In ancient times, the form of primitive music was a trinity of singing, dancing and music, in which singing and dancing played a great role and the rhythm was also prominent. Primitive music is closely related to working life. For example, when our ancestors worked together, in order to reduce the fatigue of carrying wood, they shouted out the tone and rhythm of "evil promises and evil promises", similar to the labor sound in the song; Another example is the legendary story of "broken bamboo and bamboo flying to eat meat" in "Playing Songs", which reflects the hunting life of the Yellow Emperor, and the group song "Eight Ques", which reflects the primitive farming and animal husbandry life. There are three kinds of music and dance in this period: Yunmen, Xianchi and Shao. However, due to the low productivity and poor material life in primitive society, some phenomena in nature cannot be explained, so their music is full of mystery. In primitive song and dance, the music is relatively simple, and singing is only in the state of natural human voice, with the dancers' gestures and the rhythm of percussion instruments.
During the Xia and Shang Dynasties, China entered the slave society, folk music and witchcraft music were introduced to the royal family, and professional dancers and musicians appeared, as well as specialized musicians, such as Shi Juan, which indicated that music education in this period had begun to sprout. During this period, music became a tool for the ruling class to enjoy and sacrifice, and there appeared two representative kinds of music and dance, namely, Daxia and Dayun.
The Zhou Dynasty formed a ritual and music system and educational institutions divided into professional music education and school music education, which greatly developed folk music and court music and produced the music and dance "Dawu". In singing, besides the pentatonic scale, tone sandhi and palace sandhi are added to form the six-seven-tone scale, which enriches the expressive force of vocal art.
Second, the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period
The forms of songs in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period are more diverse. In addition to the Book of Songs, which is a collection of folk songs handed down from ancient times, there are nine songs sung during folk sacrifices in Southern Chu, Chu Ci processed and created by Qu Yuan, and the originator of China rap music. These songs are not only different in tune, mode, structure and style, but also reached the highest level in singing in the pre-Qin period. Confucius watched the performance of Qi in the Spring and Autumn Period, and even praised the "supreme goodness" and was moved to "I don't know the taste of meat in March". In Liezi Tang Wen, the legend that Qin Qing's singing shocked the forest to make the clouds in the sky no longer float away, and the story of Momo, a Korean female singer, singing for three days in Qi, let us know clearly that without a good voice, singing skills and artistic treatment, we can't reach such a state.
Third, the Qin and Han Dynasties
After Qin unified the six countries, a huge music organization Yuefu was established, which collected and sorted out the folk music of various countries and played a certain role in the development of music. During the Han, Three Kingdoms, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, in addition to vigorously developing the processing, creation and singing of Yuefu folk songs, there were also forms such as advocacy songs, cross-blowing songs, harmony songs, commercial songs, long narrative songs, hundreds of plays, self-playing pipa singing, and dance music. With the prosperity of these forms, the introduction of Buddhist music, the development of the legal system, etc., various singing methods such as agitation, grace, fluency, stretching, humming and chanting have gradually formed in Chinese traditional vocal music. In addition, Li Yannian, an important musician, He Chengtian, a musicologist and some composers also appeared in this period.
Fourth, Sui and Tang Dynasties
The music of Sui and Tang Dynasties is a prosperous period in the music history of China. Yan music appeared in the court, and song and dance music was an important part of it. Including seven songs and nine songs mainly in the form of instrumental music in the Sui Dynasty, the left and inner parts of the Tang Dynasty, and the artistic forms such as song and dance Daqu and Faqu, which combine instrumental music with song and dance. Vocal music art also reached a considerable height at this time. The imperial court set up special music institutions, such as the pear gardens in the Sui Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, to train Yan music performance and cultivate many excellent musicians and musicians. It is said that Ren Zhifang's four daughters are all famous for their good songs. Or "inhale sadly", the voice is implicit and full; Or "Rong Zhi is idle, but he is not singing when he looks at it", and his voice is natural and elegant, without any tension; Or "the voice is smooth and hollow, like coming from the air", and the voice is firm and round. When singing in falsetto, the song still seems to come from the horizon. Therefore, China traditional vocal music attaches great importance to the artistic conception expressed by the voice. Duan Anjie in the Tang Dynasty also expounded some valuable opinions in his Miscellanies of Yuefu, such as "A good singer must first adjust his breath, and the breath will come out from the navel to the throat, that is, he can distinguish the falling tone, and if virtue can suppress the clouds and ring the valley." He pointed out that a good singer should be good at controlling and using breath, starting from the abdomen and speaking with his voice, so that his songs are round and firm, implicit and full, beautiful and pleasant. There were many outstanding singers in the Tang Dynasty, such as Yongxin, Niannu, Wei Qing, He Manzi and Zhang. With the gradual decline of elegant music in the Tang Dynasty, folk songs, variations, Sanqu, musicals, legionary teleplay and other forms of artistic expression appeared. At the same time, due to the appearance of Gongchi notation in Tang Dynasty, the complexity of music rhythm and the application of tonality and mode conversion in songs put forward stricter requirements for singing art. Yuan Zhen, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, once praised the tone sandhi skills of the singer with the poem "Can sing with attacking sound".
Verb (abbreviation of verb) in Song and Yuan Dynasties
During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, citizens' music culture appeared and flourished, and there were places for citizens' music activities such as Wagoulan, teahouse, restaurant and Song Lou. The diversified patterns of national tunes, aria, Sanqu, rap music, traditional opera, religious music and song and dance have contributed to the further development of multi-style national singing. Quzi is an artistic song developed on the basis of folk songs. It breaks through the norms of five-character verse and seven-character quatrain, makes the rhythm and rhythm of new poetry pleasing to the eye in music, and shows the new attitude of China traditional art songs in sentence pattern, structure, tone sandhi, level tone and rhythm relaxation. Song creation by Jiang Kui, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, is of great value for us to study the playing skills and styles of traditional songs. In rap music, it includes drum words, Zhu Gong tunes, Tao Zhen and hawking, all of which promote the development of national music and vocal music in China. However, in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, operas were divided into zaju and Nanju, while in the Song Dynasty, zaju was divided into burlesque with dialogue as the main part and singing and dancing as the main part. In the Yuan Dynasty, zaju reached a highly mature stage, with Guan Hanqing, Ma Zhiyuan, Zheng Guangzu and Bai Pu, as well as songwriters Wang Shifu and Qiao Jifu, who were called the "four masters of the Yuan Dynasty". Southern Opera has also become a "legend". There is no rule that there must be a lead singer when singing. The characters in the play can sing at any time as needed, and have created singing forms such as duet, rotation and chorus. In my opinion, the drama of this period can be said to be China's opera. In addition, in theory and creation, cutie, the father of Zhang Yan, the author of Etymology, invited a singer to audition every time he wrote a song, and then changed it according to the needs of music score and singing. It can be seen that poets in Song Dynasty attached importance to the combination of poetry, melody, music itself and singing techniques. However, Zhang Yan made a detailed analysis of singing, pronunciation and rhythm treatment in Elegy, Music Score and Punching, and put forward the singing gist that "words must be said first, and actions must be polyphonic", which is in line with what we now call "clear pronunciation and mellow voice". In addition, in Yuan Ren Zhi 'an's On Singing, a relatively comprehensive theoretical work of singing art in ancient China, it is pointed out that singing articulation should be "correct in words, accurate in sentences, accurate in tune" and "full of sound and emotion"; When you make a sound, you should overcome some bad actions and problems such as "dry voice, stuffy nose, shaking your head, crooked mouth, closing your eyes, pursed lips, pie mouth and coughing".
Six, Ming and Qing Dynasties
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, rap, folk songs, opera, song and dance music and instrumental music in traditional music all formed their own unique systems. In rap music, there are southern tanci and northern drum ci. In the development of China opera, there are four major vocal cavities, namely Haiyan cavity, Yu Yaoqiang cavity, Yiyang cavity and Kunshan cavity. In the development of Kunshan Opera, there are two important figures, one is Wei Liangfu's reform of Kunshan Opera, and the other is Liang Chenyu's putting his own work "Huansha Ji" on the stage together with Kunshan Opera, which promoted the popularity of Kunshan Opera and laid the foundation of Kunshan Opera. Subsequently, in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, Peking Opera Banqiang appeared with distinctive business and unique personality. In terms of folk songs, songs are extremely rich, and some literati are actively engaged in the collection, collation and publication of folk songs, such as Hanging Branches and Folk Songs selected by Feng Menglong, which have collected more than 800 lyrics. In addition, there are a few piano pieces left by vocal pianists, and there are also special music collections of the Ming Dynasty, such as Yin Zheshi's Qin Zipu. Most of these art forms have music scores, and the songs can be passed down, which provides a tangible basis for us to study the traditional experience of China's vocal music. In the mid-Ming Dynasty, Zhu Zaiyu initiated the theory of twelve average laws, but it was not used at that time. With the introduction of modern western music, his theory is of great scientific value to the development of modern vocal instrumental music. Wei Liangfu, a traditional Chinese opera musician in the mid-Ming Dynasty, said in the Theory of Vocal Music that "there are three unique songs: clear words are unique; The cavity purity is the second best; The board is a must. " The aesthetic principle of "clear pronunciation and mellow voice" is briefly summarized. In the Qing Dynasty, Xu Dachun not only analyzed the singing principles of enunciation and intonation, but also the principle that "the feeling of winning the song is particularly important" when creating the role of traditional Chinese opera. He also proposed that "if every word is like the ancients, it is not exquisite, but difficult to teach, and the voice of the ancients cannot be traced back. Since I wrote it myself, I know that nothing is out of tune. " Even if it is your own, it is still not a real ancient song. "This view on how to look at traditional singing will change with the times, so we don't have to blindly imitate the ancients. Moreover, the voices of the ancients cannot be traced back, and it is impossible for us to always create an ancient song. This requires us to innovate and develop on the basis of learning tradition to meet the needs of today's audience.
In the late Qing Dynasty, with the introduction of western music through court diplomacy and missionaries from various countries, new music, which was different from the traditional China, rose and developed rapidly in China in the first half of the 20th century. The initial stage is centered on school music and songs. The reformist scholars represented by Liang Qichao were impassioned and shouted: "Poetry and music should be the main body of spiritual education in order to transform the national quality;" It is really indispensable in school to sing a subject without education today; There is no new energy spectrum in the country, which is really a shame for society. " As a result, many schools in China set up "music and song classes", and school singing became the new trend of social and cultural life at that time. School music songs are mainly about singing lessons, and the lyrics and music creation methods are different from traditional songs. At the same time, a large number of overseas students, such as Zeng Zhimao, Shen Xingong and Li Shutong, returned to China to devote themselves to the music teaching of school songs, and translated and compiled some new songs and music education works, which made contributions to improving the level of music education and promoting the development of music culture in China.
Seventh, the 20th century.
In the 1920s, a professional conservatory of music, Shanghai National Conservatory of Music, appeared, and a vocal music department was established, employing foreign teachers and foreign students to teach Bel Canto, which promoted the progress of vocal music art in China. Modern vocal music works are the main body of new music culture. The development of modern vocal music has experienced two baptisms: school music and anti-Japanese national salvation singing. In school music, there are children's songs, school songs, collective singing songs, song and dance performances and musicals represented by Li Jinhui's creation. Anti-Japanese songs appeared in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period. In 1930s and 1940s, mass songs appeared. During this period, China trained a large number of vocal singers with formal training, such as Yu, Lang, Zhou Xiaoyan, Gao,, and so on. They often held solo concerts and engaged in vocal music teaching, which created conditions for the spread and improvement of vocal music works in this period and promoted the further development of vocal music in China. At the same time, a large number of musicians have emerged, and they have also contributed to the development of China's music industry. During this period, solos appeared in the form of music, such as Xiao's Wen, Teach me how not to think about him, I live at the head of the Yangtze River and Three Wishes for Roses. New narrative songs, such as Nie Er's Girl Under the Iron Shoes and He Luting's On the Jialing River. Small chorus songs such as "Moonlit Night on the Spring River" and The Yellow River Cantata in Xian Xinghai; Oratorio, such as Huang Zi's Song of Eternal Sorrow; Songs of film and television dramas, such as Yu, Children in the Storm, Night Songs by Nie Er, etc. There are operas, such as the New Yangko Opera in Yan 'an and the iconic opera White-haired Girl in China. Most of these works have been applied to our current vocal music teaching materials and become an indispensable part of song teaching in China.