Inheritance And Advance

The"Traditional Chinese Music Improvement Society"was a nongovernmental musical organization which was initiated and built in 1927 by Liu Tianhua, a modern master of traditional Chinese music, and others. It was different from the Chinese traditional scholars'associations which had the less intense national consciousness and the less historical sense of responsibility, and was also different from kinds of folk societies which had no"cultural self-awareness". With the integrated regulations and a core periodical,"Traditional Chinese Music Improvement Society"had a concrete office located in Liu Tianhua's house. From the very beginning these"hardware"had formed a certain group consciousness for everybody, and also created a quite clear and integrated impression of the society's existence.The new association mechanism and the effective operation procedure made"Traditional Chinese Music Improvement Society"be able to display a musical organization's function fully and become a nucleus of"May-fourth New Cultural Movement"and the modern Chinese musical construction. At the beginning of the 20th century when the China traditional culture was in an obviously inferior position in the cultural collision of the Chinese and the West, with a dauntlessness and perseverance"Traditional Chinese Music Improvement Society"baptized the Chinese music, especially the"new music values", from the mixed tides of"May-fourth New Cultural Movement"and urged the thought of the new musical construction to be clearer from the initial chaos. Until today, the"new music values"is still affecting the creation and performance of the contemporary traditional Chinese music.As a musical mass organization, the initial self-value localization of"Traditional Chinese Music Improvement Society"was not restricted only in music. Although its value has been noticed and recognized more in musical field, with music as its origin the society had paid much attention to the new idea, the new thought and the new culture which the whole nation should hold, and a new society which the entire nation should pursue. It placed the depression of the national music on a more general field of vision, and expressed the deep anxiety and society attention of musicians'of its time, and implied the determination of changing the present situation.At the beginning of the 20th century, the political and the economic environment were extremely unstable in China. Under the leadership of Liu Tianhua,"Traditional Chinese Music Improvement Society"had overcome all sorts of difficulties (in particular in economical difficulty), and taken music as a tool to transform the people's thought, the social conventions, and the people's inherent music values. Moreover, with a profound judgment and a broad mind it had discussed the present ideas of the Chinese music and the future of the music construction, and opened a new road for the present and future development of the Chinese music, and set up an example for us.