& lt shepherd boy piccolo >; Analysis:
/kloc-in the first half of the 0/9th century, piano music in western Europe and other countries entered the golden age of romanticism. However, in China, with the rise of churches and new schools in China, this "foreign musical instrument" has been gradually accepted by Chinese people and popularized in China, but it has been in its infancy. Until the appearance of Cowboy Piccolo, China's piano music had a new page. It combines western polyphonic music with China national style, and plays music with strong China national style on western musical instruments. Based on the analysis of the piano music "The Shepherd's Piccolo", this paper summarizes the characteristics of the work from the aspects of musical structure, harmony and polyphony, aiming at helping readers to further learn and understand Mr. He Luting's composition techniques and creative ideas of combining western music with China's national style, and hoping to inspire current music learners and creators.
1. He Lvting and his piano music "Cowboy Piccolo"
He Lvting is a composer, educator, music theorist and activist with high prestige and the most international influence in China's music industry. His original name was He Anqing, also known as He Baozhen. 1903 was born in a family of farmers and businessmen in Shaoyang, Hunan Province, and was influenced by rich local folk music since childhood. 193 1 February, 2008, he was admitted to the theoretical composition major of Shanghai National Conservatory of Music. He studied the theory of professional composition techniques from Mr. Huang Zi, such as harmony, counterpoint, form and orchestration. His creative fields are very extensive, and his works are representative in instrumental music, chorus, solo and film music. His music works have a rigorous structure, and the development of music is also logical. He also made great contributions to modern music education and the construction of professional music groups.
1934 one day, Mr. He Lvting saw a poster of "collecting China-style piano music" organized by Russian pianist and composer Qi Erpin (A. Tcherepnin, 1899- 1987) in the school column. He was overjoyed and rented a small building of a tailor's shop at No.84 Xiangyang South Road. Since then, Qi Erpin brought this work to Europe to perform in person, which was loved by people all over the world. Later, it was officially published in Japan, which made this work famous at home and abroad and became one of China's most frequently played works in concerts.
Second, the music structure analysis
The shepherd boy piccolo has a simple structure and is a typical three-part musical form.
Presentation: (1-24), G mode, C palace system, 4/4 beat. It consists of six phrases, and each phrase consists of four sections. The music materials between the sentences are in sharp contrast, and the theme has a strong flavor of Jiangnan water town.
The whole presentation part has a slow rhythm and a very melodious and quiet melody. Use two contrasting polyphony writing methods. The high-pitched part and the low-pitched part are harmonious, one-on-one, one-on-two and one-on-four with tight upper part and loose lower part, static upper part and moving lower part. The left and right hands complement each other in music festivals and phrases, alternately forming echoes and being closely connected, forming obvious contrast.
The middle section (25-52 bars) is a "parallel" middle section, which adopts the technique of "turning the palace" in Chinese music, and the main theme is G, with 2/4 beats. Polyphony music has become the main melody music, with improved range and accelerated speed. It adopts the rhythm of national dance, and the melody is cheerful and interesting, depicting the innocent shepherd boy playing happily and frolicking. The theme material, beat, speed, harmony and tonality, music texture and artistic conception are in sharp contrast with the presentation part.
The middle section is divided into three phrases, each with 4 bars, which is the displacement and repetition of the same theme material at different pitches. The method of motivation modeling and development is in strong contrast with the previous paragraph, and the paragraph itself is repeated. The first sentence is a D key, and the second sentence is a strict imitation of the first five degrees, a key. The third sentence is an imitation of the first five degrees of the second sentence, which belongs to the mode of changing direction, but only has two bars. Because of the repetition of the paragraph, in the last two sections, the mode of G Palace in the first sentence is returned. In order to unify the style of counterpoint before and after, the middle section adopts parallel three-degree descending continuous bass, which weakens the function from the aspects of speed, strength and harmony to prepare for regression and reproduction.
The reproduction part (bars 52-76) is a variation reproduction of the presentation part. On the basis of keeping the skeleton of the demonstration part, some decorative notes have been added. The way is to add two notes to the rhythm of two eighth notes to become sixteenth notes, which makes the theme melody more smooth, compact and cheerful.
The tonality of the reproduction section is first on the G key, then on the D quotient key, and finally gradually reduces the volume and ends on the tonic G key. The application of the technique of "adding flowers and variations" has achieved the purpose of "changing and reappearing", making the music more tactfully moving, deeper and more dynamic.
Thirdly, the analysis of harmony and polyphony techniques.
Through the analysis of the Cowboy Piccolo, we can see that Mr. He Lvting not only inherited the achievements of Huang Zi, Zhao Yuanren and other senior composers in exploring nationalization in harmony and polyphony, but also opened up a new world in this field and formed his own unique style.
The harmony of "The Shepherd Boy Piccolo" is mostly carried out by changing the case, even at the end of the paragraph or the whole song, which is consistent with the melody style. In order to unify the contrast style between the middle polyphony and the front and back polyphony, the accompaniment adopts the parallel three-degree falling harmonic mode and the main continuous bass writing, thus weakening the harmonic function of the mode and coordinating with the lively main theme. In order to achieve the polyphonic effect of the contrast between the two voices, He Lvting constructed a "composite layer" of national modes in his harmony writing, that is, different tonality relations were adopted in the high and low voices. C Gongdiao stands out below the presentation part, and G Zhengdiao is dominant in the upper voice. In the middle section, the first sentence has a G gong key with a D Zheng key, the second sentence has a D gong key with a A Zheng key, and the third sentence has a A gong key with an E Zheng key. The reconstructed fragment is consistent with the previously presented fragment. This series of layered and prominent national tonic tones can form a complete pentatonic scale, which makes this work more rich in national music style.
The application of polyphony in "The Shepherd's Piccolo" is even more superb, and it is called an important symbol of the great progress made by modern piano music in exploring the polyphony of China style. He Lvting skillfully used polyphony, pentatonic rotation, multi-purpose progressive main melody, common ending of three or four degrees, and music development with repetition and antithesis as the main forms in his music, which made the melodies of the two parts full of the charm of China folk songs. The two parts of polyphony are used to imitate national musical instruments, and they are written by imitating the traditional tail biting method in China. When dealing with the relationship between parts, the principle of "you are complicated and I am simple, and you are simple and I am complicated" is adopted. When the upper part is active, the lower part is accompanied by contrast polyphony; When there is a pause or pause in the upper voice, the lower voice "bites" the ending sound of the upper voice and goes with the flow, just like the "fish biting the tail" in Nanzhu, which makes the music between the two voices complement each other, making the whole phrase, paragraph and even the whole music form a continuous momentum, making people feel a lasting charm, reflecting the diversity of He Luting's music creation techniques and the development of piano works.
Fourthly, the historical significance of cowboy piccolo.
The Shepherd Boy Piccolo is the first piano piece with distinctive and mature China style. It has formed its own distinctive characteristics in content, structure, melody, harmony, polyphony, decorative sound and playing methods. Once it came out, it was widely loved by the audience in China and quickly welcomed by the audience in other countries in the world. The success of Cowboy Piccolo is of great significance not only to China's piano music, but also to the new creation of modern music in China. It proves that some composing techniques, principles and factors in western music can express China's temperament. At the same time, it also points out the direction for more composers' creative path, provides valuable piano music creation experience, and makes China's piano works look brand-new.
Sima Qian said in Records of the Historian Biography of Le Shu: "People who share the same aspiration are also people with a heart. Emotion moves in the middle, so it is shaped by sound, and what is written by sound is sound. " China's long-standing traditional culture, rich humanistic customs and beautiful natural scenery have attracted more and more attention all over the world. "Chinese style" is constantly blowing around the world. China's music performance is like landscape painting, focusing on freehand brushwork, turning scenery into emotion, and spring scenery is pinned on several peach blossoms, revealing the infinite vitality of nature. The successful experience of The Cowboy Piccolo tells us that if we do not pay attention to our own national characteristics, abandon our own national traditions and blindly imitate foreign classics in cultural production, even if we imitate them vividly, it will only be a brilliant imitation. Simple imitation will always make a fool of yourself. Only by combining the characteristics of our own nation to learn the strengths of other nations can we not lose our way in artistic creation.
He Lvting once said: "We can't forget a wise saying:' A great artist must be the son of tradition and a traitor to tradition at the same time'. There is a deep truth in this. Any artist must study tradition deeply. Without tradition, you can't create anything. At the same time, you must break through the gap in the traditional established norms and create your own art ",which is of great guiding significance to contemporary China's music creation. Mr He Lvting's piano music started late in China. In order to fully display the excellent music culture of the Chinese nation on the world piano music stage, he made bold innovations in piano music creation and performance, made great efforts to explore China style, and created piano music that is both China's own nation and the world, and then formed China's own national piano school, and achieved success. In his creation, he did not rigidly imitate western music, but adopted many valuable western music theories and gave full play to the spirit of the oriental nation, but he was never bound by narrow national consciousness. As music creators or music learners, we should learn from Mr. He Luting's spirit, strive for innovation, adhere to "nationalization" as the basis, fully understand and grasp the style of China folk music, and constantly improve the theoretical system of "Chinese style" composition. On the basis of inheriting the creative techniques and ideas of previous composers, we should try boldly, innovate, bring forth the new and keep forging ahead, and do our part for the music creation and artistic prosperity of the Chinese nation.