Guzheng is one of the oldest plucked instruments in my country. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was prevalent in Shaanxi and Gansu. In 237 BC, when Li Si wrote to Qin Shihuang, he described the vivid scenes of folk zheng songs: "The husband strikes the urn and knocks the fou, and the zheng beats the head and sings. Woohoo, quick ears and eyes, the true voice of Qin."

Guzheng is one of the oldest plucked instruments in my country. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was prevalent in Shaanxi and Gansu. In 237 BC, when Li Si wrote to Qin Shihuang, he described the vivid scenes of folk zheng songs: "The husband strikes the urn and knocks the fou, and the zheng beats the head and sings. Woohoo, those who are quick to see and hear are the true voice of Qin." Since then, the zheng is often called "Qin Zheng" because of it.

The early form of the zheng, according to the lost text of the ancient music document "Lili Ji" cited in the Han "Fengsutong", is said to be "five strings build the body", but the five elements theory prevailed at that time, whether it was the original recorded zheng system or speculation. It is unknown. It is now generally believed that the zheng developed from the early five-stringed zither to the 12-stringed zheng of the Han Dynasty, and then to the 13-stringed zheng of the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

In recent years, two thirteen-stringed zithers have been unearthed from the Chunqiuya Tombs in Guixi, Jiangxi Province. This precious cultural relic makes up for the lack of early literature records. It shows that guzheng has long been introduced to southern China, and its shape has developed to an amazing level. level. It makes us understand that the 13-string zheng was not produced after the 12-string zheng, but a zheng that coexisted with it for a long time, but the early 13-string zheng was mostly used for elegant music, and it was called "song qin". That's it.

In the early Han Dynasty, Qin Zheng was obviously taboo about the sound of the real Qin, and there is no official record of music history records. However, the folk receptions often focus on playing the zheng and the fou as all the musical activities. In later generations, a story of a Handan woman Qin Luofu playing the zither and writing the song "Moshang Sang" was widely circulated. .

The performance form of the early zheng was mainly playing and singing zheng songs. With the rise of Xianghe songs in the Han Dynasty, the art of guzheng has entered a new era. Originally from Tu Ge, then Dan Ge, it gradually developed into six or seven kinds of silk and bamboo musical instruments that are played in series, and the singers sing harmony. Strings” are the preludes and interludes of a string ensemble. The zheng and flute are the main instruments. In the Han Dynasty, there was also a special book "Zheng and Dilu", which recorded "Hu Jia" and other repertoires, which was the beginning of the instrumentalization of zheng music. Then, from Xianghege, the pure instrumental "Danqu" was born. Zhang Yong's "Yuanjia Zhengsheng Jilu" (AD 424-453) contains seven "Danqu": "Guangling San", "Huang Lao Dan", "Feilong Yin", "Da Hu Jia Ming", "Small" "Hu Jiaming", "Cuckoo Rooster's Roaming on the Strings", "Liu Chu Yaoyao", etc., are all instrumental ensemble pieces as well as zheng solo pieces. As far as these tunes are concerned, they are not Qin Sheng but Chu Sheng; their structure and scale have made great progress compared with the zheng songs of the Western Han Dynasty, which are "unimportant sounds, changing feathers". It can be said that the rise of the zheng developed by leaps and bounds with the prosperity of Xianghege in the late Han Dynasty.

Advances in the performing arts and in the construction of musical instruments have always been mutually reinforcing. The zheng of Xianghe Le of Han and Wei Dynasty has basically been finalized. It has a six-foot-long body with a round top and a flat bottom, with twelve strings on the top and tall pillars. The kite sounded. Compared with the delicate lyre and the bulky selai, the zheng is a popular musical instrument for the masses. The playing has already adopted the techniques of "Daxing Xiaofu, heavy hair and light follow", such as hooking, string picking, and column pushing, which is not much different from today's zither playing skills. The repertoire played at this time includes both elegant songs of the previous generation such as "Zhu Yu" and "Lu Ming", etc., as well as new contemporary folk voices. Loud, the new sound is as wonderful as a god." Qin Zheng has fascinated countless poets and poets with its fresh and beautiful music. The authors of the existing ancient zheng poems such as Hou Jin, Ruan Yu, Fu Xuan, Jia Bin, Gu Kaizhi, etc. are all in the late Han Dynasty. In addition to Hao Suo, Lu Taixi and other folk zheng players, Wei Wendi, Youchu, Huan Yi, Xie Renzu, He Chengtian and other princes and nobles also competed to play the zither, and it became a popular practice. This period was the golden age of unprecedented prosperity and development in the history of guzheng art.

In the music of Qing and Shang Dynasties, which was played in succession in the Eastern Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, the zheng was more widely used to play Wu Ge and Jing Chu Western Music. The famous Wu song "Shangsheng Song" is named because the zheng uses the technique of "shangsheng to promote the column"; and "Sanzhou", "Picking Lotus", "Wuye Cry>> and other western songs are also often played by the zheng. representative repertoire. It can be seen that the art of guzheng has continuously absorbed the nutrition of folk music and obtained strong vitality.

Around the time of Liang and Chen, the thirteen-stringed zheng gradually emerged. By the Sui Dynasty, the status of the thirteen-stringed zheng in the elegant music had been completely established, but the tradition of the twelve-stringed zheng flowed into the Sui and Tang Yan music along with the Qing and Shang music. It was not until the end of the Tang Dynasty that it was replaced by the thirteen-string zheng due to the decline of Qingyue, and its tuning principle was inherited by the thirteen-string zheng. For example, the flat tuning method in Tang Zheng, its origin is undoubtedly from the three tunes of Qing and Shang in Wei and Jin Dynasties.

The thirteen-string zheng has been fully developed in the Tang Dynasty, and its popularity has even made the lyre music with a profound tradition to be neglected. There are many famous zheng players: Xue Qiongqiong, Li Qingqing, Long Zuo, Chang Shuben, Shi Cong, Li Congzhou, Cui Qi, etc. Their exquisite zheng skills are often praised by poets. The prosperity of Yanle music gave Qin Zheng art a wider world. The famous Daqu, "The King of Qin Breaking the Array", "The Song of Feathered Clothes with Neon Clothes", "Izhou", "Liangzhou", etc., have also been absorbed into the zheng. 's solo. Kaicheng Middle (839 AD) Yangzhou Cui's daughter played the ten zheng pieces "Ying Jun Yue", "Qing Lin Sigh", "The King of Qin's Reward Song", "Guangling San", "Travelling Difficulty", "Shangjiang" Rainbow, "Jincheng Immortal", "Silk Bamboo Bounty Song", "Shadow of the Red Continent", and "Si Gui Le" are all 28 to 40 stanzas of Daqu; tune, small stone tune, double column tune, etc. "Yuefu Miscellaneous" says that zheng has four tunes of Gong, Shang, Jiao and Yu, and the temporary column is used for 28 tunes. Judging from the tune names of the above ten pieces, the tuning method of folk zheng music is more than that. Numbers, which shows the highly developed Tangzheng level.

The zheng (called Song Se) was also used in the Yale music of the Tang Dynasty. The music of the twelve equivalence palaces determined by the ancestors, filial piety and grandsons, and Zhang Wenshou, further systematically improved the performance of the zheng palace. The Twelve Elements of Xuangong in "Zheng Lei Yao" is the method of Xuangong in the Tang Dynasty guzheng.

Tang Zheng's rich palace tune forms and grand tune structure can be called the pinnacle of traditional zheng music. With the frequent cultural exchanges, Tang Zheng was spread far and far beyond the border areas; the rest of the thread and the Song Dynasty. As far as the influence goes, even the qin and se tunes of the Northern Song Dynasty were played and manipulated by borrowing the tuning method of the zheng, which once made Fang Shu, an elegant musician at that time, deeply moved. After the Five Dynasties and Jingkang wars in the Southern Song Dynasty, many traditional music of the Tang Dynasty have been scattered, but there are many forms of zheng solo, lead and ensemble in the court Yan music, which is one of the influences of Tang zheng.

The zheng system in the Ming Dynasty has been increased to fourteen and five strings, and the range of sound has been further expanded. However, due to the influence of retro thinking, the zheng was regarded as a vulgar music, and the status of musicians was low. The government summoned you for zheng songs, such as Li Jie of Jiangning Jiaofang, who was good at playing zheng and singing, and was appreciated by composers and literati, and was regarded as one of the best. Scholar-bureaucrats disdain it, and zheng players rely only on dictation, and they are unable to publish zither scores. During the more than 500 years of Ming and Qing dynasties, when the wind of collecting promises was the most prosperous, there was no zheng score handed down. As a result, many zheng music traditions of the previous generation have gradually disappeared, and most of the ancient repertoires and various tuning methods have not been handed down.

The development of rap music in Yuan and Ming operas had a great influence on zheng music. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, a kind of "Xian Suo" was popular in the north with zheng, pipa, sanxian and other instruments in ensemble and accompaniment. This traditional way of performance has been passed down to modern times. It is worth noting that Zhou Lianggong's "Book Shadow" records in detail three different types of zheng song art from AD 1506 to 1624: Liang Sangu, a musician from Jiaofang during the reign of Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty, played the zheng solo for a while, and her performances were interspersed with eloquence. , which makes it easier to act out the storyline. When playing, she "returns in a hurry, the whales are terrified, and the columnar shape is rarely broken, and it is like wind and mist, and it is cold and cold." Her superb skills have a very strong artistic effect and infectious power. Tian Yuhuan, who was a little later, was not from the Liang family. Her zheng skills were more influenced by the pipa and Yizheng from Gusu and Taicang, and the ancient tune of Chen Sui from Yangzhou. During performances, singing was more important than playing; Liu Ruo played the zheng. Instead, he simply sang songs from Ganzhou and Tongcheng, such as the desolate north wind and Xutu Qiuhuai. And his performance of "connecting the strings and plucking, the sleet will fly" also has a very high level. According to Zhou Lianggong's knowledge, in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, we would never see such a superb art again.

Qin Zheng was introduced to the Central Plains in the early years, and Zhao, Zheng, Chu, and Wu became popular one after another. Later, with the three great relocations of the Hakka people, Qin Zheng was spread to Fujian and Guangdong. The flowers of guzheng art have spread all over the country. Due to the long-term influence of geographical environment, climate, folk customs, dialects and other factors, the zheng music spread to various places, and the mutual absorption and integration of local folk music, gradually formed different local styles and developed into different genres in modern times. The most famous are Henan, Shandong, Chaozhou, Hakka, Zhejiang and other major schools, and their origins can be traced back to the Qing Dynasty. These genres not only have different representative repertoires, but also have their own phonological characteristics and playing styles; some also have unique notation styles in notation, such as Shandong Huazi Gongchipu, Chaozhou Ershipu notation , which makes the long-standing traditional art of guzheng more colorful.

The number of repertoires of these genres varies due to different historical and recording conditions. For example, there are more than 60 pieces of Zhongzhou ancient tunes, more than 40 pieces of Hanfu ancient tunes, 20 pieces of Qilu Huazi Gongchi tunes, and Wulin zheng pieces. Ten and so on. These precious heritages are the crystallization of the guzheng art with a history of more than 2,000 years. It is not only the precious heritage of my country's guzheng art, but also the common cultural wealth of the people of the world.