Selection of good materials, shaping, grooving, opening the bottom plate, closing the piano, inlaying accessories, mounting Xia cloth, painting with coarse ash, rough grinding and audition, painting with fine ash, pushing the surface paint, installing the strings, engraving the qin inscription... a bed The production of Guqin has to go through the above dozens of steps, and it takes at least one to two years.

Therefore, qin is the most artistic way to hone a person's personality.

Born in a family with a strong guqin atmosphere, Ou Hongshan, the non-hereditary inheritor of the post-80s generation, has been curious about guqin performance, restoration and production since childhood. From the inheritance of relatives and friends to the social inheritance in the past ten years, he accompanied Guqin from little known to widely known, and now he is the representative inheritor of the city-level intangible cultural heritage of Guqin art (Lingnan style).

01 When I first entered the piano door, the perceptual sound was hard to find

Under the influence of his father, Qu Junhong, the representative inheritor of Guqin art (Lingnan style) at the provincial level, he participated in the "Tiaoyuan" in the Yuan Dynasty, "Ya Luqi" in the Ming Dynasty, and "Ya Luqi" in the Qing Dynasty. Restoration of dozens of guqin beds such as "Luan Ling".

"Observing the ancient inscriptions of the guqin is like traveling to various dynasties to talk to the old people. Every qin master and collector has a limited time to accompany the qin, but we hope to carry on the inheritance of the guqin culture."

As the times change, Ou Hongshan chooses to use a new way to build a bridge of communication between ancient skills and modern people, so that the Guqin culture can "break the circle" and enter more people's lives.

Ou Hongshan was naturally curious and close to the guqin. Before he formally learned the guqin skills, he learned to hum the guqin subtly.

From the age of 13, he began to follow his father in the restoration and production of guqin, starting from small accessories and slowly polishing the lacquer tires. Even the color of the lacquer on the guqin is made by himself, mainly grinding with antlers, and also with mineral raw materials such as cinnabar.

Ou Junhong saw that he was willing to learn, and was also willing to teach patiently. At that time, the concept of inheritance was not so deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, but it was naturally influenced by the family atmosphere and spontaneously became interested, not deliberately.

"Techniques are just hand movements, and most of them can be mastered in a year or two, but the taste and ideas of qin music can only be comprehended after a long period of infusion."

Guqin was slowly integrated into Ou Hongshan's childhood memory, which enabled him to master the aesthetic conception of Guqin before learning the techniques. However, because most of the people around him did not understand the guqin, Ou Hongshan often felt down when he was a child and could not find a friend.

Later, he was admitted to Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and majored in business English. Occasionally after class, he would go to the foothills of Baiyun Mountain to play the piano with his classmates, leading some students to learn the guqin. After graduating and entering the foreign trade industry, the guqin accounted for a smaller proportion of his life, and only in his spare time would he pick it up again in the small circle of relatives and friends.

The turning point occurred at the beginning of the 21st century. In 2003, the art of Chinese guqin was selected as the "Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO. In 2008, the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games allowed the world to hear the sound of the Chinese guqin.

Ou Hongshan felt that the country is paying more and more attention to traditional culture, and people from all walks of life and all age groups are interested in the guqin. Around 2010, he chose to return and devoted himself to the inheritance of Lingnan guqin.

It didn't take long for Ou Hongshan to encounter the collision and running-in of the two concepts of Guqin innovation and inheritance. More and more people wanted to learn Guqin, and he began to consider whether he could break the one-to-one teaching tradition and teach multiple people at the same time.

Wouldn't it be bad to learn with multiple people? Will the art of guqin, which has always been regarded as "spring and snow", become vulgar? With these questions in mind, Ou Hongshan and his father Ou Junhong had an in-depth discussion. The final answer is: the traditional form must be retained, and on the basis of one-to-one inheritance, small class teaching with multiple people can be appropriately added.

"On the basis of inheritance, we must always pay attention to the needs of society and conform to the current trend." Ou Junhong is very open-minded about innovation. "Playing the guqin at temple fairs and on the street was a fantasy in the past. However, because the country attaches great importance to the inheritance of traditional culture, performing performances to the public on appropriate occasions can achieve better publicity effects. The two are not in conflict."

02 Touch the net to break the circle and fly into the ordinary home

After ten years of accumulation, Lingnan Guqin has gradually flowed into ordinary homes, from a single-digit number of students to hundreds of students every year. The teaching place has changed from home to Lingnan Tianhong Qin Museum located on Dade Road, Yuexiu District. With the advent of the Internet era, the intangible cultural heritage "touching the Internet" has become a major trend, and Ou Hongshan has brought Guqin to social media again, uploading some Guqin playing videos on Douyin and Video from time to time.

"The circle of guqin is very small, and it has only spread among the elegant elite cultural circles for so many years. To increase the depth and breadth of guqin art dissemination, it is necessary to use a new platform and perform a wider range of themes." On Douyin On the platform, in addition to traditional guqin songs, foreign famous songs such as "Edelweiss", classic songs in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "A Dream of Red Mansions" were well performed by Guqin.

Extensive coverage does not equate to randomness. Ou Hongshan will observe the overall style of the repertoire, the matching degree of expressing ideas and the guqin, and make selective adaptations. For example, the theme songs of the four famous novels are composed according to the central idea of traditional Chinese classics, and the interpretation will not move or deviate on this basis.

"Through more platforms and more communication channels, let more people know about us, so that we can pass on better." Under the insistence of Ou Hongshan, the Lingnan Tianhong Qin Museum he operates has launched Dianping, Meimei group.

Based on the professional advantages of business English, Ou Hongshan communicates with foreigners on various occasions from time to time, and promotes the guqin to a broader platform. In 2011, when Ou Hongshan brought Guqin to the Guangfu Temple Fair on Beijing Road for the first time, he noticed that some foreign tourists were curious about Guqin and eager to try it.

At the "Guangzhou Night" in Davos in the summer of 2017, Ou Hongshan played the famous guqin song "Flowing Water" for Schwab, Chairman of the World Economic Forum, and introduced the traditional Chinese guqin culture to Schwab in fluent English. In the 14th "Fortune" Global Forum held in Guangzhou, he used the "Golden Silk Tong" made by himself to play the famous Guqin song "Shen Ren Chang" to the economic leaders of various countries, participating members and their spouses.

In his view, culture and art is a universal language. "I have many foreign students who spontaneously understand the traditional Chinese guqin culture." Ou Hongshan said that the guqin may have touched their hearts and resonated in some ways, so they need a way to learn to pluck the strings The way.

However, unlike the Western learning method of recognizing notation first and then playing, in the process of guqin teaching, it is often necessary to teach fingering first, cultivate a sense of music through humming, and finally read notation, focusing more on the way of hands-on teaching.

03Inheritance and innovation, not blindly seeking innovation

With the changes of the times, it is no longer difficult to find a soulmate.

Returning to the tradition itself, what is mutable and what is immutable?

Ou Junhong gave his own answer: the most fundamental thing is to retain the essence of tradition. There can be various ways and means of dissemination, but it is necessary to consider serving traditional culture rather than changing the essence of culture.

When applied to Lingnan Guqin, the traditional playing style and taste are not suitable to be changed, but one can have a personal style. On the contrary, "ping ping pong pong" to play the guqin as playing cotton tires is to deviate from the tradition, to attract publicity, and to turn the guqin performance into a crazy performance art.

It can be seen that innovation is not blindly seeking novelty, but creating new ideas and new styles on the basis of understanding and grasping the laws.

This is particularly evident in the system and reform of the guqin. From material selection to varnishing, every step tests the skill of the luthier, among which the restoration of the guqin is the most troublesome. Over the past 50 years, Ou Junhong has repaired dozens of old pianos and made more than 100 new ones.

Guqin is not only a cultural relic, but also able to make sounds, so the requirements for restoration are higher. Not only to "repair the old as the old", but also to reproduce the sound of the guqin.

Twenty years ago, Ou Junhong inadvertently acquired a Ming Dynasty Guqin Yaluqi, 648 years ago. But when she first got it, Ya Luqi not only had no headstock, but also had a "hunchback" phenomenon on the body.

If you want to repair the guqin, you must first connect the headstock and correct the "hunchback", otherwise the strings will stick to the surface of the piano and will not play sound. However, the lacquer ash cannot be damaged during the correction process, because the lacquer ash of the handed down Guqin is the most precious. If the lacquer ash is removed and repainted, the original broken lines will be covered.

Under the dilemma, Ou Junhong realized the method of repairing the "hunchback" guqin from the orthopedic technique of the orthopaedic surgeon. Using pairs of wooden triangular wedges, drive in through the slits on both sides of the guqin, and slowly level the guqin. In this way, it took him more than a year to connect Yaluqi's piano body and headstock.

At that time, Ou Hongshan was his father's assistant in repairing the qin, and he participated in the restoration of many guqins from the Qing Dynasty and even the Yuan Dynasty. Among them, Ya Luqi's restoration impressed him the most. He recalled that when he opened the guqin cavity, he could clearly see the thickness of the guqin cavity and the position of the sound, and gained a lot of experience in making the guqin.

Taking Gu as a teacher and combining his own experience, Ou Hongshan created a "Jianque Qin" with his own style and charm, integrating the rigidity and softness of the piano and the sword, so as to send the Guqin master Yang Xinlun in Lingnan to the "Qin Heart Sword". Courage” pay tribute to the concept of diligence.

04 is the inheritance of skills, but also cultural inheritance

"The process of history does not depend on people's will. People must always adapt to the new environment in order to be able to follow the pace of history." Ou Junhong said with emotion that when he was 30 years old, when he learned the piano with his teacher, the strings were all the same. Made of real silk and silk, it can now be replaced by rayon and other forms.

From the changes of the strings, we can see that the skills are dynamic and developing. However, the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage is not only about skills, but also about the infiltration and cultivation of cultural practices.

Entering the Lingnan Tianhong Qin Museum, five or six guqin beds are regularly placed, and paintings, handed down guqin and qin tools are hung on the surrounding walls. In this space, there are not only guqin, but also many traditional Chinese cultural elements such as calligraphy, seal cutting, Tai Chi sword, etc.

Born in a family of traditional Chinese medicine, Ou Junhong learned Qi Huangshu from a young age, practiced martial arts at the age of 8, and studied scripture and cursive calligraphy at the age of 15. In 1975, when he was 30 years old, he began to learn how to make, restore and play guqin with Yang Xinlun, the master of the Lingnan School of Guqin.

There are comments that it inherits the "robust, hearty, bright" Lingnan style of Master Yang Xinlun, and the fusion of Taiji, Jinshi, calligraphy and other Chinese cultural essences, forming a personal style of ancient clumsiness without prestige, ancient and secluded.

Traditional Chinese culture is truly integrated into every aspect of Ou Junhong's life. Even in daily life, he can be seen wearing a Tang suit, accompanied by pen, ink, paper and inkstone, Taiji sword or guqin.

"For a culture and art, the coordination of styles is very important." Ou Junhong spoke deeply and slowly without losing his own opinion. He believes that the combination of clothing and guqin is not deliberately made for others to see, but its own coordination. "If you play the guqin in a Tang suit or Hanfu, the visual atmosphere will be very harmonious. Wearing a suit is another kind of feeling."

"Strictly speaking, according to the tradition of the guqin, we have to bathe, change clothes, and burn incense, so that our minds can reach a higher level." Ou Junhong said, if you can burn incense in a traditional study, you can share with the audience who can appreciate the guqin. Communication, so that a resonance is formed between the listener and the player, is the most perfect state.

Ou Junhong always emphasizes "natural, from the heart". In his opinion, playing the guqin is not to show others, but to calm his mind.

"I have always emphasized that one can really learn and inherit the essence of Lingnan Guqin according to personal interests." Ou Junhong gave an example. Among the 100 students, there are very few people who can really master the Guqin. 10% is not reached. To be able to persevere and become a backbone student, and to have the ability to inherit it, depends on fate.

This process can be described as "big waves wash the sand", not only depends on the innate conditions of the individual, but also has to work hard the day after tomorrow. As the inheritor of the new generation of intangible cultural heritage, it has become Ou Hongshan's new mission to continue to inherit the culture behind Lingnan Guqin.

Guqin

Also known as "Qin", "Seven Strings", also known as "Lvqi", "Sitong", etc., it is a horizontal stringed instrument. The art of guqin is the oldest instrumental performance form in Chinese history, with the highest artistic level and the most national spirit, aesthetic taste and traditional artistic characteristics. The current archaeological excavations have confirmed that the shape of the guqin has been completed by the Han Dynasty at the latest.

The Lingnan style Guqin art is mainly spread in Guangzhou City and surrounding areas of Guangdong Province, and its origin can be traced back to the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Influenced by the thoughts of Confucianism and Taoism, a clear and elegant, gentle and mellow, elegant and tranquil style has been formed in terms of repertoire, musical structure, timbre and performance techniques. His qin songs are full of emotions, love the mountains and rivers, and pursue the realm of neutrality and tranquility. His representative works include "Journey to the East", "Bijian Liuquan", "Question and Answer of the Fisherman", "Spirit of God" and so on. In addition, the Lingnan School also owns famous qins such as "Tianxuan", "Songxue", "Zhenyu", "Daffodils", etc. The unvoiced and elegant performances are in harmony with the handed down Dharma songs.