Our motherland has a vast land and abundant resources, a long history, a prosperous culture and profound accumulation. As a cultural phenomenon, music has also experienced a long process of development. Guzheng, as one of our national musical instruments, also reflects one aspect of this cultural phenomenon. Its development track reflects the development of Chinese national music culture over the past two thousand years to a certain extent.

As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the guzheng was widely popular in the Qin state (now Shaanxi Province) at that time, and it was called "Qinzheng" in history. Later, it gradually moved eastward and took root in Zheng, Wei, Qi and Lu (now Henan and Shandong). It was spread to Goryeo (now Korea) during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. In the Tang Dynasty, it traveled eastward to Japan, and during the Yuan Dynasty, it expanded the Mongolian grasslands in the north. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, it gradually expanded to the south, accumulating in Fujian, Zhejiang and eastern Guangdong, forming a situation of various schools divided by regions today.

Due to various historical reasons, the guzheng genre in some areas is on the verge of annihilation. In the first half of the last century, there were only four influential guzheng schools of the Han nationality, namely the northern zheng school represented by the Henan and Shandong zheng schools, and the southern zheng school represented by the Chaozhou and Hakka zheng schools. The name is "Nanpai Guzheng" or "Lingnan Guzheng".

The formation of a genre often has to go through a long historical period. This process probably includes two aspects: the first is the formation of music species. The unique tones formed by the fusion of the musical tones produced by people in labor and the infiltration of foreign music culture develop into a mature musical tonal system, and they are finalized as musical genres. Secondly, it is the playing style formed by the musical instruments of different tones in the performance of the music. Therefore, a genre has very obvious characteristics of regional language, living habits, and cultural customs. It cannot be self-created or even defined by a certain character. The formation of the Southern School guzheng also follows this rule.

As far as the Southern style guzheng is concerned, Chaozhou zheng is attached to the music genre of Chaozhou music, and Hakka zheng is attached to the music genre of Hakka Han tune music. The two music genres have different historical origins, cultural backgrounds and development processes, with both common and individual styles. In terms of geographical scope, the two music species both grow and take root in the Hanjiang River basin. The simplicity, elegance, delicacy and taste standards reflected in the music are also common, but due to the different dialects, the music lines, charm and performance programs have their own characteristics. Due to the different characteristics of music types, the guzheng playing styles derived from them are also different.

The Southern School guzheng inherits the orthodoxy of Qinzheng and is the remnant of Qinzheng. After thousands of years of reproduction and inheritance, it finally took root in Guangdong and formed a genre. It has accumulated a large number of folk music, has a broad and profound mass base, and has a distinct local style. Many representative figures have emerged, and it has the four pillars for establishing the style of the genre.

Take Hakka Chinese music as an example, there are more than 600 pieces of music that have been published, and there are as many as seven or eight hundred pieces of Chaozhou music. These pieces of music, played alone with the zheng, become zheng pieces. The Hakka zheng uses "Gong Chi Pu" as its notation format and is read aloud in Mandarin, which has obvious foreign traces. The mode is hard line, soft line and reverse line. The structure of the curved body belongs to the six-eight-ban is called a major, and the non-six-eight-ban is called a serial tone. The performance program is from slow to block, the tone is from complex to simple, and the words are gradually reduced until the end. Chaozhou zheng uses "two or four scores" as its notation and is read aloud in Chaozhou dialect. It is an authentic "local product". Since the introduction of "Gongqipu", some of the pieces of music have also used "Gongqipu". The modes are light three-six, heavy three-six, live three-five, light three-six and anti-line tone. The names are all derived from the sound names of the "24" score. The structure of the piece belongs to the six-eight-ban, called a large suite, which is divided into three parts: two-ban (adapto), copy-pai, and three-ban. The rhythm is mostly based on variation, and there are dozens of types such as single-destruction, double-destruction, double-stacked demolition, and stationed six-destruction. Like Hakka and Chinese music, it can also be composed of several pieces together, called "set music".

Amateur music clubs are very common in Chaozhou and Hakka regions, and each village has its own organization. It first appeared in the Qing Dynasty and mainly played music, and sometimes also sang opera. During the slack season, everyone gathers for entertainment, communicates feelings and exchanges information, which plays a very important role in promoting the popularization and improvement of music. Guzheng playing level has also been greatly improved at the same time. These amateur music clubs are mostly funded by wealthy people, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, everyone can participate, and those who are capable are teachers. When it comes to festivals, it is common to play for days and nights. For folk tunes, from the elderly to young people to women and children, almost everyone knows it, and it is commonplace to hum a few words.

The popularization of folk music has created many talented performers, who stand out from the performance of various musical instruments. They not only teach later studies and inherit the lineage, but also collect ancient music scores scattered in the folk, organize them into music, and influence far and wide. representative of the genre. The representatives of Chaozhou Zheng include Hong Peichen, Li Jiating, Zhang Hanzhai, Xiao Yunge, Xu Disheng and so on. The representatives of Hakka zheng include He Yuzhai, Luo Xianchou, Luo Shiji, Luo Jiuxiang, Rao Jingxiong and so on. These folk guzheng leaders have made historic contributions to the formation and development of the guzheng genre.

The distinctive local style is the soul of the Guzheng genre. Local style includes a lot of content, such as notation, tonal characteristics, performance rules and programs, rotation, song structure, fingering, timbre, charm, etc. Among them, timbre and charm are the most important and are the soul in the soul.

Compared with the strong and rough tone of the Northern Zheng School, the Southern Zheng School’s sound is soft, delicate, reserved and sweet, which makes people feel like tasting Kung Fu tea, with a peaceful mind and a free breath, carefully exploring the sweet, sweet, bitter and astringent aftertaste. The secret of playing this timbre is that the area of the fingernail touching the string should be large, close and stable, and the angle should be pressed down first and then lifted slowly, so as to prolong the time for the fingernail to stick to the string as much as possible, so that the finger can increase the pressure on the bridge when doing work. , transmitted to the panel to increase the resonance amplitude. This playing method is quite different from the northern zither. Some northern zheng friends often ignore this problem when they play the southern style zheng music.

"Rhyme" is the effect of the residual sound produced by pressing, trembling, rubbing and sliding on the strings on the left side of the piano with the left hand. Chaozhou zheng has a saying of "one sound with three rhymes", that is, there are three effects after one sound, which is called "making rhyme". The cultivation of rhyme is very deep, varies from person to person, profound and unfathomable, and its artistic charm is also here. Guzheng's portamento itself is doing rhyme, there are two or three degrees of portamento up and down, and back and forth. For example, the Hakka zheng has a glissando 4 35, which is a second-degree short glide and a minor third-degree glide upward. In terms of vibrato, Hakka zheng has a particularly prominent effect of "one-click to vibrate" or "press-to-vibrate synchronization". The method is to gather qi before pressing the strings, and sink the qi with the pressing, condensing it in the extremely dense density. On the big tremolo point, the sound is powerful and deep.

The above are just a few examples of making rhyme. In fact, the expression of rhyme is not the same. People with profound cultivation can make rhyme vividly and vividly, which is endless aftertaste.

The northern zheng school, which is restricted by regional language, human character, customs and living habits, is quite different from the southern zheng school in artistic style. Shandong people with a bold personality have the tradition of practicing martial arts when they were young. They play the guzheng vigorously, the music lines are rough, the music is sonorous and powerful. Like the upright Henan people, it is slightly subtle in the context of rough playing style, with a lot of up and down third-degree glissandos, slightly slow sliding speed, clear and pleasant lines, and obvious changes in pressing, shaking, kneading, and sliding. On the map, southeastern Henan and southwestern Shandong are connected together, but separated by a provincial line, they become different provinces. These two places are both hometowns of music. Due to the relationship between personality and language, there is also a slight difference in music style. Their folk music resources are extremely rich and the mass base is solid. For example, the Yuncheng area in Shandong has the reputation of "Book Mountain and Qu Hai", which shows its profound cultural heritage. There are many representatives, such as Fan Xiyu, Li Lianjun, Zhang Weizhao, etc. of Shandong Zheng School; Cao Dongfu, Ren Qingzhi, Wang Shengwu, etc. of Henan Zheng School.

Guzheng has gone through more than 2,000 springs and autumns in the long river of history, from low-level to high-level, from simple to exquisite, moving forward step by step, going through countless vicissitudes and being baptized by history. Today is modern, tomorrow is tradition, and each period is engraved with the brand of the times. Whether it is an instrument, a composition, or a playing technique, it is constantly improving. Therefore, we advocate: inherit the elegant rhythm of the sages and open up the new voice of the era. In other words, inheriting the tradition and creating the future. Development is always the last word.

Today, a large number of guzheng works are emerging, and new playing techniques are emerging in an endless stream. Various genres, various tones are dazzling and colorful. Influenced by Western music, from works to techniques, many have broken through the traditional boundaries, rose to a new height, or entered a new and other realm. Whether the emerging new works and new technologies can be reproduced or not depends on the test of history, not the will of human beings.

With the development of transportation and frequent communication between people, the concept of region gradually fades, and living habits will gradually become closer. Looking forward to the future, the characteristics of the guzheng school will tend to be unified and become the major guzheng school of the whole Chinese nation.