cantonese music (guangdong music)

guangdong music also named cantonese music is one of lingnan folk music which developed and improved from the cantonese folk song and some cantonese opera, as well as the ci poems. as the cantonese opera, the cantonese music also is a lingnan culture miracle which has the strong influence in both home and abroad. during middle and late of 20th century, the cantonese music germinated and shaped gradually in center guangzhou and the pearl river delta area. the grace notes and “adding the decoration” were used during the performance to make it have its own timbre and style which brings some differences from the other folk music obviously. it has the distillation of lingnan culture “in combination with the east and west style, melt the old and modern one together”, and also has the strong openness and compatibility. the cantonese music expanded so fast from the beginning with its elegancy rhythm and bloom vitality.

in the forepart, the main music instrument of cantonese music is lute or dulcimer, with a vertical bamboo flute, zither, willow urheen, urheen, and samisen and so on. at the beginning of the republic of china (1912-1949), it make up with three basic music instruments. the first one is combined with urheen, bamboo voila, samisen (or yu-kin); the second is the percussion instrument with the main one for sunray; the third one is vertical bamboo flute, yue urheen and lute (qin harp).up the 1920s, the composer get the evocation from the west instrument to exchange the chord of the urheen from thread into steel to make the ye urheen (gao urheen), and improve the dulcimer blended into lute (qin harp) to make it in soft chord. up to the 1920s-1940s, the composer tried to concert tens of west instrument with chinese traditional instrument, and left violin, saxophone, electric guitar and xylophone to enrich the varies timber and make a stronger expressive force. it is why we said the cantonese music is the crystal of east and west music.

for hundreds of years, guangdong emerges many renowned cantonese music composers, performers and works. middle and late of 19th century is the formative years for cantonese music, which appeared and so many renowned composers and performers such as he bozhong, yan laolie. the famous work has "rain to get in japanese banana", "hungry horse rings a bell", "series buckle", "dry weather thunder" and so on. these works are turning on mode, accent nature, musical form structure as well as rhythm demonstrates the unique color and the style, symbolizes this style of music formation. in the last century 20s or 30s, the cantonese music had a rapid development which also to be the disseminates widely maturation period and heyday, emerges he liutang, he yunian, he shaoxia "three master of he" and lu wen cheng, the yin zhizhong, he dasha, he langping "the four great heavenly gods", also has one group of composers and the performers, such as yi jianquan, chen deju, chen wenda and so on. they created several hundreds works, as "dragon boat game to capture first prize", "entertainment show of peace and prosperity ", "the harvest moon of ping lake ", "ascend", "bird throws forest", "orioles singing in the willows", "triumphal returns", "great wave" and so on. these works mostly fill the phonograph record, to be gone around on the broadcasting station, the wharf, the station as well as the train, the steamboat broadcast. the guangzhou folk had dozens of extra-curricular music society at that time (or calls private partner bureau). in shanghai, tianjin, hong kong, macao and even east west asia, americas' chinese people colony also has the cantonese music society. according to incomplete statistics, for several hundreds cantonese music, at least 50 ones of them until now are spread in the overseas, obviously bring the broad and profound influence. it is to be said that "everywhere has the chinese people, namely has the intimate cantonese music friends".

after people’s republic of china had been established, the cantonese music greets the sunny day spring, emerges one group of like liu tianyi, chen zhuoying, yi jianquan, chen deju, huang jinpei, yu qiwei and so on who are the outstanding composers and performer. in 1953, cantonese music study team had been established by the liu tianyi, chen zhuoying, yi jianquan, huang jinpei and some other the cantonese music famous experts. and in 1956 cantonese music philharmonic orchestra had been established in the cantonese music history in study team's foundation. from 1960's, they represented the motherland to gave the country performance to former soviet union, eastern europe, japan, us, western europe, caused the cantonese music which is the miracle of lingnan culture like the beautiful flowers far to broadcast fragrantly, wins the honor for the motherland.

the cantonese music germinated in the end of the ming dynasty is clear at the beginning of qing dynasty, forms in 19th century later periods, mature and development in 20th century. in several hundred years, the guangdong generation of sincere feeling truehearted nature music person, with theirs’ hates and love, happy and sad congeals a each one note. they by sensitive mind and clever hand in addition some modern skills, writes with a free pen from the theirs’ inner world fervor, incisive, make a lofty boundary had achieved "this music only the space has, the world is rare several hears "