As a traditional plucked instrument in China, the finger plucking is the decisive link in its performance. A large number of Qin-chanting poems are concentrated on the fingers of the players, such as Lu Lun's "Banquet for Yao Qin Qu": "When you suddenly wake up, you should reply, and the jade fingers spin like snow." Zhang Hu's "Mourning Zheng" "Ten fingers are fine and jade red, and the geese are too light to converge into the clouds." So how does the player's finger combine with the guzheng sound and the carrier of the guzheng sound-the strings? This involves the plucking method of the Zheng.
There are two ways to pluck the strings of guzheng: touching the strings with real nails and touching the strings with artificial nails. Touch the strings with the finger sleeves of real nails, and pluck the strings with fleshy fingers, so that the players' fingers can directly contact with the musical instrument, with rich and soft voice and low volume; Yi Jia Touch String is a fake nails plucked string worn by players to imitate real nails, with gorgeous and crisp voice and loud volume. In the history of guzheng performance, these two plucking methods have been alternately parallel until today.
I. Historical origin
There is no definite theory about the origin of depilation of meat nail and nail nail. Here try to infer from the angle of the origin of guzheng. There are different opinions about the origin of guzheng in academic circles. It is generally believed that it is not a "primitive" instrument like guqin, but evolved from other instruments. The active harpists are mainly Zhu Yuan and Yuan Se. For example, Yuan Se said that two women from Shun Di competed for a guzheng and broke it into a piano. If Zheng's Qin Yuan theory can be confirmed, it is very likely that the meat nail will be plucked first. Later, because people pursued the change of timbre and the expansion of volume, Yi Jia was invented. If we look at the origin of guzheng or the origin of guzheng, there may be a situation in which the Yi people pluck first. Bamboo pieces are used to strike the strings, and the explanation of the name is "architecture is also based on bamboo drums." The performance of musical instruments, also called drums, is a way to beat the strings with tools. It can be speculated that Yi Jia probably originated from the tools used by players to tap strings, or bamboo sticks, bamboo sticks and bamboo chips, or wooden sticks and wood chips. Fan Yanlu: "Zheng, drum string bamboo vocal music, no one takes bamboo as the present Zheng." And the "younger generation" of guzheng-the rolling zither is also played with bamboo strings.
Due to the large size of sticks, sticks and pieces, the range of hitting action is also large. With the development of playing technology, the fast technique, harmony and chord are used more and more frequently, so that it is more and more difficult for sticks and pieces that get in the way to adapt to the performance of such multi-stringed instruments. So the ancients cut them short and thin, and gradually evolved into armor tied to their fingers. Later, people simply removed the armor and pulled it out directly with meat armor. This is reminiscent of the evolution of piano playing methods of western musical instruments: with the "evolution" of ancient pianos to modern pianos, the movements of fingers have also changed from plucking strings with large movements to touching keys with small movements.
According to historical data, it can be inferred that the lower limit of the appearance of Guzheng Art A was in the Liang Dynasty. China's first music encyclopedia, Song Chen's "Le Shu", recorded the earliest guzheng art that we can know today. There is a saying in his "Deer Claw Zheng": "Liang and Yang are good at music, and they created their own lotus songs, which is quite innovative. Being a prostitute and a concubine is luxury. Lu Daxie, who plays the guzheng, wears deer bone claws and is seven inches long. Those who are good at the zither in ancient times are not like this. " Therefore, the court music Zheng uses armor. Old Tang Lezhi: "Roll the Zheng, moisten its end and roll it;" The bone claws used for the Zheng are more than an inch long and are used to replace fingers. " "Five-stringed Zheng, Twelve-stringed Zheng, Thirteen-stringed Zheng" says: "Tang Le twelve-stringed Zheng is the finger of deer bone claw, with thirteen strings. "We know that the twelve-stringed Zheng appeared in the Han Dynasty, and it was always used in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties until the Sui and Tang Dynasties. It can be assumed that if the twelve-string zither is a pure musical zither, and it only uses armor as Chen said, then the armor of the zither has appeared at least in the Han Dynasty.
Second, materials.
Guzheng Jia is oval or rectangular, about 1 mm thick, 2 cm long and 1 cm wide. Its texture is one of the preconditions of timbre change and performance quality, which requires high material selection and production technology. Soft, hard, brittle and soft materials will affect the timbre to varying degrees.
1, the material of guzheng armor has been bone, bamboo, silver, tortoise shell and so on in ancient times.
(1) Deer bone claw: In the first part, Lu Daxi, a player from the Liang Dynasty, wore deer bone armor, which was also used by Qing Dynasty in the Tang Dynasty. Whether they sound pleasing to the ear or not, they are all expensive and rare luxuries and a symbol of aristocratic status, which matches the use of music by court nobles.
② Bamboo Armor: The ancient and modern collection "Miscellaneous Notes of Zhengbu" says: "Zi Shu Lu": Those who play the piano or cut bamboo armor to help the voice of the index finger today are also eye-catching. Abandon truth and use falsehood, abandon clarity and turbidity, and people know why. It is as beautiful as Qin Zheng. It would be beautiful if we could go on holiday. "The author is critical of the use of bamboo nails, thinking that this is a man-made behavior, or it can be inferred that this kind of bamboo nail is probably inappropriate in texture, rough in workmanship and not very effective in playing.
③ Yin family: "Dan Yin Zong Lu": "Prostitute X plays the zither, Yin family becomes righteous". This is the most common name of an artist in the poetry music of past dynasties, which is used to describe the beauty of music and form in guzheng performance. Qiao Meng's Fujin zaju "Yangzhou Dream" is the first fold, which specifically describes the protagonist "silver is light"; Zhang Yuyou's "ancestors once passed on old songs, and slender silver armor is even more pitiful"; In the Yuan Dynasty, Sadu gave the harp: "The silver armor plays fifty strings of ice, and the Haimen wind should be biased." The "silver armor" here may be used to falsely refer to the whiteness and cleanness of women's fingers, but it may indeed refer to the silver armor, as Li Shangyin said in his poem "Two Untitled Poems": "Twelve learned to play the zither, but the silver armor never came off." Tortoise shell: Tortoise shell is a precious turtle shell, very hard, with amber markings, very beautiful. It is regarded as one of the jewels at all times and all over the world, and it is ground into combs, hairpins, buttons and other things, which are used, decorated and collected as one. The traditional use of tortoise shells by Zhejiang Zheng School and Hakka Zheng School may be related to the geographical conditions in the offshore area.
Ivory A: In the past, El's thirteen-string custom guzheng was made of ivory, but now it is mostly replaced by plastic. Maybe China used ivory armor in the Tang Dynasty.
2. The materials commonly used in modern armor are:
① Metal sheet: including copper sheet, steel sheet and silver sheet;
② Chemical sheets: including celluloid sheets, polyester sheets and hard nylon sheets.
(3) Animal horn and Oracle bone pieces: including ox horn pieces, tortoise shell pieces, armor-piercing pieces and ivory pieces.
These armor have their own characteristics, which are suitable for various styles and players' requirements. For example, Tieyi Jia, because of its crisp and hard texture and particularly loud timbre, is mostly used in Shandong Zheng School and Henan Zheng School, highlighting the musical characteristics of its genre: soft and gratifying, such as Fengyang Qu; Just strong and heroic, such as Su Wu Shepherd. The chemical film is soft, plastic, effortless and low cost, which is very suitable for beginners and children. Another example is the horn, which is soft and moist, and is often used in the performance of wenqu. But their shortcomings are also obvious: the metal is hard, the timbre is difficult to control, and the skill of the performer is high, otherwise the sound will be "but they are rough and harsh, which is harsh on my ears"; Chemical tablets are easy to wear and break, and the pop-up timbre is also average; Horn parts are easy to crack; Ivory tablets, tortoiseshell tablets and X-nail tablets are expensive and rare, which are suspected of endangered rare wild animals. Generally speaking, tortoise shells are more commonly used in modern times. Through scientific determination, the tortoise shell has good flexibility, compression resistance, difficult folding, good hand feeling, easy control and more elastic sound, which is suitable for almost all Zheng musicians and players of all ages. A pair of small tortoises can be used for more than ten years, and the wear rate is extremely low. Moreover, in recent years, tortoise shells have been artificially cultivated as an economic animal, which has freed tortoise shell processors and users from the notoriety of destroying wildlife ecology.
The length of artificial nails varies from person to person, and generally does not exceed the first joint line of fingers, and it is appropriate to exceed the fingertip by about 0.5 cm, and it should be wrapped with medical cloth. There are two kinds of nail piercing positions, one is attached to the pulp of finger, and the other is attached to the surface of finger (real nail surface). Both methods can be used. Now most people wear it on their fingers. The nail tip of the thumb is curved, because the belly of the thumb is facing the palm, so only by binding the curved nail tip with the thumb at a position of about 70 degrees against the palm direction can the thumb touch the strings at a proper angle. Generally speaking, the fingertips are in vertical contact with the strings; Other nails only need to have the same angle as the fingertips. The number of armor is generally three, that is, one in the right hand, one in the food and one in the middle; Some people also wear four, that is, one for the right hand, one for eating, one for the middle finger and one for the ring finger; With the development of modern Zheng technique, multi-voice performance has been widely used, and only the right hand wearing armor can not meet the requirements of music, so let both hands wear artificial armor, that is, one for the big hand, one for the middle finger and one for the ring finger. These depend on everyone's game habits and needs. Compared with playing armor, playing armor has its own advantages and disadvantages. Because the player's fingers are in direct contact with the instrument, the movements are more flexible and natural, and the pop-up timbre is soft and rich, which is irreplaceable by Yijia. Some ancient people criticized Yi Jia for playing with "abandoning truth and using falsehood, and keeping the purity as turbidity". Traditionally, there is a big command method played with the meat armor, in which "Tuo" (plucking the string in the palm direction) and "Split" (plucking the string in the palm direction) are played continuously and repeatedly. The sound points played by this kind of fingering can be sparse and dense, strong or weak, and the timbre is bright without losing warmth. In particular, it needs a melody with a fixed rhythm and thinking, and it does have a charm that Yi Jia can't play. It has a long history and is especially popular in traditional Zheng music in Henan and Shandong. However, plucking the strings also has many disadvantages. Try to cite the following aspects:
1, the real armor is not thick enough, and the sound quality is thin after plucking, especially in the bass area. The plucking angle is limited, so it is difficult to trim it to the best angle, which affects the timbre and technique.
2, often leave nails, unsightly, unsanitary.
3. Easy to break, insecure in practice and unreliable in performance, these are the places that need to be avoided most when playing armor. Whether it's armor-piercing or armor-piercing, it depends on the habits and hobbies of guzheng players and the content, techniques, styles and genres of music. There seems to be no difference between them. "It is important to ponder carefully in practice, find the best touching angle and depth on the zither string, and give full play to the advantages of tune and timbre as much as possible, so as to obtain a beautiful and unique zither timbre." Performance characteristics: the first intention of the guzheng is to play a very important role, which increases the performance skills of the guzheng, enriches the timbre of the guzheng and greatly develops its expressive force. Yi Jia plucks the strings with low friction and bright sound, which is very suitable for playing fast and dense sound patterns, such as arpeggio, wheel finger and finger sequence skills. , make your fingers dexterous, and the pop-up sound points are unambiguous, even and full. A lot of fingering can't be played unless you wear armor. For example, shaking your fingers (big finger shaking, forefinger shaking), because the nails are thick and hard, and the length of your fingers is elongated, you can move evenly and quickly with your wrist as the axis and the tip of your nails as the contact. This technique is widely used in modern Zheng music, which can shake out a long lyric melody in one go, making up for the lack of coherence in plucked instruments; You can also play colorful games, imitating the sound of wind and rain, hooves, hissing, crying and birdsong ... and you can be comfortable with the change of strength, you can beat the strong and weaken, gradually strengthen and weaken, suddenly strengthen and weaken ... you can also derive double shake, chord shake, buckle shake and sweep shake from your fingers.
The application of fingering has greatly changed the traditional Zheng playing skills, which is a revolution. Another example is the calendar sound (fingers hitting several strings in succession). Coupled with the use of armor, the timbre is more beautiful and bright, with colorful effects, which can well adapt to various speed requirements and reach the artistic realm of "rushing to the ceiling" in Zheng. In the expression of thick sound, stress and long sound, the timbre played by Yi Jia is also more powerful. Many famous guzheng artists are good at giving full play to the performance function of Art A and creating a unique performance style. Inverted, picked, upright and beaten are the unique fingering of Henan Guzheng, which is named after playing with the middle finger pointing to the palm. Cao Dongfu, a famous Zheng school in Henan, used this fingering, and put the nail clip in his finger, which made it more convenient and powerful to play.
In short, we should seriously study and develop its unique skills to create a more attractive artistic realm for guzheng performance.
;