| Summary: | 博士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 音樂學系 === 97 === Abstract
Among the Han Chinese traditional arts, there exists a cultural system known as qu. This system is characterized by the classification of songs into tunes or qupai and its tradition of compositional and performance practices. Through the long history of these practices, a knowledge system known as quxue (namely the study of qu) was formed to explain its musical content and the literary tradition of its lyrics. In the artistic ideas of this cultural system,“classicism” and “archetype” have long been upheld as the core ideal to be pursued, particularly with regards to the interpretation of musical aesthetic experiences and the way to understand music. These ideas further developed into theories of gelü or “rules of text-setting”. But, in contrast to the efforts of the theorists to codify the precise rule for each tune, the actual musical practices always exhibit variances, and opinions about the rules also vary. As a result, there were many variants that were developed from the archetypes. Such differences between theory and practice and between archetype and its variants have been reflected in the conflicting views in the theory of quxue. From the way in which the theory of gelü explains the musical content, we can infer that the reason why classicism dominates the theory of quxue lies in the fact that qu scholars believe that there is a definite and real content of each and every qupai. Moreover, such belief is apparently based on their subjective understanding of the abstract existence of the music instead of the actual melodic phenomena in their many variant forms. Consequently, the gelü of qupai is actually a theoretical interpretation of the stable elements underneath the variable appearances of the music.
This dissertation takes the phenomena of qupai music as its subject and attempts to analyze the constituents and the structure of its content through its manifestation and interpretation in history. In order to analyze, understand, and explicate this phenomenon, I will use the cultural view about variants and classicism, the discourses by the classical theorists of qu, and the actual music itself to explain how these three interact with one another in dialectic relationship in historical processes. Meanwhile I will also employ multi-interpretation as my framework to raise questions and make observations regarding the history of this musical/cultural tradition.
Through this study, I found that the so-called jiqu (collective tunes), which has been neglected by the classical theory of qu, and its methods of pastiche, in fact provide us with an objective basis that brings us closer to the perspectives of the ancient and helps us analyze the special character of the structure of qupai music. In addition, I discovered that either the rule of gelü or the concept “qugu”or “bone of the song” as transmitted in folk traditions is not analogous to the deep structure of the actual music. This explains the subjective interpretation made by the theorists, as I mentioned above. This discovery, however, led me to rely on the actual musical phenomenon as the basis for my analysis. I argue that the music of qupai cannot do without the ability to vary in order to meet the needs of the tones of its lyrics and also to adapt to the fact that any qupai is not just a tune that stands by itself but is instead often combined with other qupai to form into a larger structure to become the structural elements of a specific composition. Thus, through the process of adapting to various kinds of combination, “variability” became one of the important and basic artistic features of the music of qupai. Thus, I argue that the phenomenon of qupai consists of multi layers: the most essential elements that remain stable, the various transformations, the combination into a specific composition, and finally the actual realization in performance. Even a single qupai also exhibits such a multi-layer phenomenon. If we can explicate the process in which each of these layers unfolds and how the music of qupai has been enriched and reinterpreted through such a multi-layer framework, then it is possible for us to resolve the conflicting views that have long existed in the traditional theory of quxue.
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