—— A comparison between the musical descriptions of Pipa Xing and Li Ping's Ya.
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Some people say that the most difficult thing to write about all kinds of things in the world is sound. Because you can't see or touch it. Say it has, it does exist; Said it was gone, but it was gone. However, we found that although sound is difficult to write, there are still many successful works describing sound, especially music. Bai Juyi's Pipa Xing and Li He's Li Ping Shi are typical works in this respect.
Although these two poems are both models of describing music, they use different descriptive techniques in describing music. This paper intends to make some comparative exposition on the description methods of these two poems.
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The difficulty of music description is that it is abstract and intangible. Smart writers always try to turn the abstract into concrete and the intangible into tangible, so it is necessary to use metaphor. Bai Juyi's Pipa Hangs uses two very abstract onomatopoeic words, namely "noisy" and "tangency", when describing the sounds made by the big and small strings of the pipa, so readers can't have a clear impression of music. Bai Juyi also considered this point, so he added two metaphors of "like torrential rain" and "like whispering" after "noisy" and "eager". The former is like a rainstorm, and the latter is like two people whispering. In this way, readers can feel the characteristics of sounds made by big strings and small strings.
Of course, in the process of playing the pipa, not only big strings or small strings are used, but sometimes big strings and sometimes small strings are used. What is music that "hums, whispers-and then mixes together"? Just like pouring large and small pearls into a jade plate, this poem visualizes it: the sound of big strings is like the sound of big beads falling in a jade plate, and the sound of small strings is like the sound of small beads falling in a jade plate. They are mixed together and appear alternately, and together they form wonderful music.
When the music is smooth, it is "flower slip", and when the music is stagnant, it is "difficult to flow under the ice". The former is like an oriole crying among flowers, and the latter is like a clear spring flowing under the ice. If readers can expand their association, they can naturally have a concrete impression of the characteristics of "fluency" and "lag" of music.
After a short pause, the pipa performance reached its climax. The poet used two metaphors to describe his music: "A silver vase suddenly burst, a stream of water gushed out, and armored horses and weapons jumped out. They collided and collided with each other." They are like a silver bottle full of water that suddenly burst and the water rushed out. They are like armored cavalry who suddenly rush out to fight with the enemy's swords and guns, and present the musical situation of pipa playing to the climax to the readers concretely and vividly.
What about the "four strings and one sound" music at the end of the music? Just like "tearing", it is the sound made when a piece of cloth is torn hard. In this way, with the help of a series of metaphors, Bai Juyi concretized and visualized very abstract music, and transformed intangible music into various tangible things, leaving readers with a concrete, vivid and unforgettable impression of the music played by Pipa.
Li He is also an old hand in this field. In his "Elegant Li Ping", when describing crisp music, it is compared to "Kunshan Jade Broken"; When describing soft music, it is compared to "Feng Qiu Huang"; When describing bleak music, it is compared to "hibiscus hanging down"; When describing the beauty of music, it is compared to "vanilla smile". When it is crisp, it is like Kunshan jade falling to the ground, when it is gentle, it is like a phoenix pouring out its heart to the phoenix, when it is bleak, it is like lotus dew, and when it is beautiful, it is like a smile in the wind of valley vanilla. Through this set of metaphors, Li Ping's tortuous scenes are vividly presented to the readers.
Although both Bai Juyi and Li He used the description technique of turning abstraction into concreteness and intangible into tangible metaphor when describing music, they were different in quantity control: in Pipa Xing, this description technique can be said to run through the whole performance process; But in Li Ping's poems, this description technique is only used occasionally. But they have the same artistic effect.
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To describe music successfully, we can not only express it directly through various metaphors, but also indirectly set off by describing the effects produced by music. Li He's "Li Ping Yong Yin" can be said to bring this indirect foil to the extreme. There are fourteen sentences in the whole poem, and there are as many as ten sentences used for indirect foil.
First of all, it is written in the poem that Li Ping plays a floating cloud with bouncing sound in the air. "The clouds don't flow in the empty mountains", and even the floating clouds in the sky are attracted by this music, so they are still. This is the foil for the first floor. Then this poem describes the role this music played in the legendary Mrs. Xiang and her body. "Jiang E cries bamboo, sad", and Jiang E (Mrs. Xiang) cries bamboo, with a sad face. They were all deeply moved by Li Ping's beautiful music. This is the foil for the second floor. Then, the poem wrote about the effect of this kind of music on people in Chang 'an city, "Twelve doors are cold and bright". Hearing his music, people seem to feel that the Twelve Doors of Chang 'an are shrouded in cold light. This is the foil for the third floor. Then he wrote the effect of this song on the jade emperor, "Twenty-three silk moves the purple emperor", and even the jade emperor was moved by this song. This is the foil for the fourth floor. Then the poem wrote about the effect of this music on the stone, saying, "Nu Wa tempered the stone to make up the sky, and the stone broke the autumn rain." Even the stone used by the goddess to mend the sky seemed to be broken by this music, which triggered a stone rain. This is the foil for the fifth floor. Then I wrote about the effect of this music on people, "Dream into the holy mountain to teach immortals", which brought people to a dreamlike state, as if seeing Li Ping teaching a group of fairies to play cricket. This is the foil for the sixth floor. Then I wrote this song on the role of aquatic creatures, "Old Fish Dancing with Small Waves". When the fish heard the music jump out of the water, the dragon danced with the rhythm of the music. This is the foil for the seventh floor. Then in the middle of the month, he wrote about the effect of this music on people and animals, "Wu Zhi sleeps in osmanthus trees and flies in wet and cold rabbits barefoot". Wu Zhi (WU GANG), who has been chopping osmanthus trees all day, hears this music. Instead of chopping trees, he leans against them and listens attentively. Moon Rabbit was so absorbed that she didn't even know that the dew was wet. This is the foil for the eighth floor.
Through eight layers of continuous foil, the magical effect of Li Ping's performance is rendered. After reading it, readers have to admire their superb playing skills.
In Bai Juyi's Pipa Journey, although it is also set off by "the east boat is quiet and the west is moored, and we see Bai Qiuyue entering the heart of the river", it is obvious that Bai Juyi is not a master in this respect, so he suddenly stopped writing after that and turned to writing the life story of the pipa girl.
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From the above analysis, it can be seen that although there are similarities in metaphor and contrast between the two poems, the emphasis is different. Pipa Travel focuses on the process of pipa performance through metaphor, while Li Ping's Introduction to Elegance focuses on the effect of playing elegantly through various foil. Although each has its own emphasis, it can be said that it has its own advantages in successfully describing music.