Accompanied a friend to buy a piano and accidentally apprenticed, and became the provincial representative inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage guqin cutting technology project; A piano can be sold for 200,000 yuan, but he still insists on going to work until he is about to retire; Many people come here just to ask for the piano, but he can stop working for a few years in order to take his granddaughter.
Playing the harp can lead to a long life. This is his simple wish.
Not for a living, just for inheritance. This is his long-standing heart.
The Spring Festival of 2024 is approaching, and 76-year-old Chen Yimin is preparing for a reunion dinner with his apprentices. For him, the "tail tooth" of the twenty-eighth year not only symbolizes the reunion of the master and apprentice family, but also places his good expectations on the continued inheritance of the violin industry in the future.
Chen Yimin is the provincial representative inheritor of guqin cutting skills.
Get acquainted with the guqin. Amateur carpenters" repaired the guqin by chance.
Apprenticeship has formed a deep master-apprentice relationship.
As one of the oldest plucked musical instruments in China, the guqin has a history of more than 3,000 years, and was included in the "Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO in 2003, and is also the only Chinese national musical instrument selected as the intangible cultural heritage of the United Nations.
Making guqin is also called "chopping qin". Chen Yimin's entry into the guqin industry came from a coincidence.
In 1984, Chen Yimin, who worked at the No. 1 Cotton Textile Factory in Guangzhou, took a friend from Hong Kong to buy a guqin. "In the past, a street on Daxin Road specialized in selling musical instruments, so I asked my friends one by one. "They asked almost all over the street, and they all said that there was no one selling this instrument. Eventually, the owner of a musical instrument shop that had sold guqin introduced them to a craftsman to try their luck. This craftsman is Yang Xinlun, the grandmaster of the Lingnan school guqin.
It's a pity that after finding Yang Xinlun, the other party still refused to sell the piano. "My Hong Kong friend said to Mr. Yang, Chen Yimin is very good at carpentry, ask him to help you repair the broken guqin, you can sell one to me. In this way, Yang Xinlun tried to ask Chen Yimin to repair the guard of a broken guqin.
It was repaired the next day, and Yang Xinlun was very satisfied after the "inspection", and his Hong Kong friends also bought the piano as they wished. Chen Yimin, who was "betrayed" by a friend, has been associated with the guqin since then. In the process of repairing the piano, it was inevitable to understand the structure of the piano, and slowly, he began to learn to make the piano with Yang Xinlun. Yang Xinlun told Chen Yimin, "The piano is longevity". Chen Yimin asked rhetorically, "Which 'shou' is 'shou'?" Yang Xinlun told him that it was "a long life". This made Chen Yimin very happy, and in order to live a long life, he also had to learn to make guqin.
In fact, Chen Yimin is not a carpenter, he is a repairman of the loom of the No. 1 cotton textile factory in Guangzhou. When I was on vacation, I went to the carpentry workshop in the factory to watch others do carpenter work. "It's a hobby. And the salary at that time was very small, only 40 yuan a month. I'm getting married, and it's very expensive to buy furniture, so I think I can save some money by doing it myself. The bed that Chen Yimin and his wife sleep in now was made by him when they got married.
Chen Yimin's relationship with his master is very deep. In his later years, Yang Xinlun lived alone at home. Chen Yimin and his wife, Li Guizhen, often come to the house to take care of him. According to Li Guizhen's recollection, at that time, the couple's dormitory was not installed, and Mr. Yang would often call the public downstairs. Every time the uncle who guards ** downstairs calls us, we know that Mr. Yang is looking for it. On the fourth day of the first lunar month in 1990, Yang Xinlun had a fever and felt unwell, Chen Yimin and others immediately called an ambulance after discovering it, but because the corridor of the old building was narrow, the stretcher could not go upstairs, and Chen Yimin carried the teacher downstairs to the car.
Chen Yimin is making guqin. In 2009, he was awarded 100 pairs of "Hands of Guangzhou".
Constantly improve something. Original "three-layer plate" technique.
There is only a grain of rice between the layers.
Starting from a "layman" to learn the Lingnan qin is bound to go through many difficulties, and some difficulties can only be overcome. "When painting ash, ** contact with raw lacquer is easy to allergies. When I first came into contact with lacquer, my hands were often covered with bubbles, which easily led to itchy hands, and I often itched so much that I couldn't sleep. But in order to make the lacquer of the guqin more uniform, Chen Yimin is reluctant to wear gloves, "After all, wearing gloves is separated from the guqin, and the feel is always not as good as direct contact." ”
The piano is not only a test of skill, but also depends on the sky for food. "Because painting a guqin depends on temperature and humidity," he said. If the temperature is too low, it is easy to freeze when painted, and the effect is not good; The humidity is too low, and the paint does not dry easily. "In order to make the perfect guqin, he always strives for perfection. According to Chen Yimin's recollection, in the process of learning the piano with Mr. Yang Xinlun, he could often hear Mr. Yang say: "Other musical instruments are pleasant to the ear, but only the guqin is pleasing to the heart." Therefore, in the process of chopping the piano, Chen Yimin will calm down, dig the groove over and over again, adjust the timbre, and wait until he is satisfied.
In the process of learning to make guqin with teacher Yang Xinlun, Chen Yimin repaired the Yiwang qin in the Ming Dynasty, the narcissus in the Song Dynasty, the Taiyin in the Tang Dynasty, and the Songhuang Jiayu and other qins. Among them, the most famous is the "Zhenyu" of the Tang Dynasty, "the 'Zhenyu' at that time, there was a sand sound at the seven strings and nine emblems. Teacher Yang taught him how to polish, and how to make up the ash and paint. Subsequently, under the recommendation of Yang Xinlun, Chen Yimin also repaired Mo Zhongzi's Xiaolei Yinqin, Zhong Jinzhang's nameless Zhongni-style qin, and Xie Daoxiu's Liuquan qin.
At this stage, Chen Yimin also tried to make his own guqin, and once went to Yongxing Street to search for and collect ancient wood. "Feihong" is the first piano made by Chen Yimin, imitating the Ming Dynasty's Babao gray tire. In order to better learn how to chop the guqin, Chen Yimin built a workbench in the corridor in front of his home. It was here that Chen Yimin created his masterpiece "Gugang", which is modeled after Yang Xinlun's Japanese guzheng as a panel. In the process of imitation, Chen Yimin used the traditional technique "Baiqu Method" to adjust because the groove belly was too thin, and created his own "three-layer board" technique. "I have been working on this piano for many years, and I have been revising it for many years, and the interval between the layers is only a grain of rice. In order to commemorate the contribution made by Mr. Yang Xinlun in the inheritance of the Lingnan guqin, Chen Yimin named the "Gugang" qin style "Xinlun style".
With the passage of time, Chen Yimin's techniques of "double-layer board", "three-layer board" and "Baiquqin" have also become more and more proficient. In 2008, his "Qiuquan" piano was collected by the National Archives of Guangzhou. In 2009, Chen Yimin was awarded 100 pairs of "Guangzhou Hands".
More and more piano lovers are coming here. "The place where we live is the dormitory of the First Cotton Textile Mill, which is too big and has a lot of people. When people come here, they ask if there is a Chen Yimin in Guangzhou No. 1 Cotton Textile Factory. ”
In 2010, Chen Chusheng, director and professor of the Art Center of Jinan University, visited Chen Yimin. "As soon as he entered the door, he blurted out, 'What a lot of beautiful women!'" The beauty in his mouth is the guqin hanging on the wall.
A few years later, Chen Chusheng held the first art exhibition of qin inscriptions in Guangdong Province, where more than 50 guqin pieces from his collection were exhibited, including Chen Yimin's works.
Inheritance of the qin. Many exhibitions have been held for public welfare publicity.
A number of apprentices were awarded the title of inheritors.
Someone suggested that we take the qin to auction to make money, but I make the guqin, not to make a living, but to pass it on. Chen Yimin did not bring his son into the door, but accepted 62 apprentices. Among them, the eldest apprentice Liu Bihua was named the representative inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of Guqin cutting skills in Guangzhou, the apprentice Huang Juntang was named the intangible inheritor of Guqin cutting skills in Gangzhou, Jiangmen City, and the apprentice Chen Lu was named the representative inheritor of Lingnan guqin art in Chancheng District.
In order to better train apprentices to inherit and carry forward the skills of qin, in 2009, Chen Yimin established Ziyuan Qinfang Haizhu Studio, which is located on the eighth floor of a house on Sushe Zhi Street in Haizhu District. After expanding the scale of apprenticeship, in 2020, Ziyuan Qinfang rebuilt a new studio in Haizhu District, Guangzhou, located in a secluded corner, located in the Rongxin Pavilion Bungalow, No. 128 Changgang Middle Road, Haizhu District.
The studio is very understated and simple. Chen Yimin and his apprentices played the piano and chatted together. His wife, Li Guizhen, often hears a room full of people laughing.
After accepting apprentices, Chen Yimin's speed of making piano slowed down significantly. On the wall of Ziyuan Qinfang, there are three guqins that have not yet been completed. "I started doing it in 2012, and it's been more than ten years, and it's not finished yet. Because during this period, Chen Yimin spent a lot of time with apprentices. In 2014, Chen Yimin's granddaughter was born, and he stopped to help take care of the child. Li Guizhen said with a smile that during that time, it became her husband's daily work to teach her younger brothers and help buy vegetables.
Although he is not active in "selling" the qin, Chen Yimin is actively promoting the qin cutting process to the outside world. In 2017, he participated in the "Guangzhou Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritors Exhibition" at the 22nd Art Fair in Pazhou, Haizhu District, showing the society the process of making pianos. At the beginning of 2018, on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of Mr. Yang Xinlun's birth, Chen Yimin and his apprentices Liu Bihua, Chen Gongzeng and others held a joint exhibition of the works of teachers and students of the "Fagu Famous Qin", exhibiting his main works from various periods together with the works of his apprentices, and expressing his nostalgia for the Lingnan guqin master Yang Xinlun in the form of an exhibition. In 2020, Chen Yimin's master and apprentice held a joint exhibition called "Lingnan Qingyin - Guqin Boutique Exhibition of Famous Qin Masters Chen Yimin and Liu Bihua" at the Guangdong Cultural Center, which attracted many citizens to participate in the exhibition.
Chen Yimin can also be seen in many public welfare activities. On June 16, 2018, the "Cultural and Natural Heritage Day", the Haizhu District Cultural Center hosted the "Journey to the Heart of the Qin" public welfare activity, and Chen Yimin explained and demonstrated the production process of the guqin to guqin lovers in Ziyuan Qin Fang. In 2019, Chen Yimin participated in the "Nine Virtues Can Be Recruited - Lingnan Qin Chopping Skills Exhibition" hosted by the Haizhu District Cultural Center, which was the first joint exhibition of the inheritors of Lingnan guqin chopping skills. He attended a series of supporting activities of the exhibition free of charge, including elegant gatherings, lectures, and tastings of exhibited works, "Participating in public welfare activities is not to make money, but to publicize. I am comforted to see that more and more people are interested in Lingnan guqin. ”
I have a long life, I'm only in my 70s now, and I can do it for many years! Chen Yimin, who has a light attitude and strives for perfection in his craft, will continue to struggle in the field he loves, continue to promote the inheritance of guqin making, and carry forward this craft.
Produced by the News Department of Guangzhou.
Written by: Nandu Pazhou reporter Yi Xiaoxia intern Wu Jianxin.
Photographer: Nandu Pazhou Reporter Feng Zhoufeng.