Changzhou chanting, also known as chanting tune, is a traditional music form in Changzhou. It is sung in Wu dialect-Taihu film-piling film-Changzhou dialect. Changzhou chanting is a traditional art of Han nationality, and classical poems and articles are sung between singing and reciting. It spans three disciplines: literature, music and language. Changzhou Yong is a manifestation of Changzhou culture, which has high literary and artistic value and can be called the treasure of China traditional culture.

Basic content and artistic features

Changzhou recites ancient poems (four characters, five characters, six characters, miscellaneous poems, etc.). ), modern poetry (five sentences, seven sentences, five laws, seven laws, etc. ), metrical words (long and short sentences, chanting) and ancient famous articles. Its chanting method is different from singing, and there is no music score to follow, mainly oral inheritance and flexible use, without musical instrument accompaniment. Mr. Guo Moruo once figuratively compared it to "free singing without music".

Changzhou dialect tone (four tones, namely, flat tone, rising tone, falling tone, and entering tone, except that the rising tone is only above the yin, the other three tones are equally divided into yin and yang, in fact, there are seven tones), which is close to the medieval phonology, so it retains the phonological beauty of classical poetry and literature.

Pay attention to the expression of feelings and emphasize the momentum and charm in chanting, so there are "48 methods", "masculine" and "feminine", which can be roughly summarized into four basic cavity methods from the perspective of music: first, "metrical cavity method", which is mostly suitable for modern poetry; Second, "showing the basic cavity method" is mostly suitable for five-character and seven-character ancient poems; Thirdly, the "hidden basic cavity method" is more suitable for ancient Chinese and poetry; The fourth is the "core cavity method", which is more suitable for French characters.

Its melody rhythm is closely related to the level tone (Changzhou dialect), such as "flat low and high" and "flat long and short" which affect the melody direction and determine the rhythm density. In particular, the characteristics of its pace and rhythm are mainly "chanting" (one word or two short sounds), which is usually combined with "chanting" (one word or several long sounds) to reflect the rhythm characteristics (such as short words and long sentences), so "chanting" is the most common rhythm form.

Although the intonation of different inheritors is different, there is a folk saying that "one person has one tune", but the music style is generally unified. "Recitation" uses natural sounds, and "Recitation" uses pure music sounds or sounds close to pure music. When reciters recite with pure music, the melody is very singing, so some people call it "chanting" or "singing".

However, strong singing "chanting" is not the same as "singing". The intonation is a traditional tune shared with metrical poetry, which can be played at will without instrumental accompaniment, while the singing is different and relatively fixed, with instrumental accompaniment. Therefore, the uniqueness of intonation lies in its reading of ancient poems, which is between language and music but has the characteristics of both language and music.

trait

Zhao Yuanren, the founder of modern linguistics in China and a famous musician, first discussed the art of reciting from the perspective of music. As early as in the United States, he recorded the tone of Changzhou's poems and published related monographs and "Musical Tone of Changzhou's Poetry 17 Cases", which made Changzhou famous at home and abroad. Changzhou chant features

Changzhou chanting is rooted in Changzhou and sung in Changzhou dialect, which is a kind of Wu dialect. It is different from other fields mainly in the following points:

1, the overall level is high: Changzhou has profound cultural heritage. Zhao Yuanren, Zhou Youguang and Tu An, the representatives of the descendants of Changzhou Ci School, are all "big men" in China's cultural circles, and Qian Yuan and others are also from famous Confucian schools, and their singing is different. Changzhou chanting is rich in content, diverse in style and colorful. The overall level is beyond the reach of all localities.

2. The tone system of Changzhou dialect is close to Middle Chinese, and Changzhou recites more, which well preserves the phonological beauty of classical literature such as Tang poetry and Song poetry.

3. Thanks to the efforts and contributions of Zhao Yuanren and others, the Taiping Qingming Festival in Changzhou has been excavated, sorted out and studied to a certain extent, laying a solid foundation for the protection and inheritance of the Taiping Qingming Festival in Changzhou.