A STUDY ON THE CHARACTERISTICS AND INHERITANCE OF CHINESE YAZHENG.

• Author: Zhong, Xiaohong

1. Introduction

   One day, at the end of the last century, in the Handan area around Hebei Province, as the busy farming season was ending, several old artists sat around and made small talk in a relaxed atmosphere. Soon after, they picked up their familiar musical instruments and sang tunes handed down from their ancestors. The ancient rhymes were melodious, calm, and carefree. One of the musical instruments they used attracted the attention of music scholars, who came to investigate.

   With an appearance similar to the zheng, each string of the instrument produces only one note. The difference is that this instrument is played with a bow. The player holds the bottom of the instrument with his left hand and supports it with his forearm. The bow, made with hair from a horse's tail, is controlled with the right hand. As the strings are rubbed gently, notes are produced by the instrument. Through interviews and reports, the history of this musical instrument gradually emerged. It turned out that it is an accompaniment instrument used in Wu'an PingDiao (Figure 1), which is a local opera popular in areas near Hebei and Beijing, where the instrument is commonly known as yaqin. The development of the local opera was relatively mature by the mid-eighteenth century. This kind of instrument, which is played with a bow and resembles a zheng, has been discovered in Henan, Shanxi, Shandong, Guangxi, Fujian, and Jilin, and has drawn extensive attention from academia (Fan 1982: 24, Li 1981: 47, Xiang 1995: 6-7, 1999: 8, Zhang and Cheng 1985: 32-33, Zhou 2009: 67-69). Apart from that, in the academic paper 'Early Chinese Friction-Chordophones', which was published early in 1965 in Volume 18 of 'Galpin Society', musicologist Laurence Picken described in detail the instrumental structure and characteristics of the yazheng ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]). Yaqin, which was once called a 'living fossil' by Chinese musicology scholars (Xiang 1990: 15-17), was approved for inclusion in the first batch of national-level intangible cultural heritages from Hebei Province and Henan Province. Authentic artefacts of the instrument from the last century can be seen in Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Guangxi, Fujian, and Jilin. Among the ancient tomb murals unearthed in Shanxi, there are Ming Dynasty tomb murals and historical materials related to the Yuan Dynasty that yield insights. In the Tang Dynasty, the yazheng developed rapidly. It was named 'yazheng' (Yang 2018: 374). In the Song Dynasty, along with court music and dances, the yazheng was brought to Goryeo. In the court of Goryeo, the yazheng from China was categorised as folk music (sogak) and was called 'ajaeng'. During major festivals, ancestral shrine sacrifices (jongmyo jerye), or when music was played during internal and external palace feasts, the ajaeng was the main accompaniment instrument for the music and dances presented during the 'display of talents (jeongjae)' in the palace. Tang music (Dangak) numbers such as 'Ball Tossing (Pogurak)' and 'Spring in Luoyang (Nakyangchun)' were usually played. Among the traditional national musical instruments exhibited in the National Centre for Korean Traditional Performing Arts in Seoul, South Korea, as well as in the elegant music (aak) played by the orchestra of Sungkyunkwan of South Korea at Confucius Ceremonies (Seokjeon Daeje) performed during spring and autumn, the ajaeng represents Korean national culture. It is played to demonstrate the spiritual symbol of Korean national culture to the world.

   It can be said that along with the diversified development of the yazheng in China, it also adapted to the changes in societies and eras through continuous changes, improvements, and evolutions in cross-contexts. This article compares and analyses the historical reasons behind these changes and the significance of the cultural identities of the yazheng from several perspectives, including the diversification of style in the same context, development and changes in cross-contexts, and sustainable development in the media age.

2. The historical origin of the yazheng

   In 'Jiutangshu Zhijiu Music II' [Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression] (written in 945 AD), yazheng is recorded as follows: 'yazheng: dampen the ends of pianzhu (bamboo slip), then rub it' (2) . In the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), Chen Yang ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) showed us 'yazheng' (Figure 2) in Yue Shu ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]). From this figure of the instrument, we can clearly see that the shape of yazheng has an approximately '[GAMMA]'-shape tail. As shown in the figure, the left end of the instrument has a cornered sinking tail (for easy understanding, it is referred to as 'luowei' (3) in this text). From the figure, we can also see that there are seven strings on yazheng supported by seven '[LAMBDA]'-shape Ma.'[Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]' The 'L'-shape 'pianzhu' ('[PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE PDF TO VIEW THE MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION]') that is used to play the instrument by pressing the strings is shown in the bottom of the figure. This playing tool is an important feature that distinguishes the yazheng from Zheng ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) and Se ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]).

   Ya ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) means rubbing. It is a playing technique gradually inspired and derived from the 'striking' way of playing 'Zhu' ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]), which is a string-striking musical instrument in the pre-Qin period ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]). 'Zhu' is recorded in 'Zhanguoce ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) (known in English as the Stratagems of the Warring States)': 'Linzi is very rich. Everyone there plays Yu ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) ,Se ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) ,Zhu ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) , and Qin ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) . (5) 'In 'The Attempt on the Life of the King of Qin by Jing Ke' ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) in 'Zhanguoce Yance III' ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) , it is recorded that 'Gao Jianli played Zhu. Jing Ke sang with him. The music is in F major. All the scholars were weeping.' (6) These two historical stories, narrating events of 490 BC to 211 BC, vividly or tragically reproduce the rich musical life of people in the pre-Qin period and the heroic spirit of warriors going to a battlefield. From these stories we can observe that in the pre-Qin period, 'Zhu' ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) is an idiophone where sound is created by striking its strings with a wooden stick. This is a Zhu-playing image in late Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-8 AD) collected from Henan Xinye County Museum (Figure 3).

   In the image, the musician sits on his knees holding one end of Zhu with his left hand while leaving the other end of Zhu on the ground. There is a small stick in the right hand of the musician. The image shows the movement of the stick on the strings. From this we can see that the musician is striking Zhu to make sound. By carefully observing the shape of Zhu in the image, it can be seen that there is a cylinder that is similar to something used to fix strings, protruding from string surface on the end of Zhu -- Rui ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) . In the middle of Zhu, Ma is depicted that supports the strings. At the end near the hand, Zhu has a protruding horizontal column similar to a string pillow. This image clearly displays the shape and form of Zhu during a performance. By comparing with historical documents and relics, we know that from 227 BC to the Western Han Dynasty ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) (Liu), Zhu is a musical instrument played by striking with wooden sticks, and it is very common in people's lives. The structural characteristics of the musical instrument Zhu include the Rui ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) ,Ma, string pillow, and wooden sticks. In the long history that followed, Zhu was used as a court music instrument. With dynasty changes and wars, and the fusion of court and folk music and its exchange with the cultural life, it continued to evolve, producing stringed instruments, such as yazheng and Qin ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) in the Song and Ming Dynasties, respectively. In terms of the shapes, these referred to the structural characteristics of Se ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) and Zheng ([Please download the PDF to view the mathematical expression]) , which were relatively popular at that time, resulting in more interconnections between them.

   I agree with the view of Xiang Yang (1999: 8) that the yazheng has the same origin as the musical instrument called zhu. It can be said that the yazheng was influenced or inspired by the zhu, a mainstream instrument at the time, in its process of evolution, and gradually developed. In the course of the evolution of the zhu, the width of the body and the number of strings increased. At the same time, the originally slender, hand-held part gradually became shorter as its function weakened. The slender, hand-held 'neck' was even omitted and became cylindrical afterward. Based on documents from the Ming Dynasty, records of the shape of the yazheng can be retrieved. It can be understood that the yazheng had compartments similar to that of the zheng and se. It was also called qin because of the addition of two...