A brief discussion on some accomplishments in playing the guqin Mr. Mei Yueqiang (3)
The issues that should be paid attention to in cultivating the "sense of continuity" are:
1 , The mind should be calm and not impetuous, and one should not just listen to the sound without seeking the rhyme.
2. The fingers should be raised slowly, that is, when two fingers press the string one after another, try to make sure that the next note does not appear, and the finger that presses the previous note does not move, so as to keep the lingering sound organic. Earth is connected with the latter sound.
3. You cannot use two fingers to alternate. When you must raise your fingers to change phonemes, you can use the previous sound 氵 (note down) and the latter sound bu 上 (chuo shang). The purpose is to make the previous sound As the sound weakens, the next sound will naturally connect from weak to strong, so that the connection between the sounds will not be harsh and uncoordinated, and it can also avoid sudden interruptions and rests.
4. The problem of continuous sound picking on multiple strings is a technical problem, which is generally solved by the techniques of "pressing multiple strings with one finger" and "snake and crane steps".
There are generally two types of pressing multiple strings with one finger. One is to press two strings with continuous tones, and use one finger to press two strings to slide up and down or play two tones in succession; the other is to press three or more strings with your fingers. You can press multiple strings at the same time, so that the sound effect is natural and coherent without gaps.
Snake walking and crane walking is a fingering technique that imitates snake walking and crane walking. Snaking is generally used when the thumb finger presses multiple strings at the same time to take notes continuously. Crane step is a method of picking up sounds that are separated by more than two emblems. Because the fingers are not long enough, you must step across like a crane walking. However, the common mistakes that beginners make are:
1. After stepping out hurriedly, they cannot control the force of falling fingers. Not only will there be a sound of wood hitting the piano surface, but it is also impossible to master the coordinated tone. How to solve this problem? First of all, you must have a sense of advance mentally so that your fingers are not nervous before stepping out. At the same time, you must pay attention to the correct pitch and press the strings with your fingers to the piano surface with appropriate force. You cannot press the strings with the method of hitting the piano surface. Only in this way can you obtain Good results. The ancients said that "a lifting finger is as heavy as a mountain, and a pointing finger is as light as a feather." This is the truth.
2. The problem of inaccurate phoneme pressing with the outstretched finger. To solve this problem, you must first be familiar with the harmonic relationship between phonemes, dispersion, consonance, and octave. For example: commonly used regular Tune (1 = F) Huiwai, twelve emblems, ten emblems, nine emblems, seven emblems six, seven emblems, six emblems two points, five emblems eight points, five emblems... etc. on the seventh string. Two-string chords (minor chords separated by one string), major chords (chords separated by two strings). Intermediate chords (chords separated by more than three strings). After you are familiar with the phonemes, there is a simple method of pressing the phonemes correctly, which is especially helpful for beginners, so you might as well give it a try. That is, when you need to press a certain phoneme, just look at the phoneme with your eyes and not your fingers, so that your fingers can press it basically accurately (the problem of pitch requires fine-tuning by hearing). This reason is very simple, because various functions of the human body are directed by the brain. The information observed by the eyes is transmitted to the brain, and the brain then directs the movements of the hands. This unity is human instinct. As long as the eyes do not read the wrong phonemes, the hands will You won't be able to hit the phonetic position.
3. There are common fingering movements on the piano score such as "two up" and "two down" without remembering the phonemes. Beginners often go up or down twice casually, resulting in a "yellow" sound ( Inaccurate sound), which will cause auditory differences over time, so you should pay attention to it. Why aren't the phonemes written on the music score? It is a matter of basic common sense in music theory, because the guqin is processed according to the pentatonic scale. Two up or two down means the two upper tones and the lower two tones. It means that the sound is obtained from the six strings and nine emblems, and then the upper seven emblems and nine points are obtained. Moving on to Qihui, because it is common knowledge in music theory, the notation omits the words and only writes 2 up or 2 down. Piano players must understand this truth and must handle it seriously when playing and cannot ignore it, otherwise problems will occur with intonation. , let alone playing beautiful music.
The principle of cultivating the sense of continuity is very simple, and it is not necessarily easy to use. It requires proficiency in fingering and inner cultivation, and the mind and hand are consistent when playing to achieve good results.
5. Aesthetic cultivation of Guqin performance
"Aesthetic" is everyone's inherent instinct.
The "beauty" of the guqin is that the guqin player gives the listener a kind of beautiful enjoyment through artistic expression. How to achieve this requires that the player himself first knows how to "aesthetically appreciate", otherwise he will not know how to know others, so it is also a guqin player. The qualities that performers must possess. Often people who play the piano only know how to play according to the score, without paying attention to the emotional effect. The aesthetic sense is the study of each musical note, phrase, section and the treatment of the whole song.
The guqin is an instrument that is made up of three different timbres: San, pan, and fret (including harp). The music played has a lot of harmonies in unison, third, fifth, and octave, so it is inevitable that It will produce complex relationships between single tones, major and minor tones, strong and weak tones, and the connection between sentences and paragraphs. If you don’t know how to deal with this complex relationship, the music you play will not be full of emotion, nor will it give the listener a sense of emotion. The enjoyment of beauty, so piano players must have the following aesthetic qualities.
(1) Regarding the processing of single notes (including pronunciation), it is generally believed that there are many guqin fingerings and most of the fine fingerings are in the left hand, so the fingerings of the left hand are more difficult than those of the right hand. This understanding is not comprehensive. Although the fingerings of the left hand are After all, it can be mastered through hard practice, and the right hand is the pronunciation movement, which is directed by the thoughts in the head. Lightness, weight, slowness, and speed are related to the leading role of the emotion of the music. If it cannot be handled well first When it comes to pronunciation, no matter how skilled the left hand fingering is, it is impossible to produce good results. Therefore, the right fingering should be more difficult than the left fingering. Of course, no matter how good the right fingering is, it is impossible to achieve good results without the cooperation of the left fingering. It is also like the flesh-and-blood relationship between the surface and the inside, which is related to the left hand. , the right hand cooperates with the pronunciation problem.
A common problem for beginners of guqin is that the single notes they play are not thick and solid, have strange sounds, and cannot control the intensity. What is the reason? Let’s start with the fingering techniques on the right hand. The strings played with the right hand should generally be half way between Yue Shan and Yi Hui. If it is close to Yue Shan, it will be hard; if it is close to Yi Hui or below it (two or three hui), it will be soft. How to handle the right hardness and softness can be determined according to the mood of the music. When playing the strings with your right hand, you should also pay attention to the fact that when you play the strings with your right hand, you should try to swoop toward the piano surface, not upward, because the sound produced by swooping downward will be deep, thick, condensed, and solid; when you lift the string upward, it will be light, floating, and Empty and floating. In addition, the way you use your fingers is also very important. Generally, you use half armor and half flesh with your fingers to play strings. If you need it to be stiff, use full armor. If you need it to be soft, use full flesh. If you need it to be light, use your fingers to touch the string and lift it up to make the sound. If you need to add more force, you can use another finger to help the string-picking finger. For example, the index finger can pick the seventh string, and the middle finger can be placed on the fifth string to help the index finger dive towards the piano surface. These are the basic knowledge of playing strings with the right hand. The problems of solidity, lack of thickness and strange noises are fundamentally related to the coordination between the left and right hands. If you press the strings with your left hand and the finger falls too early, the notes will be sluggish and dull, and if they are too slow, there will be two tones (scattered notes and fretted notes). Generally speaking, do not overwrite or note down more than one note, otherwise unnecessary and uncoordinated notes will appear. (The so-called strange sound). Generally, piano players like to use gravity to play the strings to obtain sounds, which is intended to show strong finger strength. However, they do not know that the strings have a certain tension. If the weight exceeds the bearing capacity of the strings, the sound will not be "pure" and have "flaws", which will be self-defeating. The ancient saying: "Three points into the wood" does not mean that the fingers of the player pressing the strings must be inserted into the wood of the piano with great strength, but that the sound produced by the right hand playing the strings must be solid, pure, not floating, not floating, and the left hand skills The string coordination should be just right to make the tone pure and thick. Because of the structure of the guqin, there is a sound box under the surface, and the sound is emitted through the two sound holes (Longchi, Fengzha) opened by the sound box, just like the sound is coming out through the wood. Therefore, saying "Three Points" can only be a metaphor. The real meaning is to talk about "tone" rather than "power". Therefore, to play a single note well, you must coordinate your left and right hands.
(2) Correctly handling the relationship between primary and secondary sounds is a necessary aesthetic accomplishment. The harmony of guqin usually adopts the harmonies of scattered tones and fretted tones, overtones and fretted tones, or two scattered tones, two overtones, and two fretted tones with different strings and different timbres. Because the seven strings installed on the guqin are all of different thicknesses, even though they are equal-height notes, the timbre and position are different on different strings, so the way to express the primary and secondary tones is even more important.
Generally speaking, the scattered tone of the second string is the tonic tone, and the fretted tone of the fifth string is the dominant tone (secondary). When dealing with it, the second string tone should be stronger and the fifth string tone should be weaker, so that it sounds coordinated. In addition, you need to pay attention to how to use it. When it comes to the problem of organically connected and beautiful harmonies, such as the above two-tone harmony study, when the aftertaste of the second string is not finished after the second string is played, the fifth string should be played and the harmony should be taken from above, so that the two notes are connected at the bass. Such harmonies are natural and beautiful. There are many such harmonies when playing any piano music. As long as you have the aesthetic cultivation of harmony, you can naturally coordinate the relationship between primary and secondary tones.
(3) The problem of handling strong and weak sounds between sentences and paragraphs. Things are always like this. Without comparison, there is no identification. For example: without black, there is no white; without high, there is no low; without strong sound, there is no weak sound. The same is true for playing the guqin. Every note in the whole song is played with a strong tone. If you play it hard, it will be "flat". On the contrary, if you play it with weak strength, it will also be "flat". Only by combining hardness and softness, and with appropriate priorities, can emotions make people feel "beautiful". A piano player generally goes through the following stages from learning to maturity: In the first stage, beginners can't play the sound or can't play the piano accurately due to their unfamiliar fingering skills; in the second stage, after learning for a period, they want to overcome the shortcomings of not being able to play the sound, and it becomes very difficult to play. In the third stage, when you have learned to a certain extent, you feel that it is only sound but tasteless, and you can pay attention to the lightness, weight, slowness and speed of the music; in the fourth stage, when you have certain attainments, you not only master the Light, heavy, slow and fast, at the same time, you can study the emotions of the piano music and pursue expression methods through your own ideas; the fifth stage is also the highest level, you can integrate the artistic conception, temperament and physique of the fingering to express the emotions of the piano music naturally and superbly. The so-called The "perfection" stage. Anyone who has some attainments in playing the piano may have this feeling. The relationship between strong and weak sounds and sentences mentioned here not only refers to the processing of strong and weak sounds within the musical phrase, but also includes the strong and weak sounds and the priority relationship between sentences. For example: the last sentence of the fourth section of the piano piece "Remembering an Old Friend" is connected to the slow phrase of the fifth section. If one beat is not extended after the "5" sound to slow down, then the slow beat starting from the fifth section will not be possible. If the emotional harmony of the music is not right, the listener will feel that the rhythm is sudden or unstable, fast or slow. What is important is that it destroys the artistic conception of the music from nostalgia to contemplation and then to a passionate climax. Therefore, the relationship between sounds and sounds, sentences and sentences, and paragraphs is an essential aesthetic accomplishment for performers.
(4) The aesthetic feeling of the whole performance. It is easy to play the music by fingering, but it is dry and lacks emotion. Yin and 猱 must be used to enrich the tone, so that the tone is beautiful and pleasant. People who play the qin tend to emphasize the chanting and 猱, as if the more chanting and 猱, the better. It seems that he is proficient in fingering and plays the piano well. The ancients said: "When you chant, you chant, when you chant, you chant." Too much chanting will be counterproductive. It is like a fair lady wearing one or two flowers or ornaments on her head, which can increase her charm and solemn beauty. If you wear a head full of flowers or decorations, it will be seen as vulgar and frivolous, and your true natural beauty will be lost. The real "beauty" of playing Qin music is not all decorated with chants and harps. The main thing is to correctly handle the relationship between the tones, sentences, paragraphs and the whole music. The form and content emphasize the emotion of the music, which of course also includes the functions of chanting and harping. The author has the feeling that when there are one or two sentences in some musical passages with very simple sounds without chants, 猱, chuo, or notes, I feel very warm, as if I stand out from the crowd, which is profound and has its own unique beauty. For example, the "Pu'an Curse" guqin music taught by the late Zhejiang guqin master Daxiu Shan, the host of Zhaozhan Temple in Hangzhou, does not require "yin" in the whole song. Because he is a disciple of Buddhism, chanting sutras is his daily homework. He deeply understands that chanting sutras must be serious and solemn, and no coloring is allowed, so it makes sense not to chant. However, when this kind of Pu'an mantra is played, because of its distinct rhythm and sonorous sound, and the imitation of the sounds of temple bells, drums, gongs, and cymbals, it has a unique charm, and it has also become a musical instrument that everyone loves to listen to.
The proper use of chants and 猱 is one aspect. The repeated phrases cannot be handled well and the feelings cannot be deepened, which is another important and noteworthy aspect.
(6) Cultivation of melody combination ability. The characters used in Guqin notation use radicals and radicals to combine one or more sentences into one notation, which is commonly known as reduced character notation. People who don’t know it call it the “Heavenly Book with Letters”. The characteristic of this reduced-word notation can include three meanings: fingering, phoneme, and relative beat. It is a unique notation method in the world. Phonemes and fingerings are tangible and standardized and can be practiced and mastered according to the notation. Compared with the rhythm, they are more flexible. There are no certain standards. It is impossible to turn the music into music by looking at the notation. It must be re-created or taught by a teacher. (Note: "Introduction to Guqin Studies" written by Zhang He in the Qing Dynasty has begun to note simple beats, which is an improvement over ancient music. The "Collection of Guqin Music" published in modern times has already noted more complete beats. However, due to the complex fingering of the guqin , rich in expressive power, subtle changes in rhymes and extensions, which bring certain difficulties to notation. It is difficult to reflect the true artistic expression and emotion of the music through notation. Playing the music also requires a certain amount of artistic accomplishment or a teacher. Guidance. In this way, there is a problem of cultivating the ability of melody composition for the guqin players.
Why did the previous composers not indicate a stable rhythm? This can be understood from the characteristics of our country's national art in pursuing "artistic conception". For example: Chinese landscape paintings are painted using multi-point perspective. Scenery that is not clear at a glance can be combined into one picture through artistic processing from different angles. Several painters can also draw the same scenic spot from the same angle. The paintings produced are different, which one is better? It depends on the artistic attainments of each painter. In addition to the use of pen and ink, whether the composition can achieve the artistic image of supernatural artistic conception. Another example: writing calligraphy can also be done with one word. The same character is written by several calligraphers using various writing methods and structures. Which one is better? It depends on the artistic charm of each calligraphy and the organization of the glyphs. The same is true for Guqin art. Although the composer wants to compose a piano piece based on his own personal experience, expressing feelings and expressions, however, due to the complexity of the fingering when playing, everyone's understanding of the artistic conception, the perfection of the piano music itself, and the physical and temperament issues required , artistic accomplishment and other factors, if a fixed form of expression is used, it is impossible for the guqin music to develop and be passed down from generation to generation. The reason why the ancients did not pay attention to the fixed beat and pursued the original meaning was that the player should not only be able to play, but also play the guqin. It also requires a certain creative ability because, firstly, the fingering expressions are complex and require the player to use them according to his or her own conditions; secondly, the musical phrases of the guqin are in units of phrases, and the players have to combine them according to their own artistic conception, whether they are long or short. If the beat is fixed, it will limit the ability to play the piano, and it will be impossible to play well by imposing attachments. The music will not be gradually improved, improved, and perfected along with people's understanding of nature. In fact, a teacher teaches Give several students the same piece of music, and after a certain period of time, they will all play the same thing. It is impossible for them to play exactly the same thing. Guqin has the ability to combine melody, which is an artistic accomplishment that determines whether it can express "artistic conception". It is also an essential accomplishment for playing the guqin well.
The author thinks that how to cultivate the ability of melody combination is often very simple. The simplest things are not easy to be valued and controlled by people. In a word, you should be a "people with heart"
(1) Be good at observing things wherever there are sounds in the world. There are melody. The expression of certain characteristics, such as howling mountain winds, gurgling springs, roaring machines, chirping birds and even people’s whispers, are all expressed in sounds. If you play a piece of piano music, you cannot express the artistic conception of the music (natural melody). ) is expressed naturally through artistic processing, it is impossible to express the theme of piano music, and it is impossible to produce a profoundly touching charm and vitality. For example, the fourth section of the Qiao Song of "Woodcutter Song" simulates labor chants (Aiyo Aihi) and the entire seventh section simulates singing folk songs, which are forms of reproducing natural melodies through artistic processing.
(2) Music is an artistic language that comes from life and serves life. It is an artistic enjoyment for people. To achieve this goal, a piano player must first meet this condition.
Therefore, whenever a qin player plays a piece of qin music, he must study the melody combination of the qin music sentence by sentence, and combine the daily observed life melody and the artistic conception of the qin music to comply with the objective laws. In this way, the qin music played will have emotion and art. The charm inspires people who listen to the piano and achieves the purpose of art serving life.
(3) We must pay attention to the duality of melody combination. That is, the melody combination must conform to both formal beauty and artistic content. There are many things in nature that are difficult to truly express with instrumental music. If it is completely reproduced with monotonous real sounds, it will have no artistic value. It must be artistically processed to give people a sense of quality. A true artistic enjoyment. Therefore, players are required to master the form and rules of melody expression according to the characteristics of the guqin, and integrate fingering techniques with artistic conception. For example, impassioned music can take advantage of the guqin's characteristic of many harmonies, strengthen the expression, and use both rigidity and artistic conception. A combination of soft, dense and loose melodies; sad and sad piano music should give full play to the phonological characteristics of the guqin, using both softness and hardness to give full play to the expressive power of "rhyme" in composing the melody; joyful and relaxed piano music should give full play to the guqin's loose and pan The clear, bright, garden, and moist tone and the organic harmony of the notes combine to create an ups and downs and brisk melody. In short, to play the guqin one must be good at mastering various fingering techniques to give full play to the characteristics of the instrument and creatively reflect life in an artistic form.
(4) Fingering serves the melody, and the melody comes from the artistic conception. One-sided emphasis on fingering is a taboo in playing Guqin, as is not combining the melody with the artistic conception. Piano players often give up and refuse to study hard because their fingering cannot express the melody content. There are also those who only focus on the fingering expression and do not study the combination of melody. This is an attitude that should not be taken when playing the guqin. The intention should come first (that is, the melody that suits the artistic conception), and then the hands. The hands are the surface, and the meaning is the inside. The external things are skills, which can be obtained through diligent study and hard practice. The inside is a kind of inner cultivation, which is a comprehensive Knowledge (systematic) is more difficult to express. The inside is the source, the outside is the expression of the inside, and the combination of outside and inside is a relationship that players must understand. The ancients said that "the sound can be turned at will, and the meaning is in perfect harmony." The sound is the fingering method, and the meaning is the melody. "Yin" means that the sound expressed by the fingering must obey the melody, and "wonderful" means the artistic conception, which means that the melody should be combined according to the artistic conception. It is common sense that fingering must obey the melody when playing any instrumental music. Why should we emphasize that fingering must obey the melody when playing Qin Guqin? Because there are many and difficult fingering methods for playing Guqin, and there are no certain standards for the use of fingering methods. Therefore, Guqin players must know this relationship and apply it well.
(5) External factors promoting internal factors is an effective method to improve one's own melody combination ability. In addition to the knowledge learned in school, most of human knowledge comes from social practice and books. Often profound knowledge is only used for one point. On the contrary, if you encounter problems without profound knowledge enlightenment, judgment, and creation, it will be impossible to solve them, which will lead to the trouble of "the book is used only when it is used". As a guqin player, you can’t just play the guqin. Our country’s national arts are of the same origin. There are many things you can learn from to enrich your artistic accomplishment, such as: listening to Peking opera, Kunqu opera, folk songs, reciting poems and rhymes, and even watching chess. Painting, listening to symphony, etc. can cultivate sentiments and enhance the melody combination ability of playing Guqin.