In the long river of time, everyone is a recorder and a witness. Open the picture scroll of memory and look back at the historical time of Fengnan. No matter how long the stories about inheritance are kept in dust, they will be preserved in some medium, polished by the world, and baptized by the years. The suona, an intangible cultural heritage, after thousands of years of precipitation and baptism, is an important medium in this process. In this episode, we will walk into the story of Li Xiaopan, the eighth-generation inheritor of suona production skills, and experience the unique charm of ingenuity.

Suona is a traditional folk musical instrument in my country. A suona is either melodious or festive. The moving melody is as simple and smooth as a mountain spring, resounding through the sky. It is a treasure of my country's intangible cultural heritage. In Lifuzhuang Village, Liushuquan Town, our district, the traditional project of suona making skills has been adhered to by the inheritor Li Xiaopan for decades. With his grinding and hard work, the charm of suona has been excavated and amplified, infecting more and more people.

Just after the summer solstice, the flowers and trees are prosperous, and the lush colors have restored Li Xiaopan's enthusiasm for creation. In his opinion, when abundant rain and sunshine arrive, this is the best time of year. Walking into Li Xiaopan's Gonglefang, all kinds of raw materials and tools for making suona come into view. One by one, the copper-yellow bowls sit quietly on the table and in the display cabinet, like flowers with their heads down. Playing a bowl of flowers, quietly opening.

The 36-year-old Li Xiaopan was born in a suona family. He is the eighth-generation descendant of the family. His ancestors have been playing and making suona since the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty. After 180 years of inheritance. Under the influence of his father Li Jianzhong, Li Xiaopan has been fascinated by his ears and eyes since he was a child. At the age of 8, he followed his father to learn suona performance, and accumulated an artistic sense of music. With a love for music and following the trend of the times, Li Xiaopan was obsessed with guitars and other Western instruments at the age of 19 and formed a rock band, becoming the leader of the band, and had the idea of giving up suona.

Although he was shaken, Li Xiaopan found that he could not put down the suona for a long time. Under the guidance and guidance of his father and many seniors, Li Xiaopan picked up the suona again and devoted himself to learning the suona performance skills. Since then, he has been walking with the suona." rivers and lakes". With the continuous improvement of performance level, Li Xiaopan has performed in many places and won many suona art awards. In 2005, his suona piece "A New Weather in the Commune" won the highest award in the national finals of the "Noah's Boat Cup" 2nd "Star Torch" China Youth Art Talent Selection Activity National Finals.

Traditional folk customs, inherited from ancestors, are the inheritance and continuation of ancient humanities. While learning the performance skills, Li Xiaopan continued to study and polish the suona production skills, and established the Gonglefang Wind Music Factory. At the moment when new things are emerging in an endless stream, Li Xiaopan chose to calm down to settle himself, endure loneliness, carry the expectations of his parents, inherit intangible cultural heritage, and protect the little world that belongs to himself and Suona alone.

When Li Xiaopan was a child, my dad always told me that if you want to be a good suona player, you must be able to play suona first. From the beginning, you know suona, then you play suona, and then you learn suona from famous teachers all over the country. The style of the place where suona is learned, the style of playing music, the style of each place, including the musical styles of Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Shandong, must be mastered by him, so that we can use an instrument when we make suona in the future. Come to fully express the style of each place.

Since the music played by suona is representative of regional styles, it is necessary to be familiar with various folk music suona songs. In order to understand the suona styles, performance methods and skills in different regions, Li Xiaopan has to go to different places and various places every once in a while. Go to the University of Music to study Fengfeng. In 2017, when Li Xiaopan came to Shandong to study Fengfeng, his performance skills were recognized by the Shandong Music Association, and Li Xiaopan was specially hired as the honorary chairman of the Suona Professional Committee of Jining City, Shandong Province. This has greatly helped and improved his production of suona.

Suona looks simple on the surface, but the production process is not simple and has very strict requirements. From a piece of wood to making a suona, it needs to go through material selection, polishing, bore expansion, drilling, tuning, etc. forty or fifty Each process is meticulous and interlocking, and if there is an error in one process, it will all be scrapped, so there is no room for carelessness. A batch of raw materials has to be placed for at least five years, and can be used for production after being naturally air-dried. The production process of suona requires not only superb woodworking skills, but also knowledge of music theory. In the production process, Li Xiaopan adhered to the concept of returning to the original and returned to the original, and has his own unique insights into the production skills of suona.

If Li Xiaopan really wants to make a good musical instrument, we need to pay attention to the following points. During the production process, we must first pay attention to the position of the sound hole, because the relationship between the various intervals on the suona is completely dependent on the position of the sound hole To solve it, this is the first point; the second point is the inner diameter, the inner chamber of the instrument, and the changes in the inner chamber, so that every one of us who likes suona and who plays suona is very familiar with it. What do we play? It can be played in any style, and this is a good instrument.

Wooden hand drills and files are commonly used production tools for suona. Sheng is an important musical instrument for its tuning. The most important thing in suona production is tuning. Each suona needs at least hundreds of adjustments to make the sound more accurate. Li Xiaopan and his son often play the sheng and tune the suona by one person, in order to ensure absolute rhythm and intonation.

It is precisely because of Li Xiaopan's perseverance and excellence that his suonas are not only popular in China, but also spread all over Singapore, Malaysia, etc. multiple countries and regions. There are often students who come to his studio to learn from him.

What about Li Xiaopan? Next, I still want to introduce this traditional skill. I want more people to know about it. Next, I plan to go to school and teach children to play suona and make suona for free. Let the children like suona, in this way, our national skills and national musical instruments can be passed down.

In Li Xiaopan's eyes, the love of inheritance does not stop there. He wants to achieve the ultimate in craftsmanship, take care of each suona, and adapt measures to local conditions to suit every region. In order to inherit and protect the suona production skills, Li Xiaopan also formulated a series of protection plans for his palace music workshop, carried out research on suona production, and discussed the compilation and printing of the research results in order to cultivate more excellent suona craftsmen. At the same time, he also held a suona performance production training class with the district cultural center, established a production team, and prepared to build a suona production base, so as to deepen the public's understanding of suona culture and promote the inheritance and development of suona production skills.

Zhu Guangqian wrote in "Talking about Beauty", "Many vigorous heroes and beauties have passed away, and many vigorous successes and failures have passed away, and only works of art are truly immortal." As he said, in the ever-changing In the age of information, those traditional cultures and works of art that come from the people and are rooted in fertile soil have always maintained a vigorous and continuous vitality, allowing people to maintain a keen perception and infinite enthusiasm for art. It is precisely because of cultural heritage like Li Xiaopan People's persistent persistence and the craftsman spirit of excellence have enabled the intangible cultural heritage culture to be passed on to the present day without being annihilated in the torrent of the rolling era.