In slave society, music and dance were still very popular in Xia and Shang Dynasties. According to legend, there were more than 30 thousand kabuki in the late Xia Dynasty. The Zhou Dynasty established a music institution & Big Four Music, and regarded singing art as one of the main contents of music education.
During the Spring and Autumn Period, Warring States Period, Qin and Han Dynasties, there were 305 Books of Songs compiled by Confucius, of which 300 were folk songs for folk singing and spreading. After 475 BC, there appeared folk artists and vocal music teachers who lived by singing. For example, Qin Qing and Han E are record singers. Their songs not only have the grand volume of "the sound vibrates the treetops, which is very sonorous", but also have the charm of "the lingering sound lingers for three days". Qu Yuan of Chu wrote nine songs based on southern folk songs, with various musical instruments. These songs are narrated and sung. It is a large-scale vocal music work in ancient China, and it is also the earliest recorded religious song to worship the gods in China. In addition to these famous singers and vocal music works, there are some theoretical studies on singing skills and vocal music teaching in this period. It can be seen that more than 2,000 years ago, China's singing art was accompanied by silk and bamboo instruments, and the singers sang and beat the rhythm, which had taken shape as the embryonic form of modern rap art.
During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Yuefu evolved into a long five-character or seven-character narrative full of people's feelings. Peacock flies southeast and Mulan Ci are the representative works of this period. This period also produced phonology, which played a great role in the development of China's singing art in the future.
The Tang Dynasty was a period of unprecedented prosperity for China's music art, and also an important period for the development of China's classical singing art. The state established music institutions, namely, teaching workshops and pear orchards. The improvement of musicians' skills greatly promoted the development of vocal music. The court music is mainly Yan music, and the actors are divided into two forms: the left geisha and the inner geisha. Poetry has developed into a poem of five or seven words. When singing, the tone is high and low, the rhythm is tight and slow, the change is regular, and it sounds more vivid and harmonious.
The large-scale song and dance Daqu developed by absorbing foreign music in the Tang Dynasty is divided into three sections, the middle section is adagio, mainly vocal music. In the folk, there is also a "song of the alley". Some musicians enriched and developed the original tunes in their singing, breaking through the neat syntax of five-character poems and seven-character poems, and the poets wrote lyrics according to the new tune format, thus producing the singing genre of words. Duan Jiean has discussed singing and breathing during this period.
The art of singing in Song Dynasty is mainly in the form of lyrics and qupai. On the basis of Tang Daqu, the Song Dynasty further absorbed various musical forms and developed Bitang Daqu with more complicated Zhu Gong tune structure. This is a set of aria composed of many different palace tunes, and then a whole composed of many suites, which developed into the original form of China traditional opera-Song Zaju.
Since then, the singing art, which used to be mainly in the form of song and dance, has entered the traditional China opera, which mainly performs the story and characters. Due to the need of new content and form, vocal music art began to become complicated in pronunciation, articulation and intonation, which laid an important foundation for the prosperity of classical singing art in Yuan Dynasty. In addition, the rap music in the Song Dynasty also continued to develop, gradually forming various local operas, and more professional artists and entertainers appeared, which promoted the development of vocal music art and opened the way for different genres and styles of singing. Since the songs written by Jiangling in Song Dynasty were recorded in Gongchi, China's vocal music works have a complete spectrum.
During the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the art of singing developed obviously in theory, skills and singing style. For example, Yuan Qu in Yuan Dynasty is easy to understand and vivid in form.
There are two forms of singing: one is Sanqu and the other is Yuan Zaju. Sanqu focuses on singing, while opera focuses on singing; Show certain characters, plots and shape the stage image. There is also a kind of Southern Opera, which coexists with Yuan Zaju, including solo, duet, chorus and multi-person chorus. The vocal music art in this period has further developed from content to form.
In the Ming Dynasty, there were different singing forms in southern China, among which the singing skills of Kunshan dialect were the most creative. Kunqu Opera was mainly composed by Wei Liangfu in Ming Dynasty. Based on the tunes of Kunshan South Opera and combining the advantages of many singers, he created this new singing style. The singing style is soft and euphemistic, which can express feelings delicately and strengthen singing. At the same time, it absorbs the experience of distinguishing characters in different timbres in rap art, and produces different singing styles such as life, Dan, quietness, tail and ugliness, which enriches the expressive force of vocal music art. He is also the author of Qulv, a valuable vocal monograph. This book discusses the selection conditions of actors, the contents and steps of learning to sing, the norms of singing, the use of qi, the style of singing and so on. In addition, Zhu Quan's Taihe Yin Zhengpu includes Linz Notes, which is specially used for singing. There are also Wang Jide's Music Law of Fang Zhuguan, Shen Chongsui's Instructions for Du Qu and other vocal works, all of which show that the vocal art of Ming Dynasty has reached a considerable level from singing to theory. Professional artists have studied their business hard and their singing skills have improved.
The popularity of "Zhezi Opera" in the early Qing Dynasty urged actors to improve their singing skills. It has reached a mature stage that different characters express different types of characters with different timbres and different singing methods.
With the great development of Peking Opera in the late Qing Dynasty, various classes were run by the people, and all kinds of singing talents were trained, and a set of effective methods and experiences were accumulated to train Peking Opera actors to sing, read, fight and do. Due to the completion of Gongchi notation after the Ming Dynasty, many vocal albums began to spread and survive. For example, Yuefu Biography, Ancient Mistakes by Xu Shenwei and Ming Xin Jian compiled by Ye Zhiqing according to the oral records of Kunqu artists Yu Weihun and Gong Ruifeng during Daoguang period all summarized the experience and laws of singing performance art.
The vocal art of China Opera, through the exertion and creation of the actors, on the basis of basic rigidity, has slightly modified, changed and touched the aria according to its own voice conditions and understanding of the role, thus developing different singing styles, styles and schools, and forming China's colorful national singing methods.