Text | Zhang Yi
The Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University provoked public outrage. It is not because of the inferior artistic level, but because the models used in its "2021 College Student Fashion Show" are all "squinting eyes".
What is "squinting eyes"? In the perception of ordinary people like me, it is ugly. The old family describes a person who looks ugly, and these words are the most representative: sharp-billed monkey cheeks squinting eyes, big head and legs.
Of course, the models used by the Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts are not big heads with rounded legs, nor do they have sharp-billed monkey cheeks, so why are they all squinting eyes? There may be only one reason: in the stereotype of Westerners, the small eye is the prominent feature of East Asians, so it is believed that the "beautiful eyes" of East Asians are small eyes. But do East Asians think small eyes look good? Generally not, I also want to have "big eyes double eyelids". In the end, the Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts is taking the standards of Westerners to see Chinese Chinese, or this fashion show held by China's top universities has a pair of Western eyes.
However, is that true of just "eyes"? Does our music department also have a pair of Western ears? I'm afraid it's not only longer, but it's more serious.
The father of the folk song of "out of tune"
He liked to sing since he was a child, and he appeared to be smart and able to sing and dance among a group of Aboriginal children. However, after school, the music teacher at school said that he sang out of tune... He became oblivious to music lessons for a long time thereafter, until years later, he was known as the "Father of Taiwanese Folk Songs". His name was Hoodev.
Hoodev
If the tone on the piano is "accurate", then a lot of music is "out of tune". For example, the music of the Arabic music system, such as the music of the African black music system, and a lot of music in the Chinese music system.
The commonly used Junkong flute in China is small in the second degree, the small second degree is large, the bitter tone (si) in the northwest music of China is low, and the fa tone of the Central Plains Yu opera is high but not as high as the fa... But the most prominent feature of Chinese music is not that there are many "sounds in the piano seam" like the Arabic music system or the African black music system, but that most of the time its pitch is not a straight "scale" like the piano, but a sound with a "bend" - because Chinese music is rooted in the tonal language of the Sino-Tibetan language family. This wandering sound is not "out of tune", but aesthetic quality. On the contrary, the "straight tone plus trembling" commonly used by music departments has typical Western music aesthetic characteristics, and the songs of the Sino-Tibetan language family with tones are not different.
Chorus of "Not Allowed"
When the chorus first entered China, it was considered by the Chinese people to be "singing wrong". If it is not sung wrongly, how can everyone sing together not be the same tune?
In the long history, Chinese music has no concept of harmony, no multi-voice music. When we examine choruses with habitual mono-melodic thinking, multi-part choruses are of course inaccurate. Today, we will never make such a low-level mistake again. But just because we will never make such a low-level mistake again does not mean that we will not make such a low-level mistake again. Are we not low-level and common enough to use the Western concept of "scale" with pitch fixation to calibrate Chinese music with a pitch-wandering "bend" that has a development history of thousands of years, and to treat loose plates or Chinese music types with plates and no eyes (one beat) with equal strength and weakness? Is it necessary for us to expel the peppers from Chinese Sichuan cuisine and Hunan cuisine because Western food rarely uses peppers?
It is not right for us to ridicule the chorus of Western musical forms as "not allowed", but we laugh at the "no permission" and "unscientific" of Chinese style Chinese style music. The former is narrow, the latter is despicable.
The "rhyme" of the absurd walking board
"'Vivid rhyme' is the highest artistic concept of our country's philosophy." (Teng Gu) Since the Southern Qi Sheikh proposed, "Qi Yun" has been repeatedly discussed and emphasized by artists of successive dynasties in our country. However, what is "rhyme"? Our artists and artists not only did not give convincing statements, but even "the language is unknown". Some people in the West have translated the Chinese "rhyme" into the English rythem (rhythm), which has made many Chinese artists and art scholars "treasured" and "expanded the expression of Chinese aesthetics". However, is "rhyme" so simple and crude? When talking about the "rhyme" of art, don't you first understand Chinese music? Can't these artists and academics see how the Chinese word "rhyme" is written?
However, they cannot be blamed entirely. Because we can't talk about what "rhyme" is in the music industry. Isn't that a strange thing? It is believed that the material basis of Chinese music "rhyme" mainly includes the following aspects: heavy overtones, cavity sounds (with curved tones), multi-run cavities, monkey skin bands (non-equal rhythms)... Do not say that "rhythm" is only one of the many expressive components of rhyme, even if rhyme is "rhythm", this rhythm is also very different from the Western equal rhythm, the rhythm of the variety of non-equal rhythms, let alone not "the repetition of the form in the picture".
We should not reject Western classical music, nor should we exclude Chinese rural boys from singing English jazz songs ("The Voice of China" player Zou Hongyu was ridiculed when practicing singing in the countryside), but the most important thing that should not be excluded is Chinese music with Chinese charm and Chinese style. We can learn from the multi-voice, but this multi-voice is the multi-voice of Chinese charm and Chinese style, rather than the polyphony of Western music; we can learn from the bel canto, but this bel canto should be a tool for the development of Chinese singing with bends, with kaners, more true and false voices, and more moist cavity, rather than flipping the tool into a model and goal, with a straight voice, "big tongue" and "pendulum" as a pride.
The world does not have only one sense of music, and the world cannot have only one sense of music. If we lose our musicality, then it is not only a crime against Chinese music, but a heinous crime against human music.
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