"Fragrance Drifting to Heaven" - Preliminary Discussion about Falun Gong Music
[PureInsight.org] While
millions of Falun Gong practitioners are safeguarding their basic human
dignity with their lives in China, the practitioners of "Truthfulness,
Compassion and Tolerance" worldwide have quietly opened up a new human
culture. From "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance International Art
Exhibit" to Falun Gong music, Falun Gong practitioners have brought a
new chapter to human civilization and lifted people out of the
confusion brought with the turn of the century. Perhaps these rare and
beautiful flowers of the artistic world have yet to become well known
to people, but their formidable vitality has already indisputably
foretold the future trend of human civilization. When these brand new
artistic varieties are presented to us, full observation will enable us
to build more awareness about the trend of future civilization. Based
on this consideration, this article will make some preliminary
observations about Falun Gong music.
First of all, let's briefly review the history of the development of
Falun Gong music. Falun Gong music first appeared as music that
accompanies Falun Gong exercises. To help the practitioner enter
tranquility while doing the exercises, Falun Gong purposefully adopted
accompanying music. Through listening to slow and graceful folk music,
filthy thoughts are filtered out of practitioners' minds. Eventually,
the practitioners are supposed to obtain pure and clean minds so as to
achieve the best effect from practicing the exercises. The accompanying
music for exercises laid a foundation for the future development of
Falun Gong music, which centers around the theme of cultivation
practice and uses music as a link to connect the human body and the
universe together effectively.
With the rapid growth of Falun Gong in China in the mid-1990s, two
representative music works appeared following the exercise-accompanying
music - Pudu and Jishi, and quickly became symbols of Falun Gong. These
two melodious pieces of Chinese philharmonic orchestra works have
slightly different styles in that the former manifests a vigorous
spirit in its bright melodies, as if symbolizing an established theme
traversing the long billowing river of human history from the ancient
times to today. The latter is a little heavier but gentler, making one
think about an enlightened beings' merciful and low-hung gaze from the
heaven.
The two pieces are based on different traditional Chinese melodic lines
and unfold Falun Gong's mighty view of the universe. Pudu is based on
the Gong (palace) tune. The Gong tune symbolizes "King" in the ancient
times, and also has the meaning of "Heaven;" Jishi, on the other hand,
is based on the Shang (business) tune. The Shang tune symbolizes
"officials or followers" in Chinese traditional music, and has the
meaning of "Earth." The Gong tune music is bright and masculine, while
the Shang tune music is relatively dim, which shows the beauty of being
submissive and gentle. From the supplementary coexistence of "King" and
"Officials," "Heaven" and "Earth," one can see Falun Gong's mighty view
of the universe. At the same time, they also contain the deep inner
meanings of saving the world's people.
Since 1999 when the Chinese Communist Party began to brutally persecute
Falun Gong, music has become a powerful tool for Falun Gong
practitioners to clarify the truth. With the participation of more and
more professionally trained musicians, Falun Gong music started to
develop vigorously from then on. Many different musical expressions
have been used. For instance, western musicians composed the
large-scale symphonic poem, "Falun Dafa is Good," and the piano solo
version of Pudu. Chinese musicians have utilized traditional Chinese
musical instruments such as the zheng (a Chinese zither with 25
strings), the xiao (a vertical bamboo flute), the erhu solo, and the
flute in solo pieces based on cultivation practice themed music such as
the zheng solo piece, "Cultivation Practice," and the xiao solo
"Touring with Gods." Many musical forms, such as Bejing Opera, small
chorus, and vocal duet, have also been used to present Falun Gong's
deep respect of the traditional Chinese cultural heritage and to expose
the truth of the persecution. One thing that deserves special mention
is that western Falun Gong practitioners have used "protest music" that
already existed in western music, to express hope for peace and protest
against the persecution in a popular musical language. A representative
song of this type is "Dove High Over the Storm."
The content of Falun Gong music at this point has transcended the scope
of personal cultivation practice. Instead it involves all sentient
beings in the universe. The compositions and performances are based on
the theme of saving the world's people and beings. One thing that needs
to be made clear is that, although Falun Gong music during this period
has some similarities in themes to religious music, especially
Christian music, because of the uniqueness of the composers as well as
the non-religious nature of Falun Gong, it doesn't take the path of
creating specialized music and specialized themes like Christian music.
Instead it has taken a kind of folk way of existence throughout. In
contrast to western religious music's clear theme of being saved by God
and making atonement, Falun Gong music includes a wide arrange of
content. It includes understandings obtained through personal
cultivation practice, concerns about the universe, history and real
life, as well as efforts to clarify the truth a about Falun Gong and
oppose the persecution. In the mean time, because Falun Gong
cultivation practice doesn't have religious forms, its music is not
religious rite music. Also because of this, Falun Gong music can be
played a variety of settings and is suitable for popularization and
spread throughout modern society.
From the angle of spreading, Falun Gong music has its own
characteristics. First, the main body of Falun Gong practitioners is in
China. Because of the Chinese communist government's crackdown, Falun
Gong music cannot spread publicly through legal channels in China.
Therefore the Internet has become the main channel to spread Falun Gong
music in Mainland China. There is a music section in every major Falun
Gong website, with the main one being the Celestial Melody on
PureInsight.org. In addition, overseas Falun Gong practitioners have
been letting their voices be heard by the world through hosting theme
concerts, parades, street performances and the global Chinese New Year
Galas. The most noticeable ones are the Waist Drum Team and the
"Celestial Marching Band" organized by Falun Gong practitioners. The
former takes waist drum, a traditional musical instrument of the
central Shanxi plain in China, as the main instrument, and is mostly
used in parades. The latter is a marching band newly set up by Falun
Gong practitioners. There are three major bands based in New York, San
Francisco, and Toronto. Different from the waist drum team, the
"Celestial Marching Band" is a military band mainly composed of western
wind instruments and percussion instruments. It plays music mainly
composed by Falun Gong practitioners as well as some European and
American melodies. Both the waist drum team and the "Celestial Marching
Band" are made up of Falun Gong practitioners. Being able to organize
such large-scale bands overseas whose members are mainly Chinese Falun
Gong practitioners has written a major chapter in Chinese music
history. What needs to be made clear is that both the Waist Drum Team
and the Celestial Marching Band participate in overseas community
activities or parades. The real-time performance has become an
important way through which Falun Gong music interacts with the
audience, and therefore the waist drum team and the marching band have
become the most powerful way of spreading Falun Gong music.
Finally let's briefly discuss the cultural function of Falun Gong
music. Most traditional music undertakes a certain kind of cultural
function. It is the same with Falun Gong music. First, no matter
whether the theme is about personal cultivation understandings or
truth-clarification and anti-persecution, the composition of Falun Gong
music is based upon "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance" - the
human race's most basic moral principles. When the idea of lifting the
human nature permeates from beginning to end during the entire process
of music composition, the soul of everyone who hears it will be
purified to a certain degree. Music Record, an ancient Chinese classics
text, states, "Music is for someone who has a heart. Only someone who
is ethical can receive pleasure from it. Therefore, if someone only
hears the sound but not the music, then he is an animal. If someone
only hears the music but doesn't know how to appreciate it, then he is
one of the common people. Only a man of noble character gets the
pleasure from listening to music." The truth of music promoted by
ancient Chinese music theory lies exactly in music's intrinsic function
of purifying human nature and elevating morality. With the edification
of music, it helps to connect a human with the external universe,
effectively making human life and the natural universe become one, so
as to achieve the goal of "Unity of Heaven and Man." This point matches
what Falun Gong music generates in modern society perfectly. We have
also seen that in modern musical culture, especially after society has
become commodity-driven, music has been commercialized to a great
extent. As a part of human commercial activity, its attribute of being
a commodity of entertainment has gradually replaced its innate function
of civilizing sentient beings. Under such circumstances, the music
composed by Falun Gong practitioners not only helps the composers
enhance their realms in the course of their cultivation practice, it
also has re-connected music with the life process of human beings and
the meaning of life. It has re-enabled music to become an effective
chain that connects life, nature and the universe together in an
organic manner. Therefore, if the development of modern musical culture
has somehow created a break between music and life, then Falun Gong
music has effectively filled up the crack, and also simultaneously made
it possible for humans to return to their traditions.
Secondly, given the intrinsic needs of anti-persecution, Falun Gong
music has paved a new way for Chinese musical culture. In the history
of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as a result of the din made by
the CCP's propaganda tools, traditional Chinese musical culture has
forced to become political and serve as a tool for the CCP. Since
the publication of "Speech at the Forum of Art and Literature in Yanan"
in 1942, serving the CCP has become the established direction for
Chinese musical culture. Due to the CCP's tight control in the
ideological domain, as well as its strict policy of 'readapting"
Chinese folk songs and traditional operas, the traditional Chinese
music has gradually lost the national characteristic it was supposed to
have. Moreover, during the "Cultural Revolution," the so-called
"Revolutionary Model Opera" became the entirety of the whole nation's
musical life and cut off the connections between Chinese people and
traditional arts even more thoroughly. Starting in the early 1990s,
such music was once brought back and remained popular for a while.
Under the control of totalitarian ideology, Chinese music has suffered
from an unprecedented catastrophe, primarily in the main consciousness
of the national music being replaced by the "Proletariat Revolution"
ideology. When Falun Gong practitioners composed a great quantity of
musical works to clarify the truth, especially those related to the
"Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party," while eliminating the
distorted thoughts instilled into people's minds, it has also helped
pave a practical way for our national musical culture to return to its
true identity and main consciousness.
There is a well-known saying in the West: "Humanity before
Nationality." As a brand new cultural phenomenon, Falun Gong music is
based on the foundation of the universal value of "Truthfulness,
Compassion and Forbearance." Therefore it has brought together music
composers of different races, nationalities and cultural backgrounds.
Some of them have received strict professional training, while others
are ordinary music lovers. It is a unique variety of music that has
worldwide significance while being based on the traditional Chinese
cultural spirit. In recovering the main consciousness of Chinese music,
it has also become the most valuable contribution of the Chinese music
culture to the world. When history looks back on the long river of
Chinese music history, the Chinese people will not regret the loss of
the Tang Dynasty music style any more and also will not feel deeply
ashamed of the contemporary Chinese music that has been destroyed by
the CCP. Falun Gong music will no-doubtfully lead a new renaissance of
culture with its unique spiritual embodiment, and at the same time
provide another dimension for us to understand the characteristics of
the universe, "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance."
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2006/7/31/38799.html