2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the Netherlands.

One east and one west, two countries in different regions, but because of an ancient musical instrument, that is the Chinese guqin. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Dutch diplomat and sinologist Gao Luopei took away the "Longyin Pavilion Piano Score" from China, collected it in the Leiden University in the Netherlands, and wrote "Qin Dao", so that this kind of music originated from Oriental musical instruments, spread in Holland. Today, there are many violin learners in the Netherlands.

In this year's series of activities marking the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the Netherlands, the Chinese guqin debuted. The representative of the Chinese guqin this time is Zhao Ying from Yangzhou.

"Mortal" Biography

Guangling School Guqin Art (Zhuqin) Inherited Inheritance, Guqin Professional Teacher, Guqin Acoustics Research Leader, Guqin Professional Committee of China Musical Instrument Association, National Guqin Teacher Professional Grade Assessment Committee of China Qin Association Jury member, Artistic Director of Guoqin.com.

In 2011, he was invited to be the Guqin guest performer at the 11th Asian International Stamp Exhibition. He has won the Silver Award in the First China Guqin Art Week Guqin Exhibition, the Bronze Award in the Adult Group of the 6th Youlan Yangchun Award, and the Bronze Award in the 4th Yuanbai Cup National Guqin Art Exhibition.

"Mortal" self-reported

I was no longer young when I came into contact with the guqin, but I thought it was a fateful meeting. Always remember, there will be reverberations.

Insist on appearing in Hanfu
Live performance of "Flowing Water" to meet bosom friend

"On January 18 this year, I received a notice from the relevant departments that I was asked to go to the Dutch Embassy in Beijing as a piano person to participate in activities related to the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the Netherlands." Zhao Ying said.

In the meantime, there is an interesting little episode. In the invitation letter, it is specially stated that you should wear "business formal clothes", that is, suits. In this regard, Zhao Ying felt that her identity was to represent traditional Chinese culture. At her insistence, relevant departments agreed to her wearing Hanfu.

On January 20, guests gathered in the Dutch embassy in China. Zhao Ying, dressed in a light-colored robe and painted with ink-colored chrysanthemums, was fresh and refined, like a woman walking out of a classical Chinese painting, exuding an elegant atmosphere.

This is a promotion event for the Netherlands Expo. Every 10 years, the Netherlands will hold a world-wide expo, and China has participated in three consecutive sessions before. This year, China will also debut with the theme of "Chinese Bamboo Garden". Mr. Gao Luoke, Minister of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to China, is also very interested in the Chinese guqin. Knowing that Zhao Ying is a guqin player, they had close communication with Zhao Ying.

Zhao Ying did not bring the guqin, so she played a video of her own performance of the famous Guangling school "Long Xiang Cao" to Gao Luoke. After listening to it, Gao Luoke couldn't help but praise: This does not require language translation, this is a kind of musical power that directly hits people's hearts, it is too advanced.

The regret of no live performance was made up for in another event on March 2. She was once again invited to Beijing to participate in the "Gate of Secrets" art exchange activity at the Dewey Center, which is also one of the series of activities of the Expo. This time, Zhao Ying once again appeared in a stunning Hanfu, a song "Flowing Water", the music was like a mountain stream and a clear spring, flowing through the event scene.

Why "Flowing Water"? Zhao Ying said that "Flowing Water" is a representative piece of Chinese guqin. In 1977, NASA launched a satellite into space to search for "cosmic soulmates", and it is "Flowing Water" that conveys the common good feelings of mankind. High mountains and flowing waters meet bosom friends, which also represents the long-lasting friendship between China and the Netherlands, which means beauty.

Studying and learning from others
Still the people of Guangling Qin

Zhao Ying met Guqin when she was nearly 30 years old. At that time, she left the media and turned to the music industry that she was thinking of. She was born in a musical family and grew up in a strong musical atmosphere since she was a child. My grandmother is a teacher at the School of Music of Nanjing Normal University. My uncle studied the violin with a famous master since childhood, and when I was very young, I learned the piano with the famous piano educator Professor Fan Delin.

To learn guqin, I first followed the provincial intangible inheritors Mr. Tang Naiyang and Mr. Liu Yang, both of whom are Yangzhou qin masters. After studying the Guangling School repertoire in Yangzhou for three years, in the three years from 2014 to 2016, he went to Beijing to study the Yushan Wu School Guqin music at the Zhaojiazhen Guqin Art Center. Later, she was admitted to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, majoring in guqin music performance, and followed teachers Dai Xiaolian and Lu Xiaozi to improve her piano skills. Today, she is also studying under the master of Guqin and the doctoral supervisor of China Conservatory of Music, Professor Wu Wenguang. During this period, she also sought advice from contemporary qin masters such as Liu Shanjiao and Xu Junyue during her work.

Looking back on the past ten years, Zhao Ying has become accustomed to the days of studying with a piano bag on her back. The Guangling School, the Mei'an School, the Zhejiang School, the Yushan School, the Lingnan School... Every time I study, I can get some nourishment, and the accumulation of these nourishments will gradually affect her performance. This is a kind of inclusiveness. effect, which is a cumulative change.

Zhao Ying feels that every genre of qin music is rooted in local culture. For example, "Long Xiang Cao" is a famous piece by Zhang Ziqian, a master of the Guangling qin school. The qin players in the Jiangsu area are often more likely to obtain the essence of "Long Xiang Cao". In the same way, "Guan Shanyue" originated from Shandong, and the qin music has a heroic and ups and downs rhythm. If you want to play this "Guan Shanyue" well, you should listen to Shandong Allegro.

Mr. Wu Wenguang once taught Zhao Ying, he is a descendant of the Wu School in Yushan, but he will also fully learn the changes in the speed of the Guangling School, and learn the Yinyi of the Mei'an School. Moreover, since I have learned, I must delve into it and truly learn the essence of the qin school for my use.

Zhao Ying always believed that she belonged to the Guangling Qin School. Not only because she is the intangible inheritor of the Guangling School of Guqin art, but also because of her own enlightenment, which started from the Guangling School of Guqin. No matter where you go, it will not erase the traces of the land of clothing. As a Yangzhou native, this is the foundation of music and qin culture.

After playing the qin for all these years, Zhao Ying feels that playing the qin is like "entering meditation". Once you touch the strings, time will flow away quickly. The entire 45-section "Guangling San" seems to be an instant after playing, which is the charm of Guqin music.

fully scientifically supported
The qin technique is not metaphysical

Today, Zhao Ying is a Guqin professional teacher at the Qinzheng School of Yangzhou University Conservatory of Music, the head of Guqin Acoustics Research, and a Guqin making course teacher at the Zhejiang Conservatory of Music for Guqin Teacher Training. Her teaching content is the qin.

In her opinion, qin is a science, not a metaphysics.

"Many qin masters often rely on their feeling when plucking the qin, how much the cavity should be dug and how to tune the timbre, all based on their own experience. In this way, qin qin has a metaphysical feeling. In fact, qin qin is a science. What sound Zhang Guqin can finally make has a scientific basis," Zhao Ying said.

In teaching, Zhao Ying paid great attention to basic teaching, and told the students the basic principles of the qin. For example, what kind of wood can be produced in the end, and how to make a reasonable match according to the density and the position of the trunk of the panel base plate according to the needs of the sound, it is reasonable to follow. The sound of the guqin is actually the spectrum of physics. Mastering the relationship between the knowledge of the spectrum and the production of the guqin is of great help to the guqin.

Zhao Ying is particularly grateful to the late Yangzhou guzheng educator, Mr. Zhang Gong. Zhang Gong has been the vice president of the Guangling Qin Society since the early 1980s when it was re-established until the beginning of the 20th century, and has made important contributions to the revival of the Guangling School of Guqin in Yangzhou throughout his life. Before his death, he donated a large number of precious qin materials to the Guqin production and R&D base of the Qinzheng School of the School of Music, Yangzhou University, "Shouren Qinjiu Society", including those collected by deceased qin masters such as Mr. Zhang Zhengyin and Mr. Liu Jingshao. Guqin paper patterns, and handwritten piano scores by Mr. Chen Cheng, who was sent by the Yangzhou Municipal Government to Shanghai to study with Zhang Ziqian in the 1980s, are all invaluable. Zhao Ying, the acoustic director of the Shouren Qin Manufacture Society, has studied these precious materials for many years, laying a solid theoretical foundation for today's guqin-making performance.

Harvesting wild lacquer deep in the jungle

Traveling south and north to find the sound of famous qin

For more than ten years, there have been more than 3,000 guqins that have been sound-controlled by Zhao Ying's hands. She firmly believes that only by mastering a large number of timbre samples of guqin and knowing the whole process of making guqin can she better transmit theoretical knowledge and personal experience to students.

So, she traveled south and north, looking for the sound of the guqin everywhere. Only by listening to the sound of the handed down famous qin can you know what is really good. At Mr. Xu Junyue's home in Hangzhou, she recorded the sound of the guqin produced by Su Dongpo in the Northern Song Dynasty. At Mr. Ma Weiheng's home in Yangzhou, she recorded the ethereal sounds of Mingqin "Songyin Yuqin" and "Ling Lai". "The timbre of the old piano is too different. The vibration when playing the piano can drive the whole body, which is completely the kind of shock that penetrates into the depths of the soul."
The ancient guqin is rare, and so are the old materials now. Old materials will run out one day. Zhao Ying's School of Music, School of Music, Yangzhou University, and Northeast Forestry University have jointly established a project to study the thermal processing technology of wood, which can make wood new materials in a short period of time and give off an ancient and distant tone. If this technology can be successfully developed, it is bound to bring earth-shaking changes to the Guqin world.

In order to find the secret of raw lacquer, she and her colleagues went to the wild lacquer mountain in Pingwu County, Sichuan last summer, and walked for more than 7 hours with the local inheritor of the "intangible cultural heritage" of cutting lacquer, and went into the deep forest to harvest wild lacquer. This is a physically challenging job. On the way up the mountain, I was bitten by the leeches on the mountain and drenched with blood. "We are going to suffer so that I can tell the students how raw lacquer is harvested, what its original state is like, and how precious every drop of raw lacquer is."

In recent years, her institute has also cooperated with "Dai's Strings" founded by Mr. Dai Chuang from Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the pioneer of Chinese guqin strings, to develop a kind of children's strings, which are thinner and softer. The hand feels very soft, and the sound sensitivity is higher, which is more suitable for children to practice Guqin.

"On the one hand, it is a sense of responsibility as a teacher. I hope to impart more knowledge to students, and only through personal experience can I speak clearly," Zhao Ying said.

Zhao Ying's research on guqin knowledge is often invited as a guest speaker at some guqin auctions. What are the advantages of a guqin and what are the evaluation criteria? Through her meticulous research and explanation, laymen have gradually understood the Chinese guqin.

At the upcoming Holland Expo this year, although Zhao Ying can't go there due to the epidemic, a guqin that she made with her own hands is about to appear in the "Chinese Bamboo Garden" to spread Chinese voices and promote Chinese culture.

【dialogue】

The piano man should go out more

Reporter: You changed your career from the media to the music industry, and have been working on the guqin for more than ten years. How do you feel about yourself?

Zhao Ying: The biggest feeling is my own mentality. When I encounter anything, I will think what's the big deal? The big deal is to go back to playing the piano, and have a clean and pure world.

Reporter: Guqin teaching mainly includes academic school and folk school. How do you see the difference between the two?

Zhao Ying: There are historical reasons for the formation of genres. Because of the inconvenience of transportation in the past, regional music characteristics have been formed. Now that the information is so developed, there is no need to distinguish between "academic school" and "folk school", each form of art has its own unique value, and extensive study is conducive to the improvement of piano art.

Reporter: What do you think of the current development of Yangzhou Guqin?

Zhao Ying: There are a lot of people learning Guqin in Yangzhou now. What a gratifying phenomenon, it proves that everyone attaches great importance to traditional culture. In fact, I also hope that the qin people in Yangzhou can go out more on the basis of playing the repertoire of the Guangling qin school well, and learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses with the teachers of other schools, so as to make progress together.