Nanguan Music
Nanguan, literally "southern pipe" music, appears to have originated in Fujian Province in southern China. It was brought by Fujianese migrants to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. Consisting primarily of instrumental suites for a core ensemble of five traditional instruments and also of songs with this instrumental group, the same music is commonly known at present as nanyin (southern sound) in Fujian. The music is today seen by academics as primarily an amateur ensemble tradition with ancient historical roots, which is played both for the musicians´ own entertainment and in occasional temple ceremonials. "In the past, only rich men were able to afford to play nanguan, and even the emperor understood how to appreciate this music." Nanguan musicians often turn to phrases like this in their own explanations of their music´s history, thereby emphasising the value of their genre. The comment also reflects the arduous learning processes requiring much memorisation of repertory and the accumulation of various knowledge related to literature, music, instruments, history and social norms. The musical style of nanguan is seen as melodically gentle and delicate at a slow tempo, signs of an artistic elitism in the Chinese context. It is therefore hard to appreciate, since one has to be a patient and cultivated listener (hence the reference to the emperor above). Many musicians believe this is a genre that requires whole lifetime´s dedication, and they are proud to identify themselves as life-long amateur nanguan musicians. In fact, and as we will see below, the music was also performed in at least two other contexts, professional opera liyuanxi and by courtesans.
Whatever the views of musical experts and insiders, the music itself is not that widely recognised in Taiwanese society as a whole. In the mid-twentieth century it shared the fate of numerous indigenous traditions of being disregarded by many or seen as a symbol of backward, rural subculture. Although it is now regularly presented as a crucial strand of Taiwanese national cultural heritage, many native Taiwanese (especially of the younger generation) don't know what nanguan is. It seems that, the term nanguan is well established in the contemporary Taiwan (in contrast with early 1980s, when few people had heard it), but the musical sound itself remains unfamiliar.
Instruments
The nanguan ensemble usually consists of five instruments: pie (wood clapper), gibei (four-stringed lute, [pipa in mandarin]), samhen (three-stringed lute [sanxian]), xiao (vertical flute, also called dongxiao), and lihen (two-stringed fiddle [erxian]). Since the pie is typically played by the vocalist, it is not placed in the instrumental category by nanguan musician. The other four instruments are known as the dinxiguan (upper four instruments). The dinxiguan usually takes a central role in nanguan performance in all of the repertories of zui [zhi], po [pu], and kio [qu] (to be returned to below). In contrast, the category of eixiguan (lower four instruments) groups four percussion instruments, namely hiangzua (chime), giaolo (a combined chime and wooden fish [wood block], xiangjin (pair of small bells) and xidei (four-piece, wooden-slab idiophone). The use of these instruments is called for in some of the repertory and on some performing occasions only. Other than these, a transverse flute called pinxiao [dizi] and oboe-type instrument, aiya [xiao suona] are sometimes added in outdoor performances or formal ceremonies. When these two extra wind instruments and the eixiguan combine with the basic four instruments, the whole ensemble is called the zayim ("ten sounds").
Aesthetic
Heterophony in nanguan proceeds simultaneously along two lines known as skeleton (gu) and meat (ba). Analogies might be drawn between this duality and the yin (lunar) and yang (solar) poles of Chinese philosophy, or other oppositions such as xu (empty) and shi (solid). Each individual instrument has a fixed character or role in regard to one line or the other. The gibei, as mentioned above, provides a simple but strong framework in stable tempo and with correct rhythm. Musicians praise a good player as possessing andum (stability), and this is seen as his or her most important competence. On the other hand, the samhen is seen as supplementary to the gu line, lending a longer vibration of solid lower octave notes to the skeletal melody. The xiao, meanwhile, takes the ba role, supplementing the lutes by adding spirit to what they do while also remainingin an opposite category from them. Just as the samhen supports and underpins the gibei so the lihen provides assistance for the xiao, filling the melodic space while the xiao player needs a break. A similar concept is applied to the percussion section. Metallic timbres infer that a sound is yang, while wood is yin. Aesthetically, the sound of yang and yin should not meet on the first beat. Overall, the beauty of nanguan music involves making the melody into a delicate and concentrated silk string, into which nothing can be inserted, not even a thin needle.
Notation
Nanguan notation, gongceipo, is a regionally developed mnemonic system, one of numerous historical traditions of gongchepu notation found in China. Although all are similar in some respects, nanguan´s gongceipo is distinct from that found in most other genres. Nanguan´s gongceipo consists of four elements, namely beat, pitch, fingering and song text (if any). These are written in columns arranged from right to left on the page, like traditional Chinese writing. The first column on the far right makes clear the beats, the following column contains the gibei´s fingerings and the third column gives the pitches. The song text is inserted above the pitch and fingering markings. The name of the piece (commonly referred to by the first three or four words of the song text), the tune´s category (mngtao), its subordinate tune (kiobai) and the key or scale (guanmng) are indicated before the start of the piece.
Repertory
The three kinds of nanguan repertory are zui, po and kio (zhi, pu and qu in Mandarin), according to the terminology given by musicians. Zui and po are instrumental pieces, while kio is a vocal-instrumental repertory in which the voice is accompanied by the upper four instruments. Although zui shares the instrumentation of po, its melodic style is actually much closer to that of kio. These categories cannot, however, be drawn by the ethnographer purely on grounds of the musical characteristics already given, in that musicians recognise context-sensitive similarities and differences between zui, po and kio. These similarities suggest that genres and styles are here, as in other traditions studied by ethnomusicologists, divided, crossed and layered. Zui, po and kio need to be differentiated by the range of musical events and social contexts in which they occur, and the function and value given respectively to them by musicians, as well as by their sound structures.
Zui
A zui is a suite usually consisting of two to five sections, with the exception of the suite Lanseizeng, which has seven. Each section is called a cu or dei (piece), cu being found more often as a written term, dei being commonly used in speech. Although performed as a purely instrumental piece, each zui has a song text. Most of these are comprised of episodes from a single story, but the text is sectional and selective, and without preceding instruction or knowledge, learners are often unable to grasp the meaning of the story as a whole. Although its origin may lie in vocal or operatic performance, today zui is an important instrumental repertory, and highly regarded by nanguan musicians. The song text significantly eases the memorising of the melody, and so it is normally learnt by the musician for this reason. A suite of zui normally lasts more than thirty minutes, and such a long duration would be a considerable burden using traditional nanguan vocalism.
Kio
Two thousand pieces of the vocal repertory kio have been found in manuscript. New pieces are also occasionally created, though this is rare in contemporary Taiwanese society. Zui is perceived as the serious, orthodox repertoire, a factor that discourages creative activity in that repertory. The statement, "We cannot completely learn the old pieces, so who needs to perform new pieces?" is commonly made by musicians in Taiwan today. Kio, on the other hand, is wide open to variation, and thus the same piece of kio may be sung differently, including with variations in rhythm and song text. The most popular pieces in contemporary Taiwanese society are those in the fast-metre (4/4), which commonly last about five minutes.
Po
Po literally means notation, a term derived from the fact that the manuscripts of this repertory do not have song texts. Although zui and po are both instrumental repertories, po has a distinct instrumental sound that marks it out from zui. A wider register, the production of notes across the various strings, fast speed and technical display are all factors generally recognised as making po different from zui performance.
Performance Events
Music performance was not only carried out for entertainment, but is also strongly associated with various dimensions of broader social practice, parts of which may not still apply in contemporary Taiwan. Through these activities musicians were able to enlarge their social networks, gain a certain status and enjoy free food and drink, for instance. Regular rehearsal today happens once a week among contemporary Taiwanese nanguan groups. Some group will hold a ritual of praying to the nanguan music god Minhu Longgun each spring and autumn. Nanguan music as social practice is not only concerned with relationships inside groups, but also incorporates several external activities. Among these are the ritual ceremony to the music god Minhu Longgun (Longgun zei), the so-called jinghen ("setting the tuning") in which multiple groups take part in collective performance, the baiguan event often held when one group or individual visits another group, and funerals. Besides these events, past nanguan groups were frequently asked to help in the affairs of local temples without payment. Though this is still sometimes found in contemporary Taiwan, and I personally attended such events several times, these are less common. Music, here, can be seen as a channel that leads musicians to expand their relations with the nanguan world as a whole, involve themselves in religion and further extend their social standing within the locality.
Learning Nanguan
In the past, the musician who wished to learn nanguan needed to belong to a group or music society. This was because a teacher was commonly employed by such an association. There were normally two ways in which the teacher´s pay was covered: first, tuition fees were paid by all learners; second, the association´s leader found one or more sponsors from among the local community. The general picture that arises from old musicians´ accounts is that the first type of organisation was more commonly found in urban places, while the second kind was more characteristic of villages.
Normally, in both kinds of group, a new recruit was expected to take part in a ritual in which he prayed to the music god Minhu Longgun and made obeisance to his teacher, thereby obtaining membership. As such, the teacher and students´ relationship was in principle similar to that of a father and his sons, and fellowship within the ensemble resembled that among brothers. In other words, a faithful musician would see the first group he joined as his original home, and should not forget to mention his first teacher when other musicians asked about his learning background or lineage. In addition, without his teacher´s permission, a student could not visit other nanguan groups or learn from other teachers. Many older musicians stated that their initial lesson was not about learning musical sound, but about proper behaviour, such as how to sit, how to hold an instrument and how to take turns. Taking the matter of taking turns as an example, each musician must hand over his instrument to another member after two pieces, unless no one else was able to play the next tune. Players who refused to yield their chair were (indirectly) criticised as selfish, and other ensemble members might try to propose a piece to play next that they thought the musician did not know well as a means of unseating him.
Rehearsals were held either weekly or perhaps even more often, depending on the season and other factors. There were typically three groups of people at a rehearsal in former times. The first group, usually numbering five musicians, played through songs and instrumental pieces. They did not normally stop or practice sections or phrases separately. The second group consisted of musicians waiting for a turn in the performing group. They sat nearby, chatting, smoking, drinking tea and possibly gambling (sometimes audience members could join this group). They might discuss the quality of the performers to whom they were partially listening, engage in more general musical discussion or even talk about another subject altogether. The third group was a teacher and one or more learners. They sat in a corner, the pupils imitating the teacher by rote until they had memorised a new piece. The teacher would stop them when he detected an error, but would not normally provide much in the way of theoretical instruction. Pupils sometimes joined the second group for a break, and, once they had memorised a whole piece, were allowed to perform with the first group as well.
In amateur groups in the present day, the ritual of praying to the music god and acknowledging the teacher is seldom held, and tuition fee payment has become rare. Now, the teachers who continue to have a role in amateur groups do so alongside earning their living in another domain. In fact, there are some groups today that consist mainly of beginners—these are usually aided by state-sponsorship resulting from changes in cultural policy since the mid-1990s. Here, the group leader can apply for funding, some of which may be used to provide fees for the group´s teacher. There are also some older groups that consist only of experienced musicians without any kind of teaching programme. Finally, there are some groups of experienced musicians that also take in new recruits from time to time, providing tuition for them from among their leading members.
In their first lessons at either the first or third kind of groups just mentioned, beginners typically pay less attention to the various aspects of social behaviour or norms previously seen as a priority. Learning musical sound has now taken the initial place, and study today usually begins with learning gongceipo notation. Although the music notation is indeed useful in helping contemporary learners, it was rare, particularly before the mid-1990s, to find a teaching model that leads to smooth progress after this, a problem that led many learners to withdraw after only a few lessons. Other factors also increase the challenge of learning today. For instance, older musicians still see nanguan as a symbol of high social class, and they believe that since the music is so lovely, there is no need to force people to learn. As such, some of them therefore make relatively little explicit effort to help beginners.
A new aspect of learning nanguan is that many pupils are now encouraged to learn nanguan while at school (primary and secondary). These lessons may take place as part of the formal curriculum, or as a student society. The school usually employs one or two teachers to teach a class of between 10-30 students; in such a learning environment teachers normally teach the same piece to all students at once and cannot pay much attention to correcting individuals´ mistakes. This is different from the learning situation at the National Taipei University of Arts (Guoli Taibei Yishu Daxue). This programme accepts each year only a small number of students who are divided into instrumental or vocal specialists and receive great attention from the experienced musicians appointed to be their teachers.
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