Research On Musical Temperament Of Nanyin

Nanyin,or Fujian Nanyin,is one of the oldest species of Chinese traditional music.It is sung in the southern Fujian dialect,and popular in the southern Fujian province of Zhangzhou,Quanzhou and Xiamen,as well as Taiwan province and the southeast Asia.The gist of this dissertation research paper is the musical temperament of Nanyin music on both sides of the Taiwan straits,and verify the musical temperament of Nanyin music,understand the melody system of Nanyin music,and then,clarify the era of Nanyin’s information,explore the morphological features of the Nanyin’s musical temperament,with analyzing Nanyin Pipa,which is the set-tuning instrument and,the set-tone instrument,which is a vertical bamboo flute of Nanyin.There are four pillars made of shell and nine frets of Nanyin Pipa,which is the shape chinization of the Pipa with a bend neck,four-pillar and pear-shaped.The pear-shapes,transverse-playing and the thumb strings-pressing of Pipa,are the legacy of the early days of spreading into China,and the shape of four-pillar and natural temperament of Pipa is the manifestation of Chinese orthodox music.From the historical period of its complete chinization,it can be sure that the Nanyin Pipa can trace back to the time of the southern Song or between Song and Yuan dynasty at the latest.The Nanyin Pipa’s natural temperament can dates back to the music temperament of Chin and Ruanxian in mediaeval times.Nanyin has reverently observed the principle that set tune with string and set tone with pipe.The pitch ratio between frets and the open string note of Pipa will never change,once the frets have been set,therefore,Pipa become a set-tuning stringed instrument,although its tone should be set by Dongxiao.From Han to Wei-Jin dynasty,the fundamental pitch of Chinese vertical bamboo flute was the tone Jue,which followed by Xunxv who made the vertical bamboo flute.Chiba,a vertical bamboo flute handed down from Tang dynasty,which holed on the back of flute as a high octave with difference of previous shape.Nanyin Dongxiao is different from the flute of Xunxv1’s and from Ming-Qing Dynasty,which succeed to Chiba is a unique branch of Chinese vertical bamboo flute.From the shape and music temperament,Nanyin Dongxiao traced back to southern Song dynasty at the latest,as well.The music temperament of Nanyin Dongxiao is the same as that of Nanyin Pipa.Nanyin Dongxiao is the standard of tone-setting,which is regarded as tone-imitating piped that imitate tone by pipe hole.And it is considered tone-setting piped that Pipa’s frets-setting restricted by the hole pitch of pipe to some extent.The music temperament of Nanyin Pipa and Dongxiao are identical,which is exited only in Nanyin.The tone system of Nanyin cover nine tones.Tn the four music modes,there is a Ying-tone in Wukong-guan which is consist of eight tones,called the music of Eight-tone handedfrom Sui Dynasty and,contained Beisi-Guan and Wukongsiche-Guan,Beisi Guan has six tones that made up Xiazhi-Scale in absence of a tone called Qingjue(G)Wukongsiche-Guan has six tones that made up Zhengsheng-Scale in absence of a tone called Bianzhi(#F).Moreover,Seven tones compose Sikong-Guan,which covers Gong-mode F and C.The Gong-mode F made up Zhengsheng-Scale in absence of a tone called Bianzhi B,and the Gong-mode C made up Xiazhi-Scale in absence of a tone called Qingjue F.In a word,the tone system of the Beisi-Guan,Wukongsiche-Guan and Sikong-Guan is in absence of the fourth tone Qingjue or Bianzhi respectively,and the former is the host of Yun,the fomer is the last tone of Circle-of-fifths,which is the characteristic of Nanyin’s tone system.From the perspective of the scale system of Nanyin,the four-pillar-shaped Pipa can be considered as the legacy of the early pipa with pear-shaped,a bend neck and four-pillar,while the rest of ten frets just widened and extended on the basis of four pillars.The tone system of Nanyin put use of Composite Temperament that is compounded of Natural temperament and Circle-of-fifths system.The Composite Temperament is in accordance with the physical characteristics on vibrations of the string.which is actually a String Temperament generated from the second-overtone,the third-overtone and the fifth-overtone of string.In this regard,it can be said that the music practice of Chinese Natural temperament is not only in Chin,but also in the Nanyin,and so far all along.