Research On Musical Culture Of Contemporary Buddhist Ceremonies "Shifang Tone"

This thesis is a theorial study of musical culture of contemporary Buddhist ceremonies“Shifang Tone”,which is keeping the same all across China.On basis of the musical style of “Shifang Tone”,this thesis explores the musical character,the propagation in history and the character of music culture inheritance system,then appropriatly compares the music culture inheritance system with the learnning education.Thus have in-depth understanding of the traditional look and essential character of Buddist music.So far the Monks and the academic communities have not realized the objective existance of “Shifang Tone”.Resultly,the academic community have not relevant exploration about it.Only a few scholars reported the verbal concepts which hinted clues about “Shifang Tone”from monks by different case study.This phenomenon shows the huge value of this research,which will be necessary and original in the landscape of Buddhist music.The purpose of choosing this research is to certificate its objective exsistance and then hold the mind of its character as the essential character of Buddhist music.This research will help grasp the whole view and regular of Buddist music.The article involves the following six aspect in general:Chapter One gives an integration of verbal concepts of monk and the relevant understanding and analysis from scholars,combing relevant regular features which rendered from verbal concepts.Then give a preliminary speculation of the objective exsistance of “Shifang Tone”.Chapter Two is core part of this thesis,aimming at certificate the object exsistance of “Shifang Tone”throught comparing the music form of Buddhist ceremonies.The specifically operation is as follow: Firstly it is a classify analysis of whole melody about the ceremonies song from three temple,dividing the ceremonies song which have the similar whole melody as the first level,while dividing the ceremonies song which have similar“Nucleus Tone”as the second level on basis of simplifying and restoring the theories.These melodies are the the empirical material which certificate the objective existance of“Shifang Tone”.Secondly,it will be horizontal comparation of these two level similar musical materials,aimming at uncovering the common melodies in three temples.The last but not the least,several“Nucleus Tone”which have a high emergance frequency will be found through integrated analysing and categorying the relationship between“Nucleus Tone”and different ceremonies song.These several“Nucleus Tone”are the condensed form of “Shifang tone”.Chapter Three gives an analysis of those ceremonies song which are not versatile in three temple,certificating that their melody characteristic are influenced by folk music in different place,and then research the renson which cause those song can not be used.The overall structure of Buddhist ceremonies song can be divided into two level after these analysis,the first level includes those ceremonies song which can be current in different temple,and the second level includes those which are not versatile.The first level are pure “Shifang Tone”,which fully reflect the core of Buddhist music.Therefore,the musical style of “Shifang Tone”can stand for the core of Buddhist music.At the same time,those different ceremonies song demonstrate that folk music influenced the Buddhist music.Chapter Four summarizes the unique style of “Shifang Tone”.Firstly,this article will summarize and arrange the classical musical form of “Shifang Tone”,and then ascend these form to aesthetic catergory which includes gentle,silent and unbiased while assign that unique style was due to Buddhist philosophy and subjective psychology of monks when they practise Buddhism.Chapter Five explores the propagation character of“Shifang Tone”,concluding that “Shifang Tone”is a recreation resulted from the propagation of Buddhist music in history.In order to achieve this target,the source of “Shifang Tone”,the rule of transmission and those person who devoted themselves to transmitting the Buddhist music will be concluded by comprehensive analysing the verbal information from monks,historical document and musical form,therefore finding out that “Shifang Tone”originated in the south of Yangtze River,and then propagated all over China as a result of teaching and spreading the Buddhism.Chapter Six explores the music culture inheritance system of “Shifang Tone”,striving to concluding that this inheritance system has the character of conservative,obstinate and unified by researching the inheritance system which includes inheritance substance,inheritance method,inheritance institution,inheritance purpose and inheritance enviorment.Then this chapter infers the future development of colleage education by comparing those six elements with colleage education.This article achieves innovation in the following three aspects:First,this article certificates that the “Shifang tone”is not only a phenomenon which objectively appears all over China by researching the musical form or verbalconcept and comparing Buddhist ceremonies song in different temple,but also plays the main role in Chinese Buddhist music.Second,this article preliminary summarizes the rule of propagation of Chinese Buddhist music in history by preliminary exploring the communicator,method of propagation in history.Third,this article preliminary not only finds out the character of music culture inheritance system by analysing different elements of inheritance system of “Shifang tone”,but also obtains enlightening guidance about morden education through exploring the difference between colleage education and inheritance system of “Shifang tone”.The main significances of this article are as follows:Firstly,this article assists uncovering the core of Buddhist music and promoting the development of Buddhist music exploration by comprehensive studying the musical form of “Shifang tone”.Secondly,this article involves the research of the propagation and inheritance syetem of Buddhist music,which is not only conductive to summarize the regular pattern and enhance this rule upon the height of theory,but also play a positive role in the rank researchment.Thirdly,this article is conductive to develop the colleage education by objectively revealing the difference between colleage education and inheritance system of Buddhist music.The last but not the least,this article help grasp the common character of Chinese religious music by comparing the Buddhist music and another religious music as a result of involving several landscape of Buddhist music.