Stop and look back, what were Chinese musical instruments like thousands of years ago?Silk is the string, can you really play a moving music?Time is merciless, how many beautiful sounds transmitted by ancient musical instruments have been lost in the long river of history?Fortunately, there is still a group of people who are persistently searching for "the piano" on the road of "silence", just to find "that piano" thousands of years ago. It has been transformed into the form of ancient musical instruments such as building and rolling zheng, and has become a signpost to guide the way forward and a symbol of cultural exchange.
After thousands of years, the ancient strings have been decadent;In the prosperous era, the wonderful hand is restored and the good news is reproduced. Not long ago, Beijing Xinghai Piano Group (hereinafter referred to as "Xinghai Group") appeared at the 6th China International Import Expo, and two ancient restored musical instruments "Zhu" and "Zheng" were thus familiar to more people. Ancient Chinese musical instruments gradually came to the stage**.
Peng Liying is playing an ancient musical instrument. Photo courtesy of the interviewee.
Thousands of years later, the sound of Zheng Zheng is in my ears again.
Building, the shape is like a zheng, the shoulders are round and the neck is thin, and it is played in the way of percussion, which is an ancient percussion instrument in our country, which prevailed in the pre-Qin period. The poet immortal Li Bai did not hesitate to write it into the poem, and the first sentence of "Youth Xing" is "Hit the building and drink the wine, and the sword song is easy to water." "There are also records of Zhu in many history books. What caused it to be lost?In what way did future generations recover?
There are two reasons for the loss of the building, one is social reasons, and the musical instruments that originally served the royal family tend to disappear with the change of dynasties;The second reason is the instrument itself, as a silk string instrument used for percussion, the strings are made of silk, and the sound is small and difficult to harmonize when struck. Peng Liying, an expert in the restoration of ancient musical instruments of Xinghai Group, believes that the reasons for the disappearance of the building are no longer a problem, so as early as 2008, she began to look for the answer to the restoration of the building from ancient books. In the meantime, she had heard that some people had tried to restore the building, but the results were not satisfactory. Until 2020, she met Xinghai Group. In order to complete the restoration of ancient musical instruments, Xinghai Group has also been working hard. Therefore, after the two sides joined hands, the "progress bar" was frequently refreshed, and Xinghai Group recruited troops to form a new recovery team.
The restoration of ancient musical instruments is difficult to achieve alone, and it is a comprehensive cross-cutting project. Peng Liying said that after 2020, they have entered the fast lane of restoration of the building. With the "help" of CNC machine tools, in the heartache of scrapping 6 model pianos, the restoration team finally restored and produced the long-lost thirteen-stringed instrument "Zhu" in 2021 according to the original size recorded in the "Book of Music", and replaced the traditional silk for string production with a special steel wire made of continuous debugging and processing. The new generation of Zhu has the sound of gold and stone when playing, and this treatment is also more suitable for the timbre characteristics of contemporary national instruments.
The restored Tsuku's first official appearance was at a 2022 performance at the Tianqiao Performing Arts Center. "At that time, I didn't have any bottom in my heart, what if my voice was not recognized by the audience?What happens if the string breaks?Peng Liying, who began to perform on stage at the age of four, admitted that she had never been so nervous. Fortunately, everything went well, and the long-lost tsuku's debut was successful and received full applause. Thousands of years later, the sound of Zheng Zheng is in my ears again.
Do not change its shape, China's low ** device reproduces.
Compared with building, the fate of the zither is better. In the Song Dynasty Chen Yang's "Book of Music", the zither appears in the genus of music diagram theory, vulgar department, and eight-tone silk, and is juxtaposed with the five-string zheng, twelve-string zheng, thirteen-string zheng, and other zither instruments. "As a descendant of the pioneer of the bow string instrument in China, the zither belongs to the Zhu family musical instrument. It can be sitting, standing or marching, and there are two ways to play, horizontally and vertically, which can be played horizontally or vertically, and can be played vertically on the shoulder, all of which are played with a stick rubbing. Over the years, in the long river of time, the zither has gradually evolved into different forms of musical instruments, such as the Wugang in Henan and Handan in Hebei, the Wenzhen Qin in Putian, Fujian, the Fuqin in Qingzhou, Shandong, the Waqin in Guangxi, the Fuqin in Hejin, Shanxi, and the traditional musical instrument of the Korean nation, such as the Yazheng.
Among all the musical instruments, Peng Liying loves the zither the most, largely because the successful restoration of this ancient instrument answers a question that has plagued people for a long time - whether there is a low ** instrument in China. "Through the analysis and research of relevant documents, cultural relics and musical instruments that have a succession relationship with them at home and abroad, the restoration team inquired and screened out the information about their shape, size, timbre, tone and other information, and finally successfully restored a seven-string large zither and an improved small zither. Peng Liying told reporters that these two zithers, one of which fully reaches the bass range, and the other is similar to the cello timbre, which truly fills the bass gap of Chinese music.
As early as the Tang Dynasty, China had a low ** device. Peng Liying is full of confidence every time she communicates with foreign friends. In order to let people feel the charm of the ancient zither, the restoration team resolutely did not change its shapeIn order to ensure the purity of the timbre, the seemingly simple stick eraser has to go through more than 70 kinds of wood comparison, and finally select the most suitable type for skillful carving to become a qualified playing tool.
A new movement of a time-honored brand in the new era of Chinese music in the Temple of Heaven.
In the days when Peng Liying and the restoration team restored the building and zither, the retired masters of Xinghai Group made a lot of efforts, and they had the perseverance and perseverance of the older generation of craftsmen. Ingenuity has become the intangible wealth of a new generation of craftsmen. In addition to completing the work of restoring ancient musical instruments at a glance, Peng Liying also integrated the traditional skills of the "Yanjing Eight Uniques" intangible cultural heritage into the building and zithering, and she hopes that through the exhibition of the musical instruments to the Yanjing Eight Uniques, it will become a mobile intangible cultural heritage museum, in addition to spreading the best culture, but also looking forward to the collision and integration of a variety of traditional skills to produce new value. This is also the original intention and mission of Xinghai Group's "Temple of Heaven Chinese Music".
A nation with cultural self-confidence can stand, stand firm, and go far. Today, as a time-honored musical instrument brand, Xinghai Piano has gone through 74 years of history. "Temple of Heaven Chinese Music" is a high-end national musical instrument brand under Xinghai Group, which mainly develops, produces and promotes Chinese musical instruments, and on the shoulders of this time-honored musical instrument brand representative, it carries the memory and feelings of the Chinese nation and bears the historical responsibility of the development of Chinese musical instruments. In the Xinghai Industrial Park, cultural spaces such as musical instrument museums, ethnic musical instruments, Western wind instruments, high-quality piano R&D centers, and master workshops are being built.
Editor: Xu Yi.