Taiwan Today

Instruments have not changed much in several hundred years. They are well adapted to the conventions and actions of the Chinese theater

For the Westerner, a first encounter with the music of Chinese opera may be an unsettling experience. His musical taste is likely to be outraged by the shrieking falsetto of the singers. The mad smashing of gongs and cymbals during a battle scene, the sound of hardwood hitting hardwood to beat out the measure and the sharp notes of the little serpent-skin fiddle which sometimes dominates the other noises: all these may seem to be more irritating than music.

But after sitting through a Chinese opera performance, the Westerner begins to have a glimmer of understanding. Though the sounds are still exotic, he finds the rhythm of this strange orchestra of eight to ten pieces synchronizes perfectly with the action on stage. The instruments punctuate the movements, support the singing and accent the expression and gestures of the players. He soon realizes this music is indispensable to the Chinese theater. These are sounds appropriate to the action and essential to the highly stylized expression.

Occidentals have become aficionados of the Chinese opera and even connoisseurs. The music is, after all, no stranger than rock or soul to a devotee of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Taste is cultivated from experience. Until recently, most experience depended on one's cultural heritage. Only a few decades ago, the audience sat around the three sides of a Chinese opera theater conversing freely with friends and family, drinking tea and even eating sumptuous meals as the show went on. The orchestra of that time had to be loud and raucous in order to be heard.

Musicians of today have toned down their output of volume. Instead of sitting at one side of the stage in plain view of the audience, they have been placed behind a screen, usually to the right.

Instruments have remained the same as they were hundreds of years ago. There is no conductor. The little orchestra of percussion, wind and stringed instruments is paced by the single-skin drum and the wooden clapper, similar to castanets, that beat the rhythm. Most important of all is the player of the hu-ch'in, the two-stringed serpent-skin fiddle that accompanies the singing.

Each instrument has its particular purpose and special occasion of prominence. The small drum and wooden clapper underline the effects and keep the music from dragging. The larger two-headed drum beats the rhythm for battles and dances. Among the brass instruments, cymbals and gong mark the steps of the warriors and officials. The little gong gives out a crisp clang to announce the entrance of the leading lady. The yun-lo consists of ten small gongs suspended on a wooden framework. Struck with a wooden hammer, these tuned gongs accompany the other instruments during ceremonial scenes.

The main music makers are the strings. The erh-hu is a two-stringed fiddle with a lower pitch than the hu-ch'in; it is to the hu-ch'in as the viola to the violin. The three-stringed san-hsien, played with a bone spectrum, has a mellow, somewhat melancholy tone. The yueh-ch'in, literally "moonguitar," and p'i-p'a, reputedly handed down from some 2,000 years ago, have four strings each and accompany the more lyrical singing.

The wind section has Western equivalents. The hsiao resembles the sweet-voiced flageolet, while the ti-tze can be described as an eight-hole transverse flute made of bamboo. The sheng, rarely played now, has some 17 bamboo pipes rising from a hollow wooden base and mouthpiece. The so-na, which has a brass mouthpiece, sounds not unlike the Scotch bagpipe. This instrument plays the music for weddings, funerals and banquets.

Singing is completely different from that of Western opera. There are three basic styles to fit the mood and action of the opera. Hsi P'i style comes from Shensi province and Erh Huang and Fan Erh Huang styles from Anhwei province. Hsi P'i is quick and light. It is used for recitative and for expressions of great happiness or agitated excitement. Erh Huang sets a mood of reflection and is used mainly for soliloquies. Erh Huang has a subdivision of Sze P'ing Tiao for reflection on love. It may also be used when hero and heroine are teasing each other. Fan Erh Huang is the mode of depression or melancholy and is employed when expressing sympathy for another's troubles. The Fan Erh Huang has a fixed introduction from which the actor never departs. The Ching do not sing in Fan Erh Huang because they are men of action and not deep reflective thinkers.

Time is Pan Yen. Pan is the accented beat and yen the unaccented. Pan is given by the wooden clapper and Yen by the hsiao ku or tan p'i ku. The four main tempos are Man Pan or slow time for soliloquies and reflection; Yuan Pan, or medium time for recitative; K'uai Pan or quick time for moods of excitement or gaiety, and San Pan or free time to fit any situation in which the other three would be inappropriate. San Pan is employed for short phrases often used in asking for something.

Songs are sung in Hsi P'i, Erh Huang and Fan Erh Huang at set tempos and in fairly rigid musical patterns. The music is therefore less varied than that of Western opera and does not include distinctive arias. Styles vary only as to the mood expressed. The musical phrases are the same for all operas but have different words.

Music of Chinese is combined with acting, movement and gesture to make an integrated whole. The objective is not contrast but a blending to form one pattern. Each element complements the others. Since emotion is indicated by the style, the volume of the sound — so important to express feelings in Western opera — changes only slightly. Musical phrasing exists but is difficult to detect. Another reason for a consistently large level of volume is found in the tea house roots of Chinese opera. Audiences were noisy and thought of the tea house as a place to laugh and gossip. The drama was incidental. Any quiet moments of the play would have been totally last. Anyway, the audiences expected and demanded a high decibel count.

Voices of Chinese opera are of two kinds, one forced and the other natural. Singing in forced falsetto are the Ch'ing I, Hua Tan, Tan Ma Tan and Kuei Men Tan. The Hsiao Sheng also sings in falsetto and is the most difficult of all roles. For female roles, the falsetto is steady and pure. The Hsiao Sheng must express the voice change of adolescence. The extreme range places a great strain on the voice. Constraining of the larynx requires a long period of training. Voices often crack under the strain.

Ching, Lao Sheng, Lao Tan and Ch'ou sing in natural voices. But there is a difference between the Ching and the others. Ching voices reverberate through the facial bone structure to produce a deep resonant sound with a quality of gruffness. The Ching uses this voice in both singing and recitative. The distinctive booming quality resounds through the theater. The other natural­ voiced singers alter the tones of the Chinese language to produce a stylized sound.