Qin schools

Last updated

A qin school (琴派 qin pai in Chinese) is a school of guqin players that play in a style that is different from other styles.

<i>Guqin</i> Chinese stringed music instrument

The guqin is a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument of the zither family. It has been played since ancient times, and has traditionally been favoured by scholars and literati as an instrument of great subtlety and refinement, as highlighted by the quote "a gentle man does not part with his qin or se without good reason," as well as being associated with the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius. It is sometimes referred to by the Chinese as "the father of Chinese music" or "the instrument of the sages". The guqin is not to be confused with the guzheng, another Chinese long zither also without frets, but with moveable bridges under each string.

Contents

People often talk about regional styles because such a model simplifies things — and because it is still somewhat applicable, though less so now than 100 years ago. Generally guqin is highly individualistic so players' approaches will be very personal.

Styles and schools

These are the main schools in China:

Changshu County-level city in Jiangsu, China

Changshu is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, and is part of the Yangtze River Delta. It borders the prefecture-level city of Nantong to the northeast across the Yangtze River. Due to the mild climate and terrain there, it has enjoyed a high level of agriculture civilization since ancient times, and is named after this, for the first character of its name (常) means "always, often", while the second (熟) means "ripe". The name of the adjacent county-level city of Taicang means "great granary".

Shu school

The Shu School of Qin Music (蜀派古琴) refers to the modern guqin regional performance style tradition and lineage begun in the mid-19th century by its founder, Zhang Kongshan. The "Shu" name derives from the main base of operations at the time, namely the Sichuan region of China. Today, the Shu School has many branches and lineages, most of which trace their foundation to Zhang Kongshan, though the term is equally applied to Sichuan-based players in general.

Sichuan Province

Sichuan is a province in southwest China occupying most of the Sichuan Basin and the easternmost part of the Tibetan Plateau between the Jinsha River on the west, the Daba Mountains in the north, and the Yungui Plateau to the south. Sichuan's capital city is Chengdu. The population of Sichuan stands at 81 million.

Today the three main centers of guqin are Beijing, the Jiangnan area (lower Yangtze valley, including Shanghai) and Sichuan (especially Chengdu). Most major masters as of the 1950s were located in Beijing or Jiangnan; before that, they had been more concentrated in Jiangnan. For instance, Zha Fuxi and Wu Jinglüe spent many years living and teaching in Jiangnan before being relocated to Beijing for official duties. "Regional styles" as of 50-60 years ago would be rather different from "regional styles" in the present day, owing to the importance of a few masters and the conservatories in Beijing and Shanghai. Presently, given the strength of the conservatory system, "northern and southern conservatory styles" probably deserve their own status, separate from the older regional styles.

Beijing Municipality in Peoples Republic of China

Beijing, alternately romanized as Peking, is the capital of the People's Republic of China, the world's third most populous city proper, and most populous capital city. The city, located in northern China, is governed as a municipality under the direct administration of central government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing Municipality is surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighboring Tianjin Municipality to the southeast; together the three divisions form the Jingjinji metropolitan region and the national capital region of China.

Jiangnan

Jiangnan or Jiang Nan is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including the southern part of its delta. The region encompasses the city of Shanghai, the southern part of Jiangsu Province, the entire Zhejiang Province, the southeastern part of Anhui Province, the northern part of Jiangxi and Fujian Provinces. The most important cities in the area are Shanghai, Anqing, Changzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, Shaoxing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Zhenjiang and Fuzhou.

Yangtze longest river in China

The Yangtze or Yangzi, which is 6,300 km (3,915 mi) long, is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. Its source is in the northern part of the Tibetan Plateau and it flows 6,300 km (3,900 mi) in a generally eastern direction to the East China Sea. It is the sixth-largest river by discharge volume in the world. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population.

Regional styles

As far as older regional styles, the best-known ones are from Jiangnan and Sichuan. Some have relocated several times, like the Zhucheng/Mei'an style.

Major living Jiangnan lineages include Guangling, Zhe (Xumen) and Wumen. Others, like a "Jinling" style centered in Nanjing, don't really seem to exist anymore — though there's always an old master or two as counterexample.

The Zhe school is a school of musicians for the guqin. It should not be confused with the Zhe school of landscape painters.

Nanjing Prefecture-level & Sub-provincial city in Jiangsu, Peoples Republic of China

Nanjing, formerly romanized as Nanking and Nankin, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China and the second largest city in the East China region, with an administrative area of 6,600 km2 (2,500 sq mi) and a total population of 8,270,500 as of 2016. The inner area of Nanjing enclosed by the city wall is Nanjing City (南京城), with an area of 55 km2 (21 sq mi), while the Nanjing Metropolitan Region includes surrounding cities and areas, covering over 60,000 km2 (23,000 sq mi), with a population of over 30 million.

  1. For several generations the major qin lineage in Zhejiang has been surnamed Xu; Yao Bingyan and his tentative "Yaomen" lineage are an offshoot. One can't really say much about this style; it is not so well known, though several Xumen masters have been very respected.
  2. In Suzhou there is the Wumen style, most associated with Wu Zhaoji and his teachers before him. "Wumen" is named after "Wu Place" (吳地, old Chinese name of Suzhou area), and Wu Zhaoji's legacy seems to define the school in large measure.
  3. Guangling style is very prominent, mainly because it heavily influenced the "southern conservatory style". Guangling was originally centered in Yangzhou; its two major 20th century masters were Zhang Ziqian and Liu Shaochun. These taught a number of students destined for prominence, and Zhang himself became the de facto leading qin master in Jiangnan during the 1950s and 1960s. Major players today with strong Guangling influence include Gong Yi, Cheng Gongliang, Lin Youren, Mei Yueqiang, and their various students.

Generally (stereotypically), the Jiangnan styles are thought of as rather light and elegant. Guangling is very abstract, even "floating", and today the southern conservatory style is the more "light and elegant" of the conservatory styles.

Shu/Fanchuan school

Sichuan, as early as the Tang dynasty, was perceived as having qin play characterized by rushing, tumbling energy.

Tang dynasty State in Chinese history

The Tang dynasty or the Tang Empire was an imperial dynasty of China spanning the 7th to 10th centuries. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. Historians generally regard the Tang as a high point in Chinese civilization, and a golden age of cosmopolitan culture. Tang territory, acquired through the military campaigns of its early rulers, rivaled that of the Han dynasty. The Tang capital at Chang'an was the most populous city in the world in its day.

The modern form of the school was largely founded by Zhang Kongshan in the late 19th century; his inheritors have been very numerous. There are two branches: one branch through Ye Jiafu whose lineage is embodied by Zeng Chengwei, and the other is through Gu Yucheng whose lineage was embodied by Gu Meigeng. Today the main representative of the school is Zeng Chengwei, who has a very focused, straightforward style.

Zeng Chengwei Chinese musician

Zeng Chengwei (曾成偉) is a Chinese musician of the guqin, born in the Sichuan province of China. He is a fifth-generation transmitter of the Shu school of qin music, having studied with his maternal grandfather, Yu Shaoze. Zeng is also a well-known maker of the instrument.

As the Sichuan style fanned out into other areas of China (as it seemed to do rather successfully in the early 20th century), it became known as "Fanchuan", whose connotation is something like "Chuan – Everywhere".

Zhucheng/Mei'an schools

These schools started in Shandong, with a lot of folk influence and energy. "Zhucheng" still refers to the sub-set of players who stayed in Shandong. Xu Lisun became the doyen of the "Mei'an" style when he moved to Nantong, in Jiangnan. From there he taught many of the living Jiangnan players, directly or indirectly. In addition, a student of his named Wu Zonghan moved to Taiwan (in 1949?) and has made Taiwan (and by extension Hong Kong) a major reservoir of Mei'an influence.

Other schools

Moving down the east coast of China, we have Fujian. The "Min" school, of which Chen Changlin calls himself an inheritor, seems largely dead today. In Guangdong there is the Lingnan school, whose major player is Xie Daoxiu. Much cannot be said about these, though Lingnan playing is very interesting.

Miniature "regional styles" abound and are gathered around particular important teachers. For instance, many in Hong Kong studied from Cai Deyun, who has a very distinctive style ultimately derived from Sichuan.

Conservatory styles

From the early 20th century, as communication and travel within China improved as well as the adoption of modern musical teaching standards, a new conservatory style emerged. Typically, this style can be identified by the very precise and pitch-accurate play on the qin involving subtle vibrato on most notes and very fast movement of the hand and fingers. Whereas traditional styles are typically soft and fluid, conservatory style is very straight and sharp.

The "southern conservatory style" is basically what goes on at the Shanghai Conservatory where qin is concerned. A number of masters (including Zhang Ziqian, Wei Zhongle, Shen Caonong, Gu Meigeng, and others) taught there in the 1950s, and Gong Yi has been the doyen since then. He has numerous students; to some extent "southern conservatory style" reduces to "Gong Yi style", just like "Wumen" reduces to "Wu Zhaoji style". Gong Yi has very distinctive ideas and has done major interesting work.

Little is known about Beijing styles prior to the 1950s; the "big three" of mid-century Beijing all apparently had styles hailing from elsewhere. Guan Pinghu apparently based his playing on southern styles, though he studied with masters from all over; Wu Jinglüe and Zha Fuxi were both southerners. It's important to realize that there are lineages and micro-lineages and associations among all masters. For instance, there was some kind of long association between Zha Fuxi and Peng Qingshou (both from Hunan?) that may have been artistically productive. In any event, if there is a "Beijing style" today, it is largely the "northern conservatory style".

Northern conservatory style has two main representatives today: Li Xiangting and Wu Wenguang. The primary older masters contributing to the making of this style were Wu Jinglüe, Zha Fuxi, and Guan Pinghu. Generally, the northern conservatory style is heavier, harder, and more intense than the southern conservatory style. Li Xiangting is of course known for being very hard and athletic in his playing; Wu Wenguang, while rather lighter, still has a more intense and serious tone than Gong Yi.

Individual style

On top of the regional and conservatory styles, there is the style which does not fit into either. This is the style that many qin players would play since they may either have been taught by numerous teachers and so do not have a main regional style, or are mostly self-taught. It is from this that some interesting and sometimes eccentric styles exist since there are no constraints from the expectation of peers and/or teachers. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China

The Central Conservatory of Music is China's leading music school. Its campus is in the Xicheng District of Beijing, China, near Fuxingmen Station. It is a Chinese Ministry of Education Double First Class Discipline University, with Double First Class status in certain disciplines.

Wu Zhaoji (吳兆基), also known as Xiangquan, was born in Hunan in 1908, China. At the age of 4, his family moved to Suzhou, where he lived the rest of his life until his death in 1997. Raised in a musical family, he learned the guqin from his father, and in 1921 became a student of Wu Jinyang. From a young age, he enjoyed sports and martial arts. In 1928 he began studying the Yang Style of Tai-chi with Chen Weiming. One year later, he became a student of Li Shangyuan, who is a student of Hao Weizeng a descendent of the Wu (Martial) Style Taichi family. After many years of study he created his own style of tai-chi based on Daoism.

The Han Chinese, who make up some 92% of the population of China, play heterophonic music in which the musicians play versions of a single melody line. Percussion accompanies most music, dance and opera.

Se (instrument) ancient Chinese plucked zither

The se is an ancient Chinese plucked zither. It has 25–50 strings with moveable bridges and a range of up to five octaves.

Cheng Yu (musician) Chinese musician

Cheng Yu is a Chinese musician. She is internationally renowned as a performer of the pipa, a Chinese four-stringed lute, but also plays the guqin, a seven-stringed zither, and is a virtuoso, scholar and specialist of Chinese music.

Gong Yi is a guqin master from Shanghai, presently one of the instrument's leading figures. Born in Nanjing, he trained first under several local players before proceeding to the Shanghai Conservatory where he absorbed a range of styles from such prominent masters as Zhang Ziqian, Xu Lisun, Gu Meigeng, and Wei Zhongle. Gong Yi has had, since the 1950s, a varied career performing, teaching, composing, and researching under the auspices of several institutions and ensembles, most notably the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra of which he was director and sole guqin player. In guqin circles he is particularly noted for his efforts toward integration of the instrument into the conservatory mainstream.

Zha Fuxi Chinese Guqin player

Zha Fuxi, also known as Zha Yiping (查夷平) was a leading player and scholar of the guqin. Born in Jiangxi, he started learning guqin in his childhood. In 1936, he co-founded the Jinyu Qin Society (今虞琴社) which later became one of the major national musical organizations for the guqin.

The notation of the guqin is a unique form of tablature for the Chinese musical instrument, with a history of over 1,500 years, still in use today.

The London Youlan Qin Society is a London-based qin society serving guqin players in the UK. Of the three major qin societies of the West, this society was the most informal but still the most active in terms of regular events and yajis.

Wu Jinglüe (吳景略) is considered one of the most important guqin players of the 20th century and was also an active researcher and teacher. He was born in the town of Xitang, Changshu County, near Suzhou in Jiangsu, China, and died in Beijing.

The history of the Guqin, an ancient Chinese musical instrument, is a long one that spans 3,000 years. Although similar, it should not be confused with another Chinese zither instrument, the guzheng, which has bridges.

The playing techniques of the guqin, sometimes called fingerings, are more numerous than those of any other Chinese or Western musical instrument. They are also complex and full of symbolism.

Zhang Ziqian Chinese qin player

Zhang Ziqian, a famous seven-string zither qin player, was born in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, during the late Qing Dynasty. He began studying the guqin with a guqin master Suo Shaotao at the age of thirteen. In the 1930s, Zhang moved to Shanghai and worked as an accountant at a salt factory. In Shanghai, he met Zha Fuxi and Peng Zhiqing who were active qin players then. They frequently played the guqin together and Zhang's playing skills were greatly influenced by them. In 1936, Zhang, Zha, Peng and other masters founded Jin Yu Qin She, a qin society. In 1956, Zhang became a guqin performer by being appointed as a member of the state-run Shanghai Minzu Yuetuan ; and a guqin teacher at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1960.

Li Quan was born in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province on 9 December 1973. He is a martial artist who studied under famous masters, such as Grandmaster Dai Kang.

Wudang quan

Wudang quan is a class of Chinese martial arts.

Yu Shuishan is one of the master contemporary guqin players and contributors. He is a Professor of Architecture in the College of Arts, Media and Design at the Northeastern University, a fourth generation Mei’an School guqin player, and the founder of North America Mei'an Society (北美梅庵琴社).

References

Please see: References section in the guqin article for a full list of references used in all qin related articles.
Most of this article is an edited version of a forum post written by Stephen C. Walker.

Notes

  1. ↑ When in London, Gong Yi once jokingly called the style in which the UK qin players played the "London-style." The main reason is that the United Kingdom lacked professional qin players from China (though Cheng Yu is a professional qin player, her main expertise and teaching is in the pipa) to learn and be instructed from and so are mainly self-taught which brings a great deal of freedom in style and interpretation. However, due to the summer schools of the London Youlan Qin Society in which various qin players have been invited over from China to teach qin for a week, Zeng Chengwei had been invited to teach over five times and his son remarked once in 2012 that one of the UK players have developed a distinct Shu style in their playing from all the brief periods they were under his father's instruction. It might be argued that the style encompassed by the UK players that have learnt from Zeng is that of the Fanchuan school if not the Shu school.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.