Chapter 34 The third section is rich and colorful instrumental ensemble

After the initial development of various small-scale instrumental ensembles in the Song and Yuan dynasties, the art of pure instrumental ensembles independent of singing, dancing, rap, and opera began to form a variety of music in the Ming and Qing dynasties.The types of music spread in modern times such as "drum music" in southern Liaoning, "chuige" in Hebei (above advocacy music); , Southern Guangdong "Guangdong Music" (the above silk and bamboo music), etc., are the inheritance of several representative music types in this period. Advocacy music is a form of instrumental music played with percussion instruments such as wind music, gongs and drums.Originally, it was mainly used in ceremonial activities of the court and officials, and was not used by ordinary people.Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, this form of performance began to spread among the people and gradually became popular, and later became a kind of music that people like.The illustration of the legendary repertoire "The Story of the Blue Bridge and Jade Pestle" in the engraved edition of the Ming Dynasty shows a picture of a band playing (Figure 40). Six of them are using suona, curved mouth, horn, clapper and drum to play music on a wedding occasion. This is a group of " Drumming" band.The "Chuige Club" was popular in the rural areas of Ding County, Hebei Province in the Qing Dynasty. According to the compilation of the "Ziwei Village Chuige Club in Ding County" that has been handed down to this day, this kind of advocacy band uses Guanzi (main player), flute, and Sheng. Such as wind instruments and percussion instruments such as drums, cymbals [cha plugged in], gongs, and clangs.

Percussion music is a form of instrumental music played by various wind instruments, stringed instruments and percussion instruments.Early wind and percussion music originated from the "Shifan Drum" and "Shifan Luogu" popular in southern Jiangsu in the Ming Dynasty. "Ten" means majority; "Fan" means change and refurbishment. The so-called "Shi Fan" means "multiple changes and refurbishment".Because the instruments of "blowing", "pulling", "playing" and "beating" in this form of instrumental music have to be played repeatedly and repeatedly, and drums and gongs play an important role, so people call them " "Ten Fan Drums" and "Ten Fan Luo Drums".These two kinds of wind and percussion music are mainly performed in folk activities. The repertoire comes from Tang and Song song and dance music, lyrics and Song Yuan Nanbei Qupai, and the music style is warm and elegant.Qing Zhuquan Layman’s "Continued Banqiao Miscellaneous Notes" (1784 AD) records the custom of the "Bamboo Drunk Festival" on the Qinhuai River on May 13 (it is said to be the birthday of the Dragon King): Ci, ten gongs and drums, turbulent like boiling, each can be played.” It shows that this kind of music is very popular among the masses in folk activities in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

There is a pipa song "Sunset Xiaogu" in the Qing Dynasty. In modern times, some people adapted it into a silk and bamboo music ensemble and depicted such a moving scene: In the evening of spring, a few sounds of bell towers floated from far and near on the quiet river bank. With the beat of the drum, the moon rises slowly, stays peacefully on the top of the mountain, and sprinkles the silver light on the world.The flowers in the bushes on the shore exude a burst of fragrance under the breeze; the fishermen in the deep water and the clouds are singing fisherman's songs with their fishing nets in the afterglow of the twilight; Slowly drive back to the shore...; the moon is setting in the west, everything is silent, only the shadows are still lingering in the night... This moving piece that expresses people's intoxication in the night of the spring river and lingers on it is the famous silk and bamboo music "Spring River Flower and Moon Night" .The silk and bamboo music ensemble developed greatly in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It is usually played with stringed instruments such as pipa, ruan, sanxian, and huqin combined with bamboo wind instruments such as flute, xiao, and sheng. The music style is beautiful, lyrical, and elegant.This form of instrumental music was also spread eastward to Japan, and the Japanese called it "Mingqingle" or "Qingyue", and it also had an impact on the development of Japanese folk music.The Japanese works "Ming and Qing Lezhishi [kan Kan]" and "Yueqin Zizai", which record the music of Ming and Qing Dynasties in my country, are respectively painted with "Ming and Qing music pictures" and "Qing music pictures" (Figure 41). It is the silk and bamboo music band in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

A silk and bamboo orchestra, if the bamboo (wind) instruments are removed, and only plucked stringed instruments and drawn stringed instruments are used for combined performance, it will become the "string cable" that historians call "Zhugongdiao" and "Northern Song" since the Song and Yuan dynasties. .Huang Wenyang [yang Yang] of the Qing Dynasty wrote "Re-editing Qu Hai Zongmu", Zhi Fengyi's "Re-editing Songs" and Yao Xie [xie Xie]'s "Textual Research on Modern Music", and compiled "Xixiang Ji Zhugong Diao" written by Jin Dong Jieyuan At that time, they all wrote "Xian Suo Xixiang"; Ming Dynasty Shen Chongsui's "Notes to Duqu·Xian Suo Inscription Review" also said that "the strings and strings of Beici (that is, Beiqu) have always been prosperous in Loudong", All these show that people in Ming and Qing Dynasties believed that Zhugongdiao and Beiqu singing in the Song, Jin and Yuan dynasties were accompanied by stringed instruments (xiansuo).According to this tradition, instrumental music played purely with stringed instruments in the Ming and Qing Dynasties was called "Xian Suo", and today it is called "Xian Suo Yue".

The most representative "Xian Suo" musical score remains that have been seen so far is "Xian Suo Bei Kao", which was hand-copied and compiled by Rong Zhai, a Mongolian literati in the Qing Dynasty, in Jiaxu (1814 A.D.).According to the editor's preface, this is a collection of string ensemble compositions written according to the "ancient music" given by the teacher. It can be seen that it contains string music works before the 18th century.The full spectrum contains 13 sets of pieces such as "Acacia Order", "General Order" and "Sixteen Boards", so it is also composed as "Thirteen Sets of Xiansuo".The musical instruments used in each song are pipa, xianzi (ie sanxian), huqin and zither.The music is written in Gongchi notation, one musical instrument uses one part, each notation is performed differently, and the four parts are combined to form an ensemble score.

Among the various types of instrumental ensembles that have been circulated among the people so far, those in the form of string and cable music include Shandong's "Pengbaban" and Henan's "Bantouqu".