One City, Four Symbol

In the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China,Wuxi was rich in economy,culture and music.It not only showed a variety of music culture,but also emerged a group of musicians who influenced the development of modern music history.When we pay attention to the emergence of talent group as a typical phenomenon,the foundation behind it and the exploration of the social grouping of musicians are the topics of academic significance.The phenomenon of “ people are grouped together by the same category,and things are grouped by the same group” not only forms the diversification of music types in Wuxi,but also creates the stratification of musicians’ group images.Using a musical form to relate an audience group is not only a new academic attempt,but also reveals a hidden fact:music,not only presents in a form,but also exists in a way of life.Music has become a symbol of social difference and a symbol of social grouping of musicians.This research takes “people” as the research object,takes the background in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China,takes regional culture as the perspective,combines text data with field investigation,draws lessons from foreign social stratification theory,and on the basis of predecessors,extends to the idea that Musical Instruments,groups and associations represent different social stratification.According to this theoretical framework,Wuxi is taken as the object of analysis,and different music organizations are discussed to serve the corresponding audiences,thus forming a social stratum in line with their identity.This is the innovation point of this topic,but also eager to obtain the theoretical development area.In order to prove this theoretical conception,the whole paper is divided into four chapters in addition to the introduction and conclusion.Each chapter discusses the relationship between a music genre and an audience group and the reason why this relationship is generated.The connection between music and group not only exists in the historical context,but also depends on the inheritance of the group or individual,and is reflected in the cultural taste of the audience.The first three chapters sort out three kinds of historical context,explore the music tradition “diachronic music field”;Select the bearer(group and individual)to develop the “bottom narrative” and explore the“historical field” of a form and audience stratum;Then through the taste analysis of the audience,the relationship between music and audience is explained historically.The fourth chapter combs the historical background of the emergence of “new music” and explores the taste and influence of audience groups through three ways of communication.The diachronic tracing and the narration on behalf of the group(individual)constitute four sections of the social stratification of musicians in this city: Kunqu opera and Guqin represent literati groups,Taoist music represents Taoist groups,music types represent folk artists,and new music represents new audience groups,forming a magnificent landscape of four images in a city and multiple voices in a region,so as to answer the regional foundation of producing many musicians in Liangxi.