Throughout the history of traditional Han Chinese music, “fan” (犯) has been used to elaborate on the phenomena and techniques of music change. The discussion of “fan” and the “zhēng” (正) issue are two sides of a coin. “Fandiao” (犯調) mentioned in this paper is an important creative technique of “Nanqu Qupai” (南曲曲牌) from the mid-17th century to the 18th century, through which intrinsic changes can be made and the structure and content of “qupai” (曲牌) music literature can be expanded or reduced.
In this paper,“fandiao”in nanqu was adopted as the music research object,
and Nanci Dinglü (《新編南詞定律》) , the earliest in the history of nanqu musical composition to have a note of the scale in gongchepu (工尺譜) next to the written lyrics, was the chosen material for analyzing musical composition. In particular, the Shang Diao (商調) and the four other “gongdiao” (宮調) which have “fan” relatedness with Shang Diao , five “gongdiao” in total, serve as the module for “fandiao” music analysis. Based on the edit sequence of“guoqu”(過曲) and “fandiao” listed for the respective “gongdiao” in Nanci Dinglü, the subject pattern of “guoqu” and the change in music and literature structure formed by “fandiao” were compared, while the music contemplation process of “fandiao” music creation was explored.
With “guoqu” music analysis as the starting point of analysis in this paper, the “fandiao” music pieces developed from “guoqu” were simultaneously compared. The scope of the music analysis included: the interaction between “qupai” tunes and lyrics writing rules, the interlinking of “guoqu” to form the composition of a musical “suits”, the relationship among the selected musical materials and their combination involved in “fandiao”, the intrinsic music connection technique of “fandiao”, and finally, the formation of the “fandiao” musical style, as well as new music-literature structure forms unfolded from “fandiao”.
Since Nanci Dinglü refers to musical compositions in the moveable do system, the focus of the “fandiao” technique seen in such musical compositions does not lie in the conversion of “gongdiao” between different sections but in connecting the tunes of sections of a preceding and succeeding “qupai” in order to change the tune of the original “qupai”, which is the primary technique in music change. There are three technical focuses of tune connection: First, the musical materials of “qupai” secionts can be alternately replaced in a preceding and succeeding “qupai” through their similarities to each other, which is similar to the form of “variation”; secondly, the sections of the preceding and succeeding “qupai” may vary in musical material, but through the “duo-qu” (度曲) technique in “qupai” music, the musical type at the connecting point of two tunes can be slightly changed, thereby facilitating a smooth connection between a preceding tune and a succeeding tune; thirdly, by responsing to the sentiments expressed in lyrics, the preceding and succeeding “qupai” may be deliberately and directly segmented into two tunes. Regardless of the technique, “fandiao” demonstrates highly skilled music composition. A composer must be able to fully grasp the musical literature form of various types of qupai to be able to design a reasonable and usable new music structure in “fandiao”. In addition, the musical purpose of “fandiao” is to make changes of the original “qupai” structure. Hence, when incorporating new “qupai”, the structure of the original “qupai” will also be enlarged or reduced accordingly. From the incorporated “qupai” design of “fandiao”, the multiple use of traditional tune styles is evident, and even the epitome of the “qupai series” (曲牌聯套) form can be seen.
Through the analysis of “qupai” selection by “fandiao”, it is obvious on the surface, that the “qupai” subordinate to different “gongdiao” from the perspective of literature form may actually possess a high degree of musical similarity. “Fandiao” composers grasped similar musical characteristics between “qupai”, through which different music structure contents were connected, changed, or presented. This technique is still circulating among the Han traditional music structural techniques nowadays.