Chapter 5 Music of the Qin and Han Dynasties

Qin Shihuang unified China and established a centralized and unified empire. However, because the founding time was too short, it was destroyed by the Han Dynasty in just over 20 years, and it was too late to carry out large-scale cultural construction.Therefore, when it comes to the Qin Dynasty, it seems that there is no culture at all.In fact, in the culture of the Qin Dynasty, there are also some very shining bright spots, such as Li Si's Xiaozhuan, which can be called an unprecedented work in the history of Chinese calligraphy.Another example is the world-famous terracotta warriors, which are unique and great works in the history of Chinese sculpture.In music, the most noteworthy thing is the birth of the string.

The stringed instruments of the pre-Qin period, whether they are qin, zi, zheng, or zhu, are all played horizontally on the table or on the lap, and the stringed instruments widely used by later generations to be played in the arms have not yet appeared. . It is said that Qin Shihuang recruited people to build the Great Wall, which made people miserable and miserable.In their spare time, the migrant workers make up songs about their depression and grief and longing for their families. Without musical instruments to accompany them, they play drums (a type of drum, today’s Balang drum. There is a rope next to the drum) Tie two ears, there is a handle on the drum, turn the handle left and right when playing, and the two ears beat the drum to make a sound) tune it over, put strings on the drum surface, and play the drum handle as a soundboard, which has become the earliest holding in the history of Chinese music. A plucked instrument played in the arms - the stringed instrument.Later, in order to distinguish it from the curved-neck pipa introduced from the Western Regions, the stringed pipa was also called "Han Pipa".On the basis of stringed instruments, there appeared three stringed instruments such as sanxian, qinqin, ruan, and yueqin, which are played in the arms.

The Han Dynasty was different. The country was established for a long time and its national strength was strong, which gave it time and financial resources to develop music and dance. There have been music institutions such as Yuefu in all dynasties in China, which are in charge of the collection, arrangement, production and performance of songs, music and dances. Among them, Han Yuefu has the greatest achievements and influence. The greatest achievement of the Han Yuefu is collecting poems, carrying out large-scale collection and sorting activities of folk songs across the country, so that a large number of excellent folk songs can be preserved and spread.These folk songs are all "sent out of sorrow and joy, and sent out because of events", expressing the joy, anger, love and hatred of the people.The more important task of the Yuefu is to make music for poems and prose. They still turn their attention to the folk and get nourishment from folk songs.

The scale of the Yuefu in the Han Dynasty was very large, and the performances were quite impressive, reaching the point where "thousands of people sang, tens of thousands of people reconciled, the mountains trembled, and the rivers and valleys shook." The music played by the Yuefu includes advocacy, horizontal blowing, short flute and cymbal songs, and Xianghe songs. Among them, Xianghe songs are of the highest level and are the essence of Yuefu in the Han Dynasty. The highest form of Xianghe song is "Daqu", which is a performance form of singing and dancing with the accompaniment of musical instruments.Xianghe songs have rhetoric and sound, while Daqu is colorful, trendy and chaotic.

The so-called "ci" is the lyrics, and the Han Yuefu folk songs we see now are "ci". "Sound" refers to the words in the song that have sound and have no meaning, and only play the role of filling up syllables, which are the so-called "lining words" today, such as "Yi'er yo, Yaer yo" and the like.The "Concubine Huxun" in the Yuefu folk song "Thinking" are all "sounds". "Yan" is the introduction or prelude in Daqu, which can be played with musical instruments or sung. "Tendency" and "Chaos" are the concluding passages, and they can also be sung and played.

The most complete Daqu form is a three-segment structure: The first section is "Yan", which is usually at the front, but there are also some in the middle, and it is often a beautiful and lyrical section. The second stanza is the body of the song.It tends to have several sections of song. The third paragraph is "trend" or "chaos". "Turn" is a more relaxing tune, which may have the music style of Wu and Chu, while "Luan" is a more passionate tune.For a song, if it needs a lyrical ending, it will choose "Tendency"; if it needs a warm ending, it will choose "Chaos".This is why "trend" and "chaos" do not appear in a piece of music at the same time.

Not every big song has "yan", "tend" and "chaos". Of the 15 Daqu songs recorded in "Song Shu Le Zhi", only three of them have "yan" in the front and "trend" in the back.In addition, there is one song with "yan" but no "trend", three songs with "trend" but no "yan", one song with "chaos" but no "yan", and some others have no records of "yan", "trend" and "chaos". The largest and most comprehensive performance in the Han Dynasty is Baixi. Baixi is a general term for a program, including acrobatics, magic, martial arts, comedy, music, dance, etc.The hundred operas of the Han Dynasty were quite astonishing in scale, and their performance skills were also very high.

During the Han Dynasty, some new musical instruments appeared, and some old musical instruments were greatly developed. The plucked stringed instrument, stringed instrument, appeared in the Qin Dynasty and was widely used in the Han Dynasty. It was called "Qin Pipa".It has a longer handle and the speaker is covered on both sides.Around 105 BC, Princess Wusun married Kunmi, and the journey was far away, and many musical instruments in the Central Plains, such as Qin, Se, Zheng, Zhu, etc., were not suitable for playing immediately, so musicians made a new instrument , The speaker is round, with wooden sides, short handle, twelve fret columns and four strings.It was called "Qin Hanzi" at that time, and later it was called "Han Pipa", which is actually the predecessor of the later Ruan Xian.

The most important stringed instrument that appeared in the Han Dynasty was the konghou. The harp in the area of ​​the Han nationality is recumbent, similar in shape to the qin and se, and is called "Wai konghou", also known as "Kanhou". Around the time of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty in the second century A.D., a kind of harp that could be played on horseback was introduced from the Western Regions. It was shaped like a small harp and was called "vertical harp". Among the wind instruments, the most important ones are the appearance of the vertical flute and the horizontal flute.

The flute and flute mentioned in the pre-Qin period were not the flute played vertically or the flute played horizontally by later generations. The flute referred to at that time refers to the pan flute.The flute, on the other hand, seems to be just a bamboo pipe with a fixed pitch. The appearance of the vertical flute is probably related to the introduction of the Qiang flute used by the Qiang people.The Qiang flute is blown vertically and has four holes. Later, Jingfang added a hole in the back instead of a blowpipe and a reed, and made a hole obliquely on the top as a blowing hole to become a five-hole flute.

The horizontal flute appeared around the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and it is said that it was introduced by Zhang Qian through the Western Regions. Among the wind instruments, there are also two minority musical instruments, one is the jia, also known as "Hujia", and the other is the horn. The horns that first appeared were probably natural animal horns, and later imitations of copper, wood, leather, bamboo, etc. appeared. There are many descriptions of diagonal horns in the poems of the Tang and Song Dynasties.