Li Jinhui

Li Jinhui

Li Jinhui (1891-1967) was the founder of Chinese pop music. Li Jinhui was born in Xiangtan, Hunan Province. He learned Guqin and plucked instruments from childhood. His hometown folk music and local popular drama music such as Xiang opera, Huagu opera and Han Opera had a profound influence on him. In 1927, he founded the "Chinese song and dance school" and later the "Chinese song and Dance Troupe". In 1929, he organized the "Moon Song and Dance Troupe" and toured all over the country. In 1931, "Mingyue song and Dance Troupe" was incorporated into Lianhua film company. After 1949, he worked as a composer in Shanghai art film studio and died in Shanghai in 1967.

Personal profile

Li Jinhui (September 5, 1891 February 15, 1967) is a child song and dance music writer and the father of modern Chinese song and dance.

Before 1910, I studied in primary school and middle school in my hometown. I had extensive contact with folk music and studied national musical instruments. He was influenced by the national traditional music culture since childhood. After graduating from Changsha Normal University in 1912, he worked as a staff member, music teacher, etc. in Beijing and Changsha. He attached great importance to the education of folk music, and tried to match classical Chinese lyrics with traditional tunes to cultivate students' interest in folk music. In 1916, he participated in the activities of Peking University Music troupe and was the editor in chief of civilian weekly. During this period, he wrote two kinds of song Collections: one is the new edition of civilian music, which is mainly instrumental music; the other is folk music collection, which is mainly acoustic music. From 1920 to 1927, he edited children's weekly in Shanghai and founded the Chinese Academy of song and dance. In 1928, he organized the "Chinese song and Dance Troupe" to perform in Nanyang. He went to Chongqing during the Anti Japanese War and was a member of the editorial board of the Chinese film studio in 1940. After the founding of the people's Republic of China, he worked in Shanghai Film Studio for a long time.

member of family

Li Jinhui, a native of Xiangtan, Hunan Province, graduated from Changsha Normal University in his early years. His father, song'an, was a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty. There are eight sons in the Li family: Jin Xi, linguist; Jin Hui, musician; Jin Yao, mining expert; Jin Hui, musician;

Brocade

Shu, education expert; Jin Jiong, railway bridge expert; Jin Ming, writer; Jin Guang, musician; Jin Yang, writer. It can be said that the family is full of talents.

Life of the characters

Early creation

In his youth, Li Jinhui was obsessed with the new music movement and advocated the joint development of new music and new literature movement. Based on this understanding, he created a large number of children's operas, dances and songs. These works are popular not only in mainland China, but also in Hong Kong and Nanyang. "Sparrow and the child", "grape Fairy", "fairy sister", "poor autumn fragrance", "moonlit night" and other songs are very popular. Most of the works in this period focused on protecting children's creative ability and opposing feudal education. The words were easy to understand and the music language was concise, vivid and lively. They inherited and developed the tradition of school music advocated by Shen Xingong and Li Shutong. At the same time, he is an expert in using folk music materials. In these children's songs, folk songs, tunes, Qupai and so on all become the creative materials. Li Jinhui is undoubtedly a pioneer in the nationalization of song creation. After children's singing and dancing, Li Jinhui turned to the creation of pop music. "Maomaoyu" and "sister I love you" are his early pop music works, marking the birth of Chinese pop songs.

Li Jinhui turned to pop music creation and achieved success, which has its corresponding social background. At that time, Shanghai had the characteristics of capitalist commercial city. Western pop music, especially American pop music, flowed into China through dance halls, movies, radio and other media. There is a demand for pop music in the cultural life of the citizens. Under such circumstances, Li's pop music came into being.

In 1928, Li Jinhui led the "Chinese song and Dance Troupe" to perform in Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaya, Singapore and other places

Has become a major program with his children's song and dance. In 1929, due to financial difficulties, he stayed in Singapore and was unable to return home, so he accepted an order from a Book Company. In a short period of time, he wrote 100 popular songs and sent them back to Shanghai, and Shanghai Wenming book company published 16 song collections. "Taohuajiang", "special express" and other songs became a great success at this time. Mingyue song and dance troupe is an important group in the development of Chinese pop music. The first generation of Chinese singers such as Zhou Xuan, Bai Hong and Yan Hua, and pop music writers such as Li Jinguang and Yao Min are all in this group. Nie Er also embarked on the road of music creation from here.

From 1931 to 1936, Li Jinhui also provided music for more than a dozen films, such as fairies on earth, most of which were pop songs. At the same time, he also engaged in ballroom music, jazz folk melody. At that time, "EMI", "victory" and other record companies recorded and published a large number of his pop songs. Li Jinhui's pop music creation has established the basic style of Chinese pop music, that is, the combination of folk melody and Western dance rhythm. At that time, there were mainly tango, Foxtrot and so on. The orchestration also imitates the style of American jazz. For example, "maomaoyu", "Peach Blossom Red", "special express" and other works have a low style, some of which are quite vulgar and cater to the low taste of the ordinary people, and they were widely criticized at that time. Nie Er once wrote articles denouncing these works. It can be said that Chinese pop music did not take a healthy road at the beginning. In addition to the mediocrity of the content, the shoddy production of music, the coquettish and coquettish singing all brought bad influence to the later development. But his successful experience in dealing with the relationship between foreign forms and national traditions in pop music is worth learning. Before the outbreak of the Anti Japanese War, except for a few art songs, Chinese song creation could be roughly divided into two branches. One is pop music represented by Li Jinhui, the other is mass songs represented by Nie Er and Xian Xinghai.

The change of music style

During the Anti Japanese War, inspired by the patriotic enthusiasm of the whole nation, he composed Anti Japanese songs such as "attack forward", which marked the change of writing style.

After the founding of the people's Republic of China, he worked as a composer in Shanghai art film studio and wrote some film music of art films.

Main achievements

The first children's song

At the beginning of last century, China's children's music education was very poor, only in the church can we hear singing; most of the children's songs in music class use foreign ready-made tunes and fill in Chinese lyrics. Even the popular song of the Northern Warlords: "down with the great powers, down with the great powers, except for the warlords, except for the warlords, the national revolution is successful, the national revolution is successful, sing together, sing together." Actually also borrowed a French Lullaby "John brother" tune.

China has its own children's song and dance music, which started with Li Jinhui. Old people will remember a song called "poor autumn fragrance". In a society where the poor have not been liberated, people sing this song to shed tears. According to the analysis of modern Chinese music historians, this kind of song is extremely simple but highly skillful. It is the reflection of the author's soul in music. Li Jinhui is not a professional in music, but he was obsessed with music when he was young. His hometown's Huagu opera and Hunan opera gave him rich music nourishment. He learned a variety of musical instruments without any teacher. On the eve of the May 4th movement, he went to Beijing, where he loved Jingkun elegant rhyme on stage and folk rap and singing on Tianqiao. At this time, Cai Yuanpei, the president of Peking University, carried out the principle of "education without discrimination" and allowed outsiders to listen in. Li Jinhui also became an auditor at Peking University. Of course, there are many of his fellow townsmen in Hunan, such as Mao Zedong and Shen Congwen. Cai Yuanpei may not have expected the impact of the spectacular group of onlookers on China, but Li Jinhui, who originally specialized in fine arts, began to promote Mandarin with music, and finally devoted himself to music, which is exactly Cai Yuanpei's name. The predecessor of Beijing No.27 middle school was the Peking Kongde school founded by Cai Yuanpei. Li Jinhui used to be a teacher here. On one occasion, Cai Yuanpei visited the school and found that the school anthem adopted the Japanese national anthem. He immediately found Li Jinhui and encouraged him to create new songs with national characteristics. This is the turning point of Li Jinhui's music creation. Li Jinhui is from Xiangtan, Hunan Province. He was born in a scholarly family, eight brothers are very successful, known as "Li's eight steeds". Li Jinxi, the eldest brother, was a teacher of Mao Zedong in Changsha first normal school. In the May 4th New Culture Movement, he devoted himself to the reform of language and writing and the creation of new education and new culture. Influenced by his elder brother, Li Jinhui also participated in the Mandarin Movement and created a unique way to promote Mandarin with music.

Today people are familiar with children's song and dance music, is Li Jinhui's first. He believes that learning Mandarin should start with singing, which benefits generations. In order to promote Mandarin, Li Jinhui wrote more than 20 song and dance performance songs and 11 children's song and dance plays for children. Children's song and dance performance is a kind of song and dance performance with short length, simple plot and no explanation; children's song and dance drama has a complete story, including song and dance. According to the characteristics of Li Jinhui's songs, they were immeasurably popular with children at that time.

In 1921, Li Jinhui worked for Zhonghua Book Company and edited a variety of children's magazines and children's books. At the same time, the Mandarin School run by Li Jinhui holds a summer "Mandarin seminar" every year. Most of the students are principals or Chinese teachers from all over the world. Taking this opportunity, Li Jinhui taught them the songs and dances he created and collected a large number of folk songs and ballads. From the folk, and spread to the folk, Li Jinhui's creation has a strong vitality.

From the promotion of Mandarin to the creation of a new musical form, Li Jinhui's efforts have become the focus of the May 4th movement

Chinese PinYin : Li Jin Hui