were committed to educational reforms to save the country and strengthen the country. "School music and songs" emerged with the establishment of new-style schools, creating a precedent for China's new music mentality. At that time, music was mostly notated using simplified musical notation, and the tunes were mostly from Japan, Europe and the United States, with lyrics rewritten in Chinese. Shen Xingong, Li Shutong, Li Baochen and others are representatives of "School Music and Songs". Songs such as "Spring Outing", "Farewell" and "Missing Hometown" are still sung today.
In the Shanghai area in the 1930s, the music entertainment industry combined with the film industry flourished, and the Shanghai-style "era music" that integrated Western jazz, classical music, and Chinese folk song melodies came into being. Works by musicians such as Li Jinhui, He Luting, Liu Xue'an, Nie Er, Xian Xinghai, Chen Gexin, etc. have been performed and sung by Zhou Xuan, Bai Hong, Wu Yingyin, Gong Qiuxia, Liminghui and others, such as "Drizzle", "Autumn Beauty" and "Song Girl from the End of the World" "When Will You Come Again", "Tuberose", "Reunion", "Rose Rose I Love You" and other popular songs have become popular.
▲Character sculptures of Nie Er and Xian Xinghai. Photo by Xu Jianmei
From the 1950s to the 1970s, the base of "The Music of the Times" moved from Shanghai to Hong Kong. Musicians represented by Yao Min, Li Houxiang, Chen Dieyi, Wang Fuling, Li Junqing, Gu Jiahui, Feng Fengsan, etc., and singers such as Yao Li, Bai Guang, Pan Xiuqiong, Gu Mei, etc., combine European, American and Nanyang customs, as well as Guangdong culture, film and television industry Development, etc., and has created many popular classic works, including "Unable Love", "Lover's Tears", "Laughing at the Sight of You", "I Don't Know the Fragrance of Qiluo", "Take Care of Tonight", "Nanping Evening Bell", etc.
Around 1949, military and cultural musicians who were transferred to Taiwan, such as Zhou Lanping, Guan Huashi, Zhuang Nu, Zuo Hongyuan, Li Pengyuan, Shen Zhi, Sun Yi, etc., combined "school music" with "school music" in Shanghai and Hong Kong. "The Song of the Times" was brought to the treasure island of Taiwan. After about 10 years of strict military and political control and a period of adaptation to the local culture in southern Fujian, Taiwan entered the stage of comprehensive development of civil society in the film and television music industry in the 1960s and 1970s.
China News Service reporter: Why did Taiwan once lead the development of Chinese pop music? What problems are encountered in the development of Chinese pop music in Taiwan today?
Huang Haoran: In my opinion, Taiwan once led the development of Chinese pop music. Its advantages lie in cultural compatibility, inheritance and innovation, diversity and tolerance, and at the same time healthy competition.
In Taiwan in the 1960s and 1970s, in addition to the music genre with military and political themes, folk music mainly used music from mainland China and Hong Kong as mainstream music elements, combined with Japanese enka, Hokkien ballads, mountain ballads, etc., as well as Western Pop music is mixed into it. In response to social stability and market demand, Taiwan's pop music has also begun original development.
The elite talents who moved to Taiwan from mainland China at that time blended all-encompassing musical styles of the West and the East.In 1962, Taiwan's first TV singing variety show "Stars Club" was launched. The show was co-produced by Shanghai Taiwanese musician Guan Huashi and his wife Shen Zhi. Well-known singers such as Jenny Yen, Bai Jiali, Teresa Teng, etc. successively launched classics works; at the same time, due to the development of the record performance market and the establishment of the official "Intellectual Property Bureau" and private copyright owners' associations, combined with the establishment of relevant norms, coupled with the support of Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and overseas Chinese markets, Chinese pop music has grown in popularity Then we ushered in a glorious period of cultural awareness and international integration, and laid a solid foundation.
▲Singer Jenny. Photo by Tan Daming
In the 1980s, Taiwan ushered in the development opportunities of globalization. Its economy and culture were highly internationalized, and its pop music industry was booming and a hundred flowers were blooming. Large and small record companies such as Rolling Stone and UFO have successfully built market brands and launched representative all-round singers and producers such as Luo Dayou, Li Zongsheng, and Zhou Zhiping. Whether it is personalized development or assembly line production, they have done a relatively good job. success.
Taiwan has a population of more than 20 million, but a single pop music album could sell millions of genuine copies at the time, which also attracted great attention from international record companies. These companies then targeted the mainland market after reform and opening up, and combined with international capital, copyright, operations, etc., to bring the creation and opportunities of Taiwan's Chinese pop music talents to a higher level, reaching international standards, and naturally ushering in the 20th century. The industry “exploded” from the 1990s to the early 21st century.
Around 2000, a new generation of Taiwanese pop singers such as Jay Chou appeared. Around the same time, the Internet developed rapidly and "Generation Z" (generally refers to those born between 1995 and 2009) rose. Under the influence of the proliferation of information "explosion", the enhanced desire for community identification, and the fragmented aesthetics, global pop music has shown a trend of "popularity without boundaries". Coupled with the worldwide cultural convergence and the rapid consumption concept, emergence, etc., the content of popular music has gradually become difficult to settle, and Chinese pop music will inevitably be affected.
▲In 2018, Jay Chou's "Strongest on Earth" World Tour Concert was held in Sydney, Australia. Photo by Chen Lu
However, due to the influence of political culture such as "self-marginalization", Taiwan's market aesthetics has experienced a "narcissistic involution". Although the music elements are still diverse, it lacks a larger international perspective to see different Things will not be able to lead to larger-scale market popularity.
China News Service reporter: Compared with Western pop music, what is unique about Chinese pop music? To what extent is it influenced by traditional Chinese culture?
Huang Haoran: The uniqueness of Chinese pop music lies in "diction and phonology". Our Chinese square characters are different from the pinyin combination letters of most countries in the world. They are single characters with single sounds and accents that have multiple meanings. The combination of the word meaning, vocabulary, and context fills the melody with emotions, artistic conception, and phonology. Lyrics are a unique element of Chinese pop music.
Nowadays, when we talk about Chinese pop music, we usually compare it with Western pop music. However, as a music genre with a history of less than a century, Chinese pop music is inherited from traditional opera, Tang poetry, Song lyrics, and Yuan music, and can be traced back to Han Dynasty. Fu, Chu Ci, Yuefu, and The Book of Songs.
Since ancient times, using words to form rhythms and singing poems has been the orthodoxy of Chinese rhythm and context. For example, "The Book of Songs", China's first collection of poems, "Wind" records folk songs sung in various places in the Zhou Dynasty, which is equivalent to today's folk songs and popular songs; "Ya" is the formal elegant music of the Zhou people, which is equivalent to today's folk songs. Classical music, silk and bamboo folk music; "Ode" is a song for worship in the Zhou royal court and aristocratic temples, similar to today's main melody songs. It is worth mentioning that the work "On the Water Side" by Taiwanese writer Qiong Yao and musician Lin Jiaqing is quoted from the "Book of Songs".
▲Taiwanese writer Qiong Yao. Photo by Li Xin
In addition, Tang poems are chanted with "Heluo Yayin"; Song poems are composed with "Cipai name", writing a splendid chapter for Chinese culture."The Moon Represents My Heart", composed by Sun Yi and Weng Qingxi, entrusts the beautiful thoughts of "sharing the beauty of the moon thousands of miles apart" and is also a classic work of Chinese pop music today. The reason why this piece of music is sung is precisely because it embodies China’s everlasting humanistic aesthetics and unique romantic nostalgia.
China News Service reporter: Where do you think the future of Chinese pop music lies?
Huang Haoran: With the advent of the Internet music platform and the newer streaming music era, multiculturalism is more integrated, changes in the international landscape, and the pace of life are accelerating, etc., are also affecting the development of Chinese pop music.
Someone pointed out pessimistically that since the Internet era, big data-oriented Chinese pop music, driven by the short-sighted and short-sighted capital market, can no longer produce classic and timeless masterpieces, but I don’t think so. In my opinion, with the renaissance of Chinese culture and the high national self-confidence, a new era of Chinese pop music can be said to have just begun.
For Chinese pop music to continue to develop, it needs to work together from all aspects such as traceability and documentary, aesthetic education, inheritance and creation, etc., to establish discourse, open up public awareness, actively create, and regulate the market. Under the communication wave of the new era of integrated media, Continue to inherit the "Chinese music and culture".
Not many people may know that "Rose Rose I Love You" was the first movie song to go abroad and was later adapted as an English pop song "Rose Rose I Love You" to appear on the big screen in the United States, right? The well-known "Sweet Honey" is a variation of the Indonesian ballad "Sampan Paddling". Through the joint efforts of Zhuang Nu and Teresa Teng, it has now become a representative Chinese pop music with many versions in international languages and highly sung around the world. . All this shows that seemingly short and concise pop songs are different from the large investment in production by the film and television industry. They only need to be passed down by word of mouth and understood by heart, and they can be passed down far and wide and from generation to generation. This kind of cultural integration and the cost-effectiveness of input and output are very worthwhile.
▲ Teresa Teng
Beautiful pop music should be appreciated by both refined and popular people, suitable for all ages, and educational and entertaining. I suggest that we continue to expand the scope of the Chinese pop music industry, further segment and specialize creations in the mass commercial market, and carry out in-depth planning and management. While encouraging original music, we must also trace the origin of aesthetics, accumulate tolerance, and copy and learn from it. Only with an open mind, a solid foundation, and an open mind can we hear more beautiful melodies and sing a broader range of the sounds of nature.
The essence of Chinese pop music lies in the artistic conception of lyrics and the romantic ideas in Chinese culture. Whether it is Chinese pop music from mainland China, Taiwan or other regions, it is precisely this aspect that must be inherited, rather than overly focusing on music production and singing skills. In my opinion, this puts the cart before the horse. (End)
Brief introduction of the interviewee:
Huang Haoran, a native of Taipei City, originally from Beijing, his father Huang He (original name Wang Jingxi, pen name Zhuang Nu), is known as the "dean of Chinese poetry", his representative works include "Small Town Story" and "Sweet Honey" "Seeing the Smoke Again", "A Fire in Winter", etc.). Specially invited director of Shanghai Taiwan Federation, Taiwan's senior record planning producer, fashion musician, music and literature worker, international fashion industry brand management, product research and development, trend development expert. He once taught at Taiwan Shih Chien University, and also worked as an entertainment agent and TV and radio program planner. Currently, he is focused on the research and creative development of "Zhuang Nu" culture, Chinese pop music discussion, textile fashion industry chain integration, and cross-strait cultural exchange affairs.
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