Music is an art that reflects the emotions of real life (English name: Music; French name: Musique). Music can be divided into two major types: vocal music and instrumental music, and can also be divided into classic music, pop music, and ethnic music. Among art types, music is a relatively abstract art. Music can be divided into ancient Chinese music and Western music from the historical development. The ancient Chinese theory was based on the pentatonic scale, while the heptatonic scale passed over from the West. Music is pleasing to the eyes and brings you listening pleasure.

Music is an art form that uses auditory images composed of organized sounds to express people's thoughts, feelings and social reality. It is also one of the most instantly moving art forms. The melody sounds and people are often unable to resist the three-dimensional atmosphere of music. Any art form has its own expressions to express ideas and shape artistic images. For example, dance embodies artistic images through body movements and facial expressions, painting embodies lines, colors, and compositions, and literature embodies artistic images through words, words, sentences, and articles. Usually, people distinguish different types of art based on different means of expression, such as different musical instruments. Music can also show the intentions of the singers.

Literary description of music: Writer San Gu said that as broad as a country’s musical territory is, its cultural inclusiveness will be greater; how rich a nation’s music types are, its people So rich and happy.

Sound art

Music is an art form that uses sound as a means of expression, and the shaping of images is completed using organized sounds as materials.

Therefore, just as literature is the art of language, music is the art of sound. This is one of the basic characteristics of musical art. Sound, as a means of expression of musical art, has some characteristics that are different from other sounds in nature.

The sounds produced in any musical work are carefully thought out and created by the composer. These sounds can be found in nature[3], but they have not been created and combined by artists ingeniously. It cannot become music. Therefore, whether it is a simple song or a large-scale symphony, it is permeated with the author's creative thinking. Randomly painted lines and colors are not paintings, arbitrarily piled up language and words are not literature, and similarly, messy sounds are not music. The sounds that constitute musical images are organized, regular and harmonious music, including melody, rhythm, mode, harmony, polyphony, musical form and other elements, collectively referred to as musical language. Without a creative element, no sound can become music.

Language has a conventional semantics, and every sentence or even every word has a specific meaning. This meaning is recognized within the social scope in which the language is used and is a convention; the sound of music is completely different. It is only limited to the scope of art and exists only as an artistic exchange; the sound of music in any music is completely different. Sounds themselves never have a very definite meaning like language, they are non-semantic.

Audio art

Since music is the art of sound, it can only appeal to people’s hearing. Therefore, music

Music exclusive album (37 photos)

Music is also an auditory art. The principles of directional reflex and exploratory reflex in psychology tell us that among various external stimuli within a certain distance, sound can attract people's attention the most. It can force people's auditory organs to accept the sound, which determines the comparison of auditory art with visual art. Art can more directly affect people's emotions and shock people's hearts.

Music can only be expressed by sound and felt by hearing, but this does not mean that when people create and appreciate music, only the parts of the cerebral cortex corresponding to hearing are excited, while other parts of the cerebral cortex are excited. All parts are in a suppressed state. In fact, musicians not only feel and experience, understand and express life through the channel of hearing, but also use their whole body and mind to feel and experience, which is no different from other types of artists. The difference is that during artistic conception and artistic expression, musicians condense their various personal feelings into auditory images through image thinking, and then express them in specific sound forms.

Therefore, the thoughts and emotions expressed in musical works are not simply auditory feelings, but an overall feeling. Similarly, when people appreciate music, although they mainly receive auditory stimulation through auditory channels, due to the role of synaesthesia, they may also cause visual images, produce rich and vivid associations and imaginations, and then arouse strong emotions. Reaction, experience the thoughts, feelings and situations expressed by musicians in their works, gain a sense of beauty and be moved by them.

Emotional Art

Among all art forms, music is the art form that is best at expressing emotions and touching the heartstrings. It uses the medium of sound to truly convey and express and feeling aesthetic emotions. Music is superior to other art forms in conveying and expressing emotions because of the perceptual materials and aesthetic forms it uses - sound is most in line with the nature of emotion and is most suitable for expressing emotions. Some are solemn and solemn, some are passionate and exciting, some are sad and angry, some are lingering and delicate, some are weeping and complaining. Music can express people's emotions more directly, more truly, and more profoundly.

So, why can music use organized sounds to express people's emotions? One theory is that the expressiveness of music comes from music's imitation of people's expressive language. Human language uses expression methods such as voice, tone, flow, rhythm, and speaking speed to express meaning in conjunction with semantics, while expression methods such as timbre, pitch fluctuations, and rhythm speed of music can play the same role as language expression methods.

Personally, I believe that there is a similarity between the sound form of music and human emotions, and there is a certain "isomorphic relationship". This is the fundamental reason why music can express human emotions. Music theorist Yu Runyang once pointed out: "The fundamental reason why sound structure can express specific emotions is that there is an extremely important similarity between the two, that is, both show and express themselves in time. Development, a dynamic process with rich changes in speed, intensity and tone. This extremely important similarity is the bridge between the two. "For example, "joy" is a happy thing. , happy emotional expression. Generally speaking, this kind of emotional movement shows a jumping and upward movement form, with brighter colors and faster movement speed and frequency. Music that expresses the emotion of "joy" generally adopts a similar dynamic structure, such as the folk music "Joyful", which expresses people's joyful emotions by means of faster speed, bouncing tones and other means of expression. [4]

Time Art

Sculptures, paintings and other art forms are solidified in space, making them clear to people at a glance. When we appreciate a work of art, we first see the work as a whole, and then appreciate its details. But music is different. Music should unfold in time and flow in time. When we appreciate music, we first start with the details, starting from the local parts. It is not until the whole piece is played (sung) that it leaves an overall impression on us. It is impossible to obtain a complete musical image by only listening to individual fragments of a musical work. Therefore, music art is also a time art.

As an auditory art, musical imagery unfolds in time, presenting, developing, and ending in movement as time continues. The so-called "musical image" refers to the artist's thoughts and feelings expressed in the entire musical work and the images or artistic conception evoked in the viewers' thoughts and feelings. For example, "Moonlit Night on the Spring River" uses sweet, comfortable and tranquil tunes to express the feeling of boating on the picturesque Spring River on a moonlit night in the south of the Yangtze River, creating a fascinating musical artistic conception.

Spring River Flowers and Moonlight Night

Musical works are not like literature or paintings. As long as the author completes the creation and the creative process is completed, it can be directly enjoyed by people. Musical works must pass through the intermediate link of performance in order to convey the image expressed in the work to the audience and realize the aesthetic value of the artistic work. Therefore, music is also a performing art, an art that needs to be further recreated through performance.

When a composer records vivid musical ideas in the form of a score, he has already taken away its soul, and all that is left is a lifeless series of musical notes. The way to bring musical works back to life and turn scores into flesh-and-blood living music is music performance. Without musical performance, a musical work can only exist in the form of a score and never become real music.

No matter which score a composer writes, there is a certain gap between the music score and their musical ideas. To make up for this gap, to discover the musical ideas hidden in the score, and to enrich and supplement things that cannot be recorded in the score, all this depends on the re-creation of music performers. Therefore, music is also a performing art, and musical works can only be accepted by the audience through performance.

2 Origin

It is impossible to find out exactly when music began to exist in human society. But as early as before humans had language, they already knew how to use the pitch, strength, etc. of sounds to express their meaning and feelings. With the development of human labor, chants to unify the rhythm of labor and shouts to convey information to each other gradually emerged. This is the most primitive prototype of music. When people celebrate harvests and share the fruits of labor, they often beat stone and wooden tools to express their feelings. Joy, joy, this is the prototype of the original musical instrument.

Strings

The earliest stringed instrument in the world is the Chinese guqin, also known as Yaoqin, jadeqin and lyre. Guqin is an instrument that has been popular in the Zhou Dynasty. As of 2013, it has a history of at least 3,000 years. It was only called "Guqin" at the beginning of this century. ". There are posthumous legends about the creators of Qin, such as "Fuxi made the Qin in the past", "Shen Nong made the Qin", "Shun made the five-stringed Qin to sing the southern wind", etc. It can be seen that the Qin has a long history in China. "The Book of Songs·Guan Ju" has "A graceful lady, the harp and harp are friends", and "The Book of Songs·Xiaoya" also has: "The harp and harp beat the drums to control the ancestors of Tian" and other records.

Wind Instruments

Ancient Chinese history records that in the Huangdi era five thousand years ago, there was a man named

Wind Instruments

Ling A musician from Lun, he went into the Kunhua Mountains in the west to collect bamboo for flutes. At that time, there happened to be five phoenixes flying in the sky, and he made laws according to their sounds. Although this story cannot be completely believed, it can be regarded as a mysterious legend about the origin of wind instruments.

Ancient musical instruments

The first emperor of China, the Yellow Emperor, was a famous emperor who created the calendar and writing five thousand years ago.

At that time, in addition to the aforementioned Ling Lun, there was also a musician named "Fuxi". It is said that Fuxi had the head of a human and the body of a snake. He was conceived in his mother's womb for twelve years. He played a harp with fifty strings. Because the tone was too sad, Huang Di cut off half of the harp and changed it to twenty-five strings.

In addition, in the legend of the Yellow Emperor's era, Shennong was also a musician. He taught people how to farm, tasted herbs and discovered medicinal herbs, and he also created the five-stringed qin.

3 Categories

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Some musical works are expressed through the human voice. Such works are called vocal works, and some works are performed with musical instruments. Come out, such musical works are called instrumental works. All musical works in the world are included in the two categories of "vocal music" and "instrumental music".

Vocal music

Vocal music works can be divided into different genres such as songs, rap music, opera music, and operas according to their different forms and styles. Song is a small music genre, including folk songs, art songs, popular songs, children's songs, etc. In terms of form, it can be divided into solo singing, duet singing, chorus, unison singing, joint singing, etc. Rap music refers to folk art music, including single string, big drum, voiceless, Pingtan, Shu Laibao, Qinshu, Errenzhuan, Daoqing, Yugu, etc.

Drama music refers to the music of Peking Opera, Henan Opera, Yue Opera, Flower Drum Opera, Tea Picking Opera, Huangmei Opera, Ping Opera, Han Opera, and other local operas.

Opera music is also a kind of opera music, but it does not have fixed programs and traditional singing like opera music. Opera music is dramatic music created by composers using national tones and musical language rich in the color of the times.

Instrumental music

Instrumental music works can be divided into solo pieces, ensemble pieces and ensemble pieces.

The solo repertoire ranges widely. There are solos for almost every instrument. China's erhu, pipa, banhu, flute, xiao, cucurbit flute, suona, dulcimer, sheng, guqin, zither, Liuqin, xylophone, etc., all have famous unique tunes. Although the same is true for Western musical instruments, the most world-famous solos are violin, piano, guitar, electronic keyboard and other musical instruments.

Duet music is rare among Chinese folk. However, in Europe, there are many outstanding works of string quartet, woodwind quintet, etc., which are still circulated around the world.

An ensemble refers to the performance of the same piece of music by multiple instruments. In the ensemble, each instrument not only gives full play to its performance and specialties, but also coordinates with each other according to certain harmonic rules. Among China's national instrumental ensembles, Jiangnan Sizhu and Cantonese music account for a large proportion. National orchestral music is mostly adapted or created by composers. National wind and percussion music also plays an important role in my country's Hebin music. Music played with Western brass instruments, woodwind instruments, string instruments and percussion is called orchestral music. Orchestral music made significant progress in Europe in the seventeenth century. The genres at that time included suites, overtures, fugues, fantasies, capriccios, rhapsodies, concertos, as well as symphonies and symphonic poems that had stricter requirements on musical form. .

4 types of styles

Classical music

What is classical music? Abroad, this type of music is called "classical music". "Classical" means "classical, orthodox, classical literature", so our Chinese call it "classical music", to be precise. It should be "Western classical music". First of all, to explain conceptually, "classical music" is the name of a musical category. However, even abroad, there are many different interpretations of the specific meaning of the term "classical music". The main objections come from different concepts of dividing the era of "classical music". The narrowest interpretation is to specifically refer to the works of the "Vienna Classical School" represented by the three giants of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven from the second half of the 18th century to the 1920s as "classical music." The broadest explanation is to move the time forward to the European Renaissance, from then until the later Baroque period, Viennese Classical period, Romantic period, National Music School, Impressionism until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The emergence of modern music schools, including all modern professional music that is not purely entertainment, is collectively referred to as "classical music".

Pop music

Pop music is translated from English popular music. According to the surface understanding of Chinese words, the so-called pop music refers to those instrumental music and songs that are short in structure, popular in content, lively in form, and sincere in emotion. They are loved by the masses, widely sung or appreciated, and are popular for a while and even passed down to future generations. These pieces of music and songs are rooted in the rich soil of public life. Therefore, it is also known as "popular music". However, such a definition may make music that is not popular music such as "The Internationale", "March of the Volunteers", "La Marseillaise", "The Waves of the Great Lake", "Ode to the Motherland", "The East Is Red" and "Nanni" "Bay", etc., can be classified as pop music simply because they are also widely circulated among the masses. On the other hand, music that is clearly popular is excluded from popular music because it cannot be circulated (which is also true in popular music). Obviously, pop music is not always popular, and popular music is not just pop music.

The accurate concept of pop music should be commercial music, which refers to music created with the main purpose of making profit. It is the commercial entertainment of music and all the "industrial" phenomena related to it. (See the 1990 edition of the former Soviet Union's "Music Encyclopedia Dictionary") Its marketability is primary, and its artistry is secondary.

National Music

In a narrow sense, the so-called Chinese national music refers to the various ethnic groups that have lived and multiplied in the land of China for generations. They have been created on the long historical and cultural traditions from ancient times to the present. Music with national characteristics that can embody national culture and national spirit. In a broad sense, Chinese music generally refers to music with pentatonic characteristics in the world.

China’s national music and art is a very unique art form in the world. In its thousands of years of civilization, the Chinese nation has created a large number of excellent national music cultures and formed a national music system with profound connotations and rich content. This system occupies an important position in world music. If we want to understand Chinese music, we cannot just sing some Chinese songs and listen to a few traditional pieces. We must also examine Chinese music and understand Chinese music from a national, historical, and regional perspective, so as to truly understand the connotation of Chinese music and understand it. Its status and historical value in the world music system. Chinese folk music is divided into: folk songs, folk singing and dancing music, folk instrumental music, folk rap music and folk opera music.

5 Notation methods

In the history of the development of music culture in China for thousands of years, many notation methods have been produced, such as subtractive notation, Lulu notation, Gongshang notation People use it to record, preserve and disseminate fleeting music. However, due to the complexity, cumbersomeness and imprecision of these notation methods, in addition to the subtractive notation that is still used in Guqin notation and the Gongchi notation that is still used by some old artists among the people, several other notation methods have gradually have been forgotten.

In China’s modern and contemporary music life, the two notation methods commonly used by people to record music—staff notation and simplified musical notation—are not “native” to China, but were introduced from abroad.

Staff notation

Staff notation is the most widely used notation method in the world today. It uses the position of the note heads on five parallel horizontal lines to record the level of the music. The different shapes of notes indicate the length of the sound. Compared with the simplified musical notation, the staff notation has the advantages of being more intuitive in indicating the pitch of the music and containing a large amount of music information. When writing large-scale music with a wide range, many voices, and frequent modulations, the staff notation has more advantages than the simplified musical notation. Therefore, it is widely used. Used in professional music field.

The predecessor of staff notation can be traced back to the Newm notation and measured notation in the European Middle Ages. Staff notation was developed on the basis of the first two notation methods. It was gradually perfected in the 17th century and took shape in the 18th century and is still in use today. The staff is adapted to the cultural background of Western pluralistic thinking. It has irreplaceable advantages in recording works with harmonic multi-line musical thinking such as Western instrumental music and symphonies. It has always been the main written form for recording Western music works.

Staves, a method of recording music, were introduced to China in the mid-17th century. It was originally used to record and disseminate motets and psalms that praised God sung in the Catholic Church. At the end of the 19th century, with the spread of Western missionaries and the establishment of new learning, the use of staff notation was promoted in China. At the beginning of the 20th century, due to the systematic study, dissemination and use of Western music theory, composition techniques and Western musical instrument performance by Xiao Youmei and other Chinese people, the status of staff notation in the field of professional music in China was established. Nowadays, staff music is used in the music creation of professional musicians in China, the performance and singing of professional music groups

staff music

, the music teaching of professional music schools, and even the majority of piano children's understanding of piano, violin, etc. They play a very important role in the learning of musical instruments. In our country, the promotion of staff notation can improve people's performance, singing, and appreciation levels, and is of great significance to popularizing elegant music culture and promoting exchanges of Chinese and foreign music culture.

Simplified musical notation

Simplified musical notation is also known as digital musical notation. It uses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 to represent the 7 basic note levels in the scale, and the rest starts with 0 Expression is by adding dots above or below the numbers to indicate higher or lower octaves; adding dashes after or below the numbers to indicate the length of the duration, which is a simple and intuitive notation method.

The prototype of simplified musical notation first appeared in Europe in the 16th century. In the 17th century, it was improved by French Catholic priest Sueti and used to teach church songs. In the mid-18th century, the famous French thinker and writer Rousseau improved it and compiled it into his "Music Dictionary". In the 19th century, after the continuous improvement and promotion of Garland, Paris and Scheve, it became widely used among the masses. Therefore, this kind of simplified notation is called "Jia-Pa-Xie's notation" in the West. However, because this notation method is not convenient for recording multi-part and complex music, simplified musical notation has almost never been popular in Europe.

Simple musical notation was introduced to my country via Japan during the school music period in the early 20th century. After vigorous promotion by early music educators and the development of the Anti-Japanese War and National Salvation Singing Movement in the 1930s, it quickly became popular in my country and became a major player in domestic music education. The main notation method for performance and communication.

Another reason why simplified musical notation has been widely popularized in China is that the notation method of simplified musical notation is very close to Gongchipu, a type of written musical notation popular among Chinese people. For example, Gongchipu uses the characters "Shangchi Gongfan Liuwuyi" and different radicals attached to the left side of the characters to indicate the pitch of the sound, while Simplified Pupu uses seven Arabic numerals and is appended above or below the number. The dots in Gongchi musical notation represent the length of the sound, while the simple notation uses the short horizontal line attached to the right or below the Arabic numeral to represent the length of the sound. Simplified music notation is so similar to Gongchi Pu, and the method of recording the pitch and length of sounds in Simplified music notation is simpler and more accurate than Gongchi Pu. Therefore, Chinese people accept Simplified music notation very easily. On a global scale, China is the country that has absorbed simplified musical notation the best and has carried it forward. There is no country in the world where simplified musical notation is as popular as China.

Simple musical notation has many advantages, such as being relatively easy to learn and easy to record. Many musicians in my country record their initial creative ideas when composing music, and are often accustomed to using simplified musical notation that is easy to write. When Nie Er composed "March of the Volunteers" and Xian Xinghai composed "Yellow River Cantata", their first drafts were also written in simplified musical notation. This makes it have more users than staffs in China, and plays an important role in promoting and popularizing mass music and cultural activities.

6 elements

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Basic elements of music: The basic elements of music refer to the various elements that make up music, including the pitch of the sound, the length of the sound, The intensity and timbre of the sound. These basic elements are combined with each other to form the commonly used "formal elements" of music, such as: rhythm, melody, harmony, as well as dynamics, speed, mode, form, texture, timbre, etc. The formal elements that constitute a musician are the means of musical expression. The most basic elements of music are rhythm and melody.

1. Rhythm: The rhythm of music refers to the length and strength of the mid-tones in the music movement. The rhythm of music is often compared to the skeleton of music. Beat is the periodic and regular repetition of heavy beats and weak beats in music. Traditional Chinese music calls the beat "banyan", "ban" is equivalent to the strong beat; "eye" is equivalent to the sub-strong beat (middle eye) or weak beat.

2. Melody: Melody is also called melody. The ups and downs of the music are organized horizontally in an orderly manner according to a certain rhythm to form a melody. Melody is one of the most important means of expression in the complete musical form. The progression direction of a tune is endlessly changing, and there are three basic progression directions: "horizontal progression", "upward" and "downward". The direction in which the same sound progresses is called horizontal progress; the direction from bass to treble is called ascending; the direction from treble to bass is called descending. Common ways of progressing tunes include: "repetition of the same tone", "progression" and "jump forward". The progression according to the adjacent notes of the scale is called progression, the jump in third degree is called minor jump, and the jump in fourth degree and above is called major jump.

3. Harmony: Harmony includes "chords" and "harmonic progressions". Chords are usually sound combinations formed by three or more tones that overlap vertically (simultaneously) according to certain rules. The horizontal organization of chords is the harmonic progression. Harmony has obvious color functions of thick, light, thick and thin; it also has the function of forming phrasing, dividing sections and ending the music.

4. Strength: the strength of the midrange of the music.

5. Speed: how fast the music progresses.

6. Mode: The tones used in music are connected according to a certain relationship. These tones form a system with one tone as the center (the main tone), which is called mode. Such as major mode, minor mode, my country's pentatonic mode, etc. The notes in the mode, starting from the tonic note and arranged from low to high, form a scale.

7. Music form: the horizontal organizational structure of music.

8. Texture: the combination form of each voice in a polyphonic musical work. (Including vertical and horizontal combination relationships).

9. Timbre: Timbre can be divided into human voice timbre and musical instrument timbre. The human voice can be divided into children's voice, female voice, male voice, etc. The differences in the timbres of musical instruments are even more varied. In music, sometimes only a single timbre is used, and sometimes a mixture of timbres is used.