A Probe Into The Phenomena Of Chinese Contemporary Vocal Music Performed With Musical Instruments

Ever since the reform and opening-up policy, Chinese music circle has witnessed increasing attempts in expanding the application of musical instruments to accompany vocal music in terms of music creation and singing (such as in chamber music, vocal compositions as well as film and teleplay soundtracks). Up to now, remarkable progress has been made in this field, a breakthrough which embodies a certain style (musical works with strong art expression and high vocal acrobatics have come out, a case in point being vocal capriccio A Moonlit Night on the Spring River). Moreover, in future musical creation and singing practices, this expansion will still embrace comparatively spacious room. However, research findings kept in written forms have not appeared regarding systemic researches on "the phenomena of Chinese contemporary vocal music performed with musical instruments" (they're just partially mentioned in a few papers). In view of this, systemic researches on this research topic at present are of weighty theoretical and practical significance.The author of this article attempts to carry out careful and in-depth exploration of internal and external factors as well as birth conditions for "the phenomena of Chinese contemporary vocal music performed with musical instruments" via source-tracing and generalization of the birth and correlation of vocal arts and instrumental arts. Theoretical elaboration is made to clarify the background of this phenomenon as well as its inevitable trend of development. An example of this sort of musical works, vocal capriccio A Moonlit Night on the Spring River is selected for the brief analysis of its characteristics in application of musical instruments and singing features.Through this research, the author arrives at the following findings,1. Instrumental performance of vocal music arises against the background of highly developed and relatively prefect vocal art and instrumental art. Based on the expressive means of vocal art, out of different expressive need of various musical works, certain forms and expressive means of instrumental art are employed, in different degrees, to create and interpret vocal works. Musical works created this way are, in the author's eyes, typical of "instrumental performance of vocal music (in different degrees)". Singing performance of this sort of works is also supposed to be "singing of vocal music accompanied by instruments (in different degrees)". While employing performance characteristics of instrumental music, this sort of vocal music works, to different extent, attenuate the original function of lyrics (this breaks through the restriction of the meaning of lyrics, completely or partly gets rid of some lyrics with definite meanings), which gives prominence to the expressivity of pure music without restriction in meaning of lyrics.2. The expansion of instrumental performance of vocal music in Chinese professional musical circle must have arisen from vocal art and instrumental art with comparatively high levels. In order to expand the expressivity of vocal sound or meet the need of integrated artistic form of instrumental music and vocal music, attempts have been made to perform vocal art with musical instruments.3. The tradition of Chinese musical culture like diverse applications of the same tune, writing words in accordance with melodies, instrumental "speaking", instrumental "singing", "kaxi performance (咔戏)", etc, as well as Chinese people's preference for "human-voice-imitating musical instruments" are both significant factors contributing to the long-term integrated development of Chinese traditional vocal art and instrumental art. Meanwhile, aesthetic orientations formed under the influence of these factors have laid psychological foundations for contemporary Chinese people to acknowledge the possible development of instruments in vocal music art.