An unbroken string made of silk is not only an extreme metaphor for the difficulty in inheriting the current Guqin culture, but also reveals the public but little-known truth that the traditional Guqin silk-string culture is dying.

No silk can make a piano, now silk strings are hard to find

Guqin has always been recognized as the master of Chinese traditional culture for thousands of years. "Qin Cao" records: "Fuxi made the qin." For thousands of years, qin learning, qin Taoism, qin music, and qin people have been inherited, some of them, and even the name of the guqin. As early as the Qin and Han dynasties, there was a saying that "cut the wu for the qin, and the rope for the string". Among the ancient octaves of "gold, stone, silk, bamboo, and earth leather", "silk" refers to the guqin. In the Eastern Han Dynasty Huantan's "Xin Lun", it is said that "among the eight notes, only the strings are the most important, and the qin is the first", which not only expresses the supreme status of string music in the minds of the ancients, but also solidifies the fact that since ancient times, there is no silk without a qin. Tradition.

In ancient times, there were many master string makers. A qin, 7 strings, silky strands, twisted together, boiled and dried, the qin player blends his love for the qin into the crystal clear silk strings. It is no longer ordinary music, but a symphony and poetry from the heart. History books say that "Master Kuang on the drum, and six horses in the sky." Guqin and silk strings are a match made in heaven. They have been dependent on each other for more than 4,000 years, and together they interpret an elegant and moving chapter in traditional Chinese culture.

In recent years, with the revival of traditional culture, the number of people who like Guqin is increasing day by day. It is said that the total number of Guqin lovers in China has reached 400,000. If there are 400,000 people and one qin per capita, there are at least 400,000 qin in the world. However, most of the strings used on these 400,000 pianos are steel strings—that is, with steel wires as the core and nylon threads wrapped around them, not silk strings.

Why does this situation occur? On the one hand, during the "Cultural Revolution", the land of China was unpleasant to hear the sound of the piano, and the production of silk strings was affected to a certain extent; on the other hand, due to the instability of high-quality silk sources and the difficulty of maintaining large-scale production methods, the production of silk strings was difficult to maintain. . The pianist who has no strings available has no choice but to study breakthroughs. Around the 1960s, the national musical instrument strings hit a westernized wind. Huqin, Pipa, Guzheng, Sanxian and other musical instruments all replaced traditional silk strings with steel strings. Guqin is also bound to embark on the road of steel strings. OK. However, the merit of the birth of steel strings is that it solves the urgent need for strings for violinists in one fell swoop, so that the inheritance and popularization of Guqin culture will not cause the strings to be broken. However, after the birth of steel strings, the silk string market was quickly occupied by steel strings, so it also inadvertently pushed the traditional silk string inheritance into a corner.

What is the difference between steel strings and silk strings

What is the difference between steel strings with "iron armor" and traditional silk strings? Hong Kong pianist Huang Shuzhi has devoted himself to researching the characteristics of steel strings and silk strings for many years. He believes that the advantages of steel strings compared to modern silk strings are mainly at the technical level, such as: strong and durable; stable performance, not out of tune due to changes in temperature and humidity; strong tension, easy to adjust to standard pitch; large volume, suitable for stage performances and Ensemble; bright tone, conducive to popularization, and so on. And a considerable part of these gaps is caused by the decline of the quality of modern silk strings. Compared with steel strings, the advantages of silk strings are mainly reflected in the artistic level: the tone of silk strings is simple and harmonious; the sound is powerful, and the aftertaste disappears quickly, giving people a sense of full sound quality. Wu Wenguang, a famous qin master, once said: "The beauty of silk strings is that they are flexible and long, moist and wide, beautiful and round. The reverberation is long, especially when playing open strings, there is a rather harsh metallic noise. As Huang Shuzhi said: "The steel-stringed qin can be said to be a new stage-style guqin developed in modern times, but it does not mean that it can replace the original traditional style of the silk-stringed qin. That is, if a ball pen is used instead of a writing brush, although it is convenient to use, But in the art of calligraphy, the two are absolutely incomparable."

The weak inheritance of silk strings, on the surface, is the result of the traditional workshop-style production mode being impacted and eliminated by the modern industrialized production mode. However, if viewed from a deeper cultural perspective, the decline of silk strings is nothing less than a microcosm of the weak protection of traditional Chinese culture. With the popularity of steel strings, the guqin culture, which has been passed down for thousands of years, is quietly changing: in order to adapt to the characteristics of steel strings, the structure of the guqin body needs to be adjusted, which leads to changes in the way of guqin production. At the same time, the performance of qin music, the communication between qin players, and even the study of qin science have all changed accordingly.

Silk Strings, a Cultural Attitude

Choose steel strings, or silk strings? For a violinist, it is not only a personal likes and dislikes, but also a cultural attitude. A group of new and old qin players are saddened by the decline of silk strings, but they have to use steel strings for the popularization and inheritance of guqin. Qinist Wu Zhaoji even developed a "slanting" playing method to avoid the metallic noise of his steel strings. Of course, there are also some old qin masters who stubbornly adhere to the "Tao Tradition" of Guqin culture. For them, the softness of the fingers when the fingertips touch the natural silk, the lingering air that connects with the heaven and the earth, and the historical atmosphere between the fiddles are irreplaceable by the steel strings. There is even an American violinist named Tang Shizhang, who has been advocating for the promotion of silk strings for more than 20 years. He translated the string-making method in the Complete Works of Taiyin into English and put it on the Internet to share and communicate with Guqin lovers all over the world. And Huang Shuzhi is even more hands-on. For decades, he has personally practiced in the production and promotion of silk strings. He has experimentally developed "Swire Silk Strings", and through continuous improvement, the quality has reached a very high level. Their aspirations for these efforts are pure and simple: that is, the silk string culture will not lose its inheritance and be completely lost under the impact of steel strings.

However, the prospect of silk string development is still not optimistic. The traditional silk string production process is cumbersome, the cycle is long, the cost is high, and there is no market support, resulting in unstable quality and low output; after the death of Fang Yuting, the only domestic silk string master, only his young apprentice Pan Guohui inherited the mantle. Today, there are very few silk strings on the market. Except for Huang Shuzhi's "Taigu Silk Strings" and Pan Guohui's "Jinyu Silk Strings", only the "Huqiu" brand silk strings from the No. 1 National Musical Instrument Factory of Suzhou and Changzhou "Lingyuezhai" are produced. There are very few "Wu Sheng" brand silk strings and so on. Pan Guohui only makes two or three hundred pieces every year, most of which are bought by violinists in Hong Kong and Taiwan. If it hadn't been for the deliberate maintenance of Hong Kong and Taiwanese qin artists, the silk string skills would have been lost long ago. Today, Pan Lao is nearly seventy years old, and there is no official successor; Huang Shuzhi is also old in age. Counting all the old experts from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and the three places, less than 5 people master the core skills of making traditional guqin strings. The inheritance of traditional silk string making skills is in jeopardy.

In 2003, Guqin art was selected as the "Masterpiece of Human Oral and Intangible Heritage", which is a recognition and tribute to the 4000-year-old Guqin culture. However, in contrast, the guqin silk string culture, which has been passed down for thousands of years, has not yet received due recognition. The slender strings are tied to the great destiny of the Guqin culture and even the Chinese traditional culture that has been passed down for thousands of years. If we do lose it by accident, then we lose a particularly beautiful and moving part of traditional culture.