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Popular music thesis
China modern pop songs were first born in Shanghai, an international metropolis. Popular songs emphasize individual humanity, pay attention to the inner activities directly related to the subject and reflect individual psychology. Its content is close to daily life, and it depicts the personal emotional world and life experience delicately and truly, which is the direct presentation of life state and the catharsis of emotional experience. The "people" in pop songs are divorced from the "group". Give up yourself and focus on yourself. On the other hand, the acceptance of pop songs is also personal, and what is important is not the interpretation of meaning, but one's own perceptual experience. There is no uniform standard for listeners to understand the content of songs according to their own life experiences and emotional experiences. For people with similar social environment, pop songs are easy to give people a real feeling and produce strong * * * sounds. Marginal and subversive. Popular songs belong to non-mainstream culture, they don't take the initiative to bear the function of "carrying the Tao", don't care about major social themes, don't adopt grand narratives, and often touch on realistic themes, but often expose and ridicule the inherent social classes and social phenomena in a humorous but not particularly sharp way, subverting traditional values and moral norms. Pop songs are the mainstream culture dominated by intellectual elites. The public opinion guided and manipulated by the government is marginalized, thus forming a literary context full of vitality and independent spirit. Of course, with the rise of pop culture in recent years, pop songs have gradually moved from the edge to the center. Whether they can seize the mainstream position in today's society remains to be further observed. To sum up, pop songs are produced in cities with entertainment as their main function and commercial purpose. Popular cultural products that express the life and feelings of ordinary people and reflect their aesthetic taste and state of mind. For the literary form and phenomenon of "pop songs", such a concept must be incomplete. But for the study of literature, the above attributes can already distinguish pop songs from other music and literature at home and abroad. Once pop songs are incorporated into the system of China's literary history according to the above definition, our vision will be broadened immediately. Judging from the basic attributes of the above-mentioned pop songs, considering the commercial and civic issues, the history of China pop songs can be traced back at least, which is what I have to do. Our new poems should develop from popular folk tunes ... "The fact is that after the May 4th New Culture Movement, new poems replaced traditional poems, but abandoned this tradition. After completing the vanguard role of new poetry in the new literature movement, the road became narrower and narrower, especially its influence among the people plummeted. So far, it is difficult to say with confidence that it has found a real "way out". Mr. Zhu originally wanted to give a reference direction to the development of new poetry, but now he has provided us with an idea to take care of popular songs. Although popular songs are influenced by modern western music, mainly jazz, they also blend China's folk and traditional music to a great extent. In this sense, pop songs have just inherited the tradition of China's poetic style reform centered on music, continued the identity of "poetic surplus" and "poetic surplus", and maintained the most primitive and authentic form of poetry. From this point of view, "a tune, a modern pop song and a contemporary pop song" has a complete and clear evolution context and a strong integrity. This paper breaks the narrow definition of "pop songs", and puts the words, songs and tunes that conform to the basic attributes of pop songs into the concept category of "pop songs" and treats them as a whole with modern and contemporary pop songs. We divide China pop songs into ancient pop songs and modern and contemporary songs according to the common historical division method, with191year as the boundary. Each part is divided into two stages: Ci, Qu, Modern Pop Songs and Contemporary Pop Songs. Taking the development of human nature as the main clue, this paper observes the unique human state reflected by popular songs through microscopic analysis and interpretation of representative popular lyrics in each stage. In particular, they reflect the history of "Wang Guowei" in the Song and Yuan Dynasties in their respective times (preface). Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1998 edition. 2. Explore the general trend of the development of pop songs in China. Historically, pop songs often break through the shackles of ethics and morality because of their unorthodox status, which can better express human nature, and so do modern and contemporary pop songs. It can break through the shackles of outdated stereotypes and reveal a fresh breath. Its value "is actually not only to soothe people's injured hearts, release their deeply repressed emotions and enhance their human desire to fly." From another perspective, its revolutionary significance can not be underestimated, because it shattered and burned the ghost of a cultural order that lasted for thousands of years. "First, popular songs are different. They define their own" entertainment "function. Accept your marginal position, give up the goal of re-education beauty, and ignore the orthodox value judgment, thus forming a brand-new, relaxed and self-pleasing song form. Taking Ci as an example, it is a new form of song after poetry is canonized to meet people's emotional needs in singing. Qian Zhongshu said: "Love, especially the love smuggled openly under the supervision of feudal ethics, almost all retreated from ancient poetry to modern poetry, and most of them moved to the ci world. "Not only love, but also other different emotions can be expressed by lyrics. Ci is full of passion and vitality because of its true and colorful humanity. Although it is regarded as a "trail", it has won the hearts of the people and is very popular. Even scholars are attracted. Through this study, we will more clearly see the positive significance of China pop songs as marginal literature in expressing human nature, which will help us to explore the deep reasons why pop songs have such strong influence and appeal. On the other hand, we can also see that human nature develops and publicizes with the progress of the times through popular songs. Secondly, through the overall investigation and study of China pop songs, we pay attention to the internal development and evolution of pop songs, so as to clearly see the inheritance of modern and contemporary pop songs to ancient literary heritage and their own new changes. Generally speaking, it is also helpful to understand the situation and significance of modern literature's inheritance, development or sublation of ancient literary traditions. Since the May 4th Movement, modern novels, based on ancient popular novels, have developed and matured on a relatively smooth road. Achievements are also the most remarkable in new literature. Modern pop songs entered a prosperous period almost immediately after their birth in the late 1920s, among which the ancient popular 1 songs played an important role. Modern pop song writers are very open to China's rich ancient literary heritage. They inherited the tradition of ancient popular songs and did not stop the progress between the old and the new. In this way, the development of modern pop songs can be carried out quickly and smoothly. They absorb the nutrients of elegance and vulgarity from the generalized poetic tradition, and they accept everything, which provides sufficient nutrients for the creation of modern pop songs. From the aspect of acceptance, the long history of pop songs also provides us with the reasons why modern pop songs were quickly accepted and developed in the first half of the twentieth century. No matter ancient or modern, as a pop song, we should always take the citizen class as the core, so that modern pop songs can quickly get close to the general public, cultivate a large audience, and then form a good cycle between supply and demand. Third, although we can't simply learn from today and think that modern pop songs will inevitably become the representative literature of our generation, this possibility exists. At least, ancient lyrics and songs are "elegant" in contemporary times. The experience of The Trail gives us a kind of confidence and hope: modern pop songs may reach the height of classical literature and leave their own marks in the history of literature. More importantly, after combing the overall context of China pop songs, we can predict or infer the inevitable trend of the development of contemporary pop songs from some of its laws. In other words, we can learn from the rise and fall of ancient popular songs. Provide feasible suggestions for the future development of contemporary pop songs. There is no doubt that pop songs have strong vitality and strong development trend. Simple and rude neglect and suppression are useless. Only by fully respecting the rationality of their existence and criticizing and helping them with a rational attitude can pop songs truly embark on the correct development direction and become a beneficial force in social culture. Fourthly, popular songs are one of the important components of contemporary popular literature. A rational study of them will help to change the opposition between elite literature and popular literature, speed up the removal of barriers between the two literary circles, enhance the dialogue between them based on understanding, and make it possible to learn from each other. We must admit that the existence of any literary type has its rationality, and their respective literary functions are different. Each one has its unique significance and function. Although popular songs are aimed at the entertainment needs and aesthetic tastes of ordinary citizens, they can also promote the development of literature to a certain extent. As Hu Shi said: "There is an inescapable formula in the history of literature. The new literary style is divorced from the people. Over time, influenced by folk literature, literati use this new genre to create literary works. "'Song Ci, Yuanqu. There are precedents in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Modern and contemporary pop songs have long been belittled by orthodox public opinion and elites, and have not yet entered the literary field of vision. These songs seem to be mixed, but the excellent works always shine with poetic light. Some scholars and musicians have regarded popular lyrics as a branch of new poetry. 2. Many listeners even read them as poems: the role of popular songs in modern people's cultural life "Hu Shi's Selected Lyrics". Commercial press 1927 edition. In the preface written by Qiao Yu for Liu Chucai's Selected Lyric Poems in China, lyric poetry is clearly called poetry. See Selected Lyrics of China. At that time, the influential new poetry works often took the form of popular lyrics as social identity. Popular lyrics are included in the discussion of new poems. See Cultural Transformation and China's New Poetry, edited by Lv Jin, published by Du in Chongqing in 2002. 9. This gives us reason to believe that it will and can occupy a place in the history of modern literature, which is of great positive significance to the development of contemporary literature: "Is there no literature representing the times in the history of China literature? But we should not look for it in the' traditional history of ancient Chinese prose', but in the' unworthy' literature with a crooked body. Because it is not worthy of the ancients, it can represent the present! " Only by respecting the diversity of literature, can 1 achieve a flowery literary garden, which is also the premise to ensure the creativity and vitality of literature. Fourthly, the summary of the existing research results and the problems that need to be explained have experienced historical scouring and tempering. The word, song and tune in the form of ancient popular songs have reached the palace of classical literature. Through the unremitting efforts of several generations of scholars, the study of lyrics and songs has reached a fairly full level in both the collection and arrangement of documents and literary criticism: it is comprehensively and meticulously discussed in the General History of Literature and the Chronological History of Tang, Song and Yuan Literature; It has been comprehensively and deeply investigated in the history of ci and qu styles; The case studies of writers and works in the field of lyrics and songs are equally fruitful. Because the research results in this field are extremely rich, I won't introduce them here, which provides great convenience for our research. As far as the ancient part is concerned, the study of tunes is slightly backward, perhaps because its literary value is not as good as lyrics and songs. In particular, there is relatively little literature research. In the first half of the 20th century, there was an upsurge of popular literature research in the ballad movement, and a number of academic experts emerged, such as Gu Jiegang's Wu Ji, etc.

As for the modern pop songs in the 1930s and 1940s, it was almost an undeveloped virgin land. As far as the cultural market in the elbow period of the Republic of China is concerned, movies, popular novels and popular songs go hand in hand. However, after the films and popular novels represented by Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School were re-evaluated and recognized in the Republic of China, popular songs did not enter the field of vision of literary researchers. Only a few scholars from Hongkong and Taiwan Province participated in it. For example, An Overview of Contemporary Music written by Huang Qizhi at 1978 focuses on the contemporary music of Xianggang in the 1950s and 1960s. Sun Kun's A Brief History of China Pop Music: 19 17- 1970 provides the development of modern pop songs in Shanghai and Hongkong. Among them, although Huang Qizhi emphasized literary research, it is a pity that the main space is Xiang Gang's music of the times, and Sun Kun's works are intended to describe history, with little attention to literature and few works included. Relatively speaking, the music industry explored this field earlier than the literary world. For example, Hong et al. studied the popular songs in 1930s and 1940s in Taiwan Province academic circles. Dr. Su Wei Chet, a musician in China, made a detailed analysis of the musical and cultural characteristics of popular songs in 1930s and 1940s. Mainland musicologists have also provided some case studies on old Shanghai singers, such as "As a genre, take China's early songs and records as an example, take Zhou Xuan's films starring in 1930s and 1940s as an example, and compare them with Hollywood musicals of the same period.

Introduction 1, the origin of textual research, don't sing! Poetry and songs are too elegant. Stop singing! Stop singing! Love, love, they said it was disgusting. It is relaxed but not great, majestic and terrible, and no one loves it solemnly. Stop singing! Stop singing! Don't speak for fear of being scolded, don't speak for fear of being scolded. Stop singing! Stop singing! 1 1 "Don't sing" is a popular song in the 1940s. Its composer Li Jinguang, lyricist Li Juanqing and singer Zhou Xuan were all the most famous creators of pop music before liberation. China's modern pop songs have shown amazing expansion in the past two decades since they appeared in the late 1920s. This new type of song, which absorbs modern western music and combines elements of China traditional music, has been adopted by radio and magazines, and has become a popular form of entertainment with the help of modern media such as movies. At that time,' Don't Sing' reflected the embarrassment faced by China pop songs since their birth, and revealed the helplessness of pop song creators and artists. In the first half of the 20th century, influenced by economic development and the impact of modern western culture, modern pop songs rose rapidly in large and medium-sized cities with Shanghai as the center, which was spectacular for a while. However, this also immediately attracted criticism from all sides. On the one hand, the quality of pop songs is mixed, and more importantly, the persistence of modern pop songs in entertainment conflicts with the mainstream thoughts of anti-Japanese and later class struggle, thus encountering strong pressure from the ideological field. Cultural circles' general comments on pop songs, such as "Huang Ge" and "decadent voice", have long dominated public opinion, seriously affecting the objectivity of the latecomers. Influenced by historical issues, until the early 1980s, popular songs were still under pressure from public opinion and policies, and the process of correcting their names became more and more difficult. The discussant is either echoing the public or blindly touching the elephant. There is no comprehensive analysis of pop songs, which has lasted for decades. In order to overcome some people's prejudice against pop songs and strive for a relatively peaceful development environment, professionals even have to carefully avoid the name of pop songs and deliberately use relatively vague concepts such as "light music", "lyric songs" and "pop songs". Look at' 65438+ In the last century, the Art Bureau of the Ministry of Culture and the Theoretical Creation Committee of the Musicians' Association jointly held a national symposium on light music, suggesting the use of the concept of "light music" or "pop music" ... Pop music was later widely used. 1986, the second national TV Grand Prix for Young Singers was held by CCTV. The pop songs that appeared in the first half of the year do have defects and similarities. However, this is a phenomenon of any literary type. When the smoke of the Anti-Japanese War dispersed and broke away from the special wartime atmosphere, we objectively reviewed the songs that were popular for a while but were criticized, and it was not difficult to find the flash of light in them. The current pop songs also show amazing appeal and influence. So many listeners are mainly teenagers, including many young people with higher education-remembering their youth in songs, promoting their ideals in songs, and. Even more and more people are used to using lyrics to convey their feelings and express their love and hate. They cry with the song, but they are intoxicated with it, but they are both sad and happy. Even people who don't care about pop songs can't deny that pop songs have this charm that can make the audience feel happy and sad. In the face of all this, can we really be indifferent and ignore it? But now it seems that the academic field is indeed like this. Even after getting rid of the notoriety of "Huang Ge", pop songs are still not worth mentioning among modernist scholars who uphold the ideal of elite literature. The so-called pop culture only provides cheap and accessible entertainment for ordinary people who have no aesthetic ability and will only passively accept it. It is simply "not worthy of real or authoritative literary or cultural analysis." L. "The masses" and "popular culture" were rudely swept to the corner that they despised, and no one could see clearly. The inherent literary evaluation system plays a negative role in it. We have long been influenced by' classic works' and have been in the circle of pure literature or serious literature; We have made a set of value labels, but readers at all levels may not be able to recognize this price label. "Accordingly, a new paradigm of literary research is needed. However, neither the new value system nor the establishment of a new literary research paradigm can be easily solved. It must resist the strong resistance of the original value judgment standard and the inherent research paradigm. The rise of western postmodern theory makes people see the hope that popular literature research can rely on it in theory. However, the distinctive deconstructive nature of this theory itself makes it have a strong impact on "breaking", but it is inherently deficient in "standing". The consequence of "breaking without standing" is that popular literature cannot grasp its surging vitality. Lost the power of norms and guidance. So what we are seeing now is: In today's booming pop culture, pop songs have firmly occupied the main position in the music circle, and it and its audience are becoming more and more independent. The evaluation and guidance of the government and cultural authorities have gradually lost their influence, and pop songs are no longer shivering. They are proudly scattered over every city, even drifting to hills and farmland. Apart from the music circle, in essence, the text of popular songs has invaded the original field of poetry and robbed a large number of recipients who originally belonged to poetry. In the forties, the helplessness of "not singing" and "being afraid of being scolded" became the paradox of "persisting in singing" and "scolding if you want". However, the public and researchers are still arguing with each other and going their own way. This literary genre, which is judged as "inferior", is missing in the history of orthodox music and literature. The huge contrast between the heat of communication and the cold of research actually leads to a lose-lose situation.

In the era when many cultures occupy the mainstream, the cultural radiation mode that was originally enlightened by cultural elites to the general public has completely failed, and cultural authority has been pushed down from the altar. In the eyes of modern people, people who have no "initiative" are unexpectedly and resolutely fighting against the indoctrination from the so-called elite. This means that elite literature can't shake the real world and people's spiritual world if it loses its adaptability to the market. What it advertises is to save literature and society. The great responsibility of saving the human spirit will not be fulfilled. Therefore, blindly flaunting the sublime can only block the dialogue between English studies and popular literature and lose the opportunity to gain greater dissemination and influence from popular literature. For modern pop songs, if they have never been helped by rational criticism, their development and popularization can only be explored in the dark, or they will never find a bright exit. Maybe there are too many avoidable scars left in the darkness. If we are willing to open our eyes, get out of the cage of literary hierarchy and face this diversified cultural world calmly, it is not difficult to find that although pop songs have such and such problems in the context of large-scale reproduction of cultural industrialization, their rationality and significance are also clearly identifiable. The preface of the poem' Day:. Emotion moves in the middle and is formed in words, but it is not enough to sigh. It can be seen that songs are the main form for people to express their emotions, and human nature is always connected. The fundamental reason for the popularity of songs is nothing more than the universality of the emotions expressed. Because of this, how can we doubt that popular songs that are loved by so many people sing the voices of people in this era and tell their true feelings? ! Only by expressing this feeling accurately and fully can the song be recognized and loved by more people, and can it cause the reflection of various emotions such as joy, sadness, melancholy and gloom. Therefore, it is worthwhile to bring pop songs into the field of literary research simply on the basis of their true feelings and human nature "1". Before the rational study of pop songs, the first thing to do is to sort out the conceptual confusion and make clear what it refers to. For modern people, "pop song" 2 is a familiar term. It is not difficult for people to understand the type of music it refers to, and it is quite easy to distinguish it from folk songs, art songs and other categories, and easily list their familiar pop songs. However, when we try to find a clear definition for it, there are many different opinions. Since its birth in the late 1920s, many modern pop songs have appeared in China, such as Love Song for Family, Huang Ge, Light Music, Popular, and Zhang Heluo's New Edition of China Literature History. Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House 1998. P3。 This paper mainly focuses on pop songs. In order to avoid confusion with instrumental works in "pop music", this paper uses the word "pop music". However, in previous studies, "pop music" was used to refer to popular and bold songs. If there is no objection, several different names such as ",Song", "urban folk songs" and "pop songs" will not be pointed out in the discussion. These names are even discussed in technical terms in daily conversations. Among them, the word "pop songs" has the most extensive influence. In fact, "pop songs" cover much more content than "pop songs". The Encyclopedia of Music and Dance in China said: Pop music generally refers to music that is easy to understand, lively, easy to spread and has a wide audience. It is different from serious music, classical music and traditional folk music, and is also called "pop music". "Classical music" and "traditional folk music" are a kind of music, which refer to a wide range. Apart from indicating the language, music level and lively style of the song, there is almost no clear description of its characteristics. It is a musician's strategy to adopt this concept of "pop songs" with vague connotation and unclear extension, which accords with the purpose of finding rationality for the development of pop songs at that time. In essence, under the broad concept of "pop songs", pop songs have gained space for survival and development with the help of other kinds of songs (such as mass songs and artistic lyric songs). ) is recognized by public opinion and orthodox critics. The word "pop music" we are talking about now comes directly from English. Popular is called "sic" (pop music), and "popular" means "pop" and "pop". "Popular" and other meanings. The narrow definition of pop songs comes from the west, which has obvious western cultural color and social and historical background: Western pop songs originated from the United States, and absorbed the music of European immigrants and African blacks, so they also showed the characteristics of the United States as an immigrant country: "The world-wide music language, that is, the fusion of multi-ethnic cultures, the entertainment and consumption of pop music brought by modern urban life, are the most essential characteristics of modern pop music." 4438+0. The book borrows the definition of western pop music given by Knight and Peter Manuel, and roughly summarizes the following characteristics of pop music: 2: 1, which originated in the city and is oriented to urban audiences; 2. Style connection with national art music; At least in the 20th century, it was mainly spread through radio and mass media such as records and tapes. 4. Pop music is music popular for entertainment; 5. Pop star system: 6. Fast track updating is a typical feature of pop music. Communication tools try their best to keep people interested in a pop star's new work. From this definition, we can find that "pop song" is a comprehensive art, and modern communication methods and production methods have added a lot of technical content to it. Trying to give a clear and generally accepted definition of this matter will often lead to endless confusion and futility, and researchers in different disciplines such as musicology, sociology, economics and culturology will have different emphases. From the perspective of literary research, if the lyrics are taken as the standard, music and pure technology issues will not be considered for the time being. Although modern pop songs in China grew up under the direct influence of western pop songs, they also have their own freshness. Jin Zhaojun's Popular in broad daylight-Experience China Pop Music. People's Music Publishing House, 2002 edition, PI .2 Today's Carnival Season-Century Leg Style of Pop Music, Guangju People's Publishing House, 1999 edition, P 15 1. 4 Ming China characteristics. Based on this, we can summarize the following basic attributes when investigating popular songs (mainly lyrics): First, popularity. Pop songs are a form of pop culture, and the audience it faces is not elite intellectuals with professional literacy in music and literature, but ordinary people with a larger number and uneven education levels. Therefore, its melody and lyrics must be easy to understand and conform to the appreciation ability of the broad audience. This is the basic premise for popular songs to spread widely, and it is also the main reason why popular songs have been among popular songs for a long time. The second is entertainment. The Book of Songs initiated the tradition of "Feng" in China's poetry (also a song of 1), and the function of carrying Tao became the embodiment of poetry value. Through poetry, we can "observe customs". Almost without exception, songs of all times involve enlightenment or political functions, and so do pop songs. But first of all, they take entertainment as their main purpose, meet people's entertainment needs, strengthen aesthetic and entertainment functions, and dilute political and educational colors. Therefore, the content of "emotion" is more than that of "carrying words", and the form is lighter than that of Zhuang. Entertainment is one of the main reasons why pop songs are criticized. However, this is also the most basic feature of pop songs. Third, it is commercial. The birth of pop songs is closely related to the consumer market. It is a cultural and entertainment product, and every link such as creation, performance, production, communication and publicity is permeated with commercial atmosphere. His creative motivation is that his works profit from popularity, increase communication channels and expand communication fields with the help of commercial power, which is restricted by economic development in different historical periods. There are different ways and degrees of commercial expression, but in the final analysis, its essence lies in the feature that pop songs are literary consumer goods. Since literature has become a commercial product, it is bound to be influenced by commercial development, controlled by commercial operation mode and influenced by commercial consumption demand, so it also determines its "kitsch" characteristics. No matter how the market of pop songs changes, creators will actively follow suit. Try to meet the needs of consumers (the highest level in this respect, that is, the real business success is to create and guide the trend), so as to get more profits. The demand for commercial profits stimulates the creation and dissemination of pop songs, and of course, the quick success of business may also have a negative effect on pop songs. Fourth, it is civic. Different from folk songs, pop songs are cultural products that appear with the development of cities, with cities as the main communication space. Its emergence and development depend on the cultural consumption needs of the general public in commercial cities. It takes citizen's life as the main description object and citizen's interest as the main orientation, and shows the various lifestyles of the city and the psychological feelings of citizens. It has distinctive urban characteristics, which are reflected in the theme, artistic conception and language. In addition, corresponding to the characteristics of the city, pop songs are more inclusive and open, pursuing novelty and fashion, showing diversity. Therefore, the emergence of popular songs, unlike ordinary popular folk songs, is only possible when there are obvious differences in the lives of urban and rural people.