Study On The Singing Method Of Shanxi Opera And Its Style

This dissertation is a study of the singing method of the Shanxi opera and its style.With some performing artists’ biographies, critiques and some relating literature ascomplementing materials, the author made a comprehensive study from many facets andrespects, such as the history of Shanxi opera and its present situation, the performing artists’actual singing on stage or some audio and video of it, etc. The salient artistic feature of theShanxi opera is its stress on singing itself. Thus, our study revolves around many aspects ofsinging itself, such as dialect, voicing, resonance, the utilizing of qi, runqiang, etc. Thisdissertation is composed of introduction, conclusion, and other seven chapters with itsemphasis on singing method and style. Chapter one is about how Shanxi opera took itsshape and how local dialect affects singing and melodies. Its main content is theintroduction of puju opera, performing troupes and their troupers, the evolution of singingstyle, the participation of common culture such as the qitai yangge(a kind of folk dancepopular in rural north China, performed to the accompaniment of gongs and drums, or in asimple opera form in some areas), the influence of Shanxi merchants. Relying on theknowledge of acoustics, this chapter draws the conclusion that the local dialect has a closerrelationship with the melodies of Shanxi opera than Putonghua (the standard, receivedspeech). Chapter two is about tone color. It makes a all-around general description of thespecial tone colors of various characters, the regulation of the tone colors of various rolesand the tone colors of expressions when performing. Chapter three to chapter five is aboutthe study of performing techniques. Basing on the special tone colors of various roles, thethree chapters describe respectively the general rules of voicing, resonance, the utilizing ofqi, and the individual features derived from minute differences. Relying on the knowledgeof laboratory acoustics, we are able to enrich our knowledge of the characteristics ofresonance of the three roles. We find that the role of xusheng(also called laosheng, beardedold or middle-aged gentleman of maturity and integrity in Chinese opera) relies on thevarious resonance cavities equally, qingyi(female role, actress in traditional Chinese operawho plays the part of a young or middle-aged woman, so named because she wears a blackdress) mainly relies on head cavity, while hualian(painted face role, so named becausecharacters in this category all have their faces painted, representing a man of virile or roughcharacter) mainly relies on thoracic cavity. Chapter six is an analysis of runqiang ofperforming style. We selected three traditional classical arias respectively for the roles ofxuhseng, qingyi, hualian and the same aria for the role of qingyi but with different singingstyle representing the three schools of cheng, niu, wang as cases of study. By analyzing mainly from the respect of pitch of runqiang, we are able to sum up the rules anddifferences of the three different roles and the characteristics of runqiang of qingyi from thethree different schools. Chapter seven is a summary of some axioms and proverbspertaining to the performing of Shanxi opera and the training of singing. These axiomsembody some deep theories of the art of singing. The training of singing is but the basictraining which helps improving artists’ performance and is a guarantee for maintaining thesinging style of the Shanxi opera.