Artistic conception usually refers to the realm and mood expressed through image description in artistic works, and it is one of the very important elements in the art of erhu performance. In fact, artistic conception refers to a certain information that the performer loads his own understanding of the work, through mental activities such as thinking or ideas, into the erhu music. In daily life, people receive the stimulation of external things through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and other sensory organs, and through the recoding of the brain, they form an impression of the objective material world. For everyone, this impression is one-sided, limited, and subjective. People first feel the existence of "I", and then start from "I see", "I hear", "I feel", etc., to form an impression of objective things, which is self-awareness. The same thing can leave different impressions in the hearts of different people. This is because people's thinking has carried out different screening and combination of sensory information, and also mixed the results of various psychological factors. mood. When we leave these objective things, the information stored in the brain is reproduced in consciousness again, which forms artistic conception. Such as: Taishan sunrise, seaside sunset, grassland scene, Huangshan waterfall view, etc., can be used as the artistic conception material in the erhu performance, which can be expressed in the music, which is the reality in the artistic conception.

In the erhu performance, the performer often needs to experience the thoughts and emotions of the characters in the work from the heart. For example: in "Jianghe Shui", the Northeast woman was devastated when she cried by the river; in "The Newlyweds", the bride was overjoyed and shy when she was married, and her heart was broken when she parted from her husband; in "Nostalgia" During the period of the Anti-Japanese War, the author felt homesickness when he had to go into exile in Chongqing, Sichuan due to the fall of his hometown, and so on. Excellent performers can quickly "forget themselves" when performing on stage, and devote themselves to the thoughts and emotions of the characters in the works. Sad for their grief and joy for their joy, with the feeling of "Zhuangzi dreaming of butterflies". The famous erhu performer Min Huifen once said to me after playing "Baoyu Crying Spirit": "As soon as the band passed the door, I could see Baoyu coming towards me from behind the auditorium and becoming one with me. When I was playing, I thought I was Baoyu, not Min Huifen, and that cry burst out of my heart!" This is a typical example of a performer entering a "prescribed situation" on stage. Because the performer turns himself into the character of the work when playing, we call it the illusion in the artistic conception.

The above two kinds of artistic conception exist in the player's thinking, and there is a higher-level artistic conception called virtual state, that is, the Zen state in music. It exists only in the player's mind, and is the embodiment of the player's "primordial spirit" function. If you can enter this state, when you play, your heart will be as flat as a mirror, and your heart will be as peaceful as water; you will not be in a hurry or slow, there will be no profit or loss; you will play it according to your heart, and you will only want the heart of the piano to mirror each other. The performer will feel that the music is like a mist, ethereal in front of the eyes, as if clearly visible.

Then why do you say that the virtual realm only exists in the player's mind, not in the player's thinking?

Let us first understand what thinking is. Thinking is the indirect and general reflection of the human brain on objective reality. Indirectly refers to understanding objective things through other media, such as: when we wake up in the morning and see that the roof is wet, through thinking, we know that it has rained at night; generalization refers to the common characteristics, essential characteristics or things of the same kind of things. The regularity between them can be summed up and connected into a complex to understand things, such as: apples, pears, peaches, etc. are all fruits. According to the characteristics of the problem to be solved by thinking and the different objects in the thinking process, it is divided into three different types: intuitive action thinking, abstract thinking (ie logical thinking) and image thinking. No matter what form of thinking, there is a purpose and a process. Take the erhu performance as an example, these three kinds of thinking exist and are necessary. The regulation of playing movements mainly relies on intuitive movement thinking. For example, when the auditory senses that the pitch is wrong, it will immediately order the finger movements to make appropriate adjustments so that the pitch conforms to the standard of hearing. Another example: when playing fast passages, the close cooperation of both hands is also completed under the control of intuitive action thinking. Structural analysis, overall layout, and the use of various contrasting techniques all belong to the category of abstract thinking. If a player lacks the necessary abstract thinking, his playing will be cluttered with a lack of rhythm. Of course, the most important thing in erhu performance is image thinking. What we call artistic conception mainly exists in image thinking. The image thinking in the performance process is not limited to the reality that is seen, but also an important aspect is the fantasy in the imagination. The imagination when playing erhu is further divided into unintentional imagination, intentional imagination and fantasy. In the performance, I can't help but think of a thing in life because of certain sound patterns, which is called unintentional imagination. For example, there is a free great glissando in the allegro section of "Ganji". Think of it as "a jujube fell from the car, rolled 'gululu' into the roadside ditch and disappeared". There are many examples of this in performance, and it can be said that a lot of fun comes from this kind of unintentional imagination. According to the text title of the work and the theme of the music, the character image of the music is created, which is called intentional imagination. Using this imagination, the performer seems to clearly "see" the characters in the piece and their environment. This is crucial for enhancing the expressiveness and appeal of the performance, and it is the only way from reality to fantasy. Imagine that if the performer does not even have the ability to shape the characters of the music, how can he experience the thoughts and emotions of these characters from the heart? The imagination that fully reflects the player's inner desire in the performance is called fantasy, which is the result of the extreme expansion of the imagination. Such as: imagining that your image is very tall and standing on the stage; imagining that you are the center of the "sound field", and the energy emitted can include the entire concert hall, and so on. In addition, the imagination of temporarily forgetting oneself, transforming oneself into the characters in the music, and truly experiencing their thoughts and feelings in the heart is also a fantasy.

Let's take a look at what an idea is. The interpretation of mind in modern Chinese is people's thoughts and thoughts. The idea mentioned in the way of playing the erhu refers to the function of the human brain that "a source of information, and can guide the flow of information to run smoothly in the player's body, and directly process the sound through the musical instrument". This is what we usually say "to the heart, to the sound". This kind of information that directly processes the sound is not ordinary information. In the words of the famous gaohu player Yu Qiwei, it is the "language of life" of the player. It is generally in the form of dots, and is often just a flash in the performance, and does not have a "line" relationship with the process before and after. For example, the player flashed a feeling of "tenderness" in his mind, as if "holding a kitten in his arms", the musical character immediately showed a tenderness; The feeling of the action of "squatting down" is like "boating in the lake", the melody line will immediately show a kind of ups and downs like drifting with the current, and so on. The player's mind keeps flashing various sensations, and the music changes accordingly. However, there is no logical connection between these ideas, and there is no fixed pattern, just a "point" one by one that the player moves at will. This kind of idea is the language of the performer's "life", that is to say, the feeling in his idea is different from anyone else's. Ten people's "tenderness" has ten shapes, and a hundred people's "proud" "There are hundreds of forms, which are difficult to describe in words and language.

To sum up, we can clearly recognize that the reality and illusion in the artistic conception exist in the player's thinking; they have reasons, purposes, processes, and are linear. However, in order to enter the virtual state (Zen state) in the artistic conception, the participation of thinking must be minimized, and the information can be directly generated from the thoughts. They have no cause, no purpose, no process, and are dotted. In order to enter this kind of Zen state, first of all, the mind must be calm and free from obstacles, so that the information of the music can run smoothly; the second is to eliminate the estrangement between people and the qin, so that the human and the qin are united, and the qin and the qin heart complement each other. Only in this way can we enter into the free kingdom of erhu playing, and achieve the realm of "the sound of the violin changes instantly and unpredictably".

The three states in the artistic conception mentioned above, in actual performance, they complement each other, penetrate each other, and are indispensable. The key is to use them properly. The success of a performer does not necessarily depend on a famous teacher, nor does it depend entirely on his hard work, but ultimately depends on his own understanding. When it comes to the realm of performance, I think Zhao Xiaosheng, a famous piano educator, has the most incisive explanation. In his book "Qin Zen", he said:

"The so-called 'big realm' is all realms. There is real in the virtual, there is fantasy in the virtual, the real is also fantasy, the real is also virtual, the real is illusory, the fantasy is real, there is everything in nothing, and everything is non-existent. This 'big realm', 'reverse if there is no way', has forgotten all the ropes that entangle the soul (such as fingers, wrists, forearms, big arms, etc.), only the happiness of the heart - the happiness of the heart, can Gain the greatest freedom in the world of piano music."

Music and performing arts are interlinked. The "big realm" of the piano is like this, and the "big realm" of the erhu is not the same? If you only reach the height of playing technique, then you are only a luthier; if you can reach the height of playing art, you can become a luthier; if you can improve the instrument in your hand to play The height of the Tao can be regarded as a piano Buddha!