Music education script

In Europe in the17-18th century,

In those countries where progressive thinking is active. Music has become a powerful tool for people to express their thoughts and feelings. Italians have found a way to sum up their feelings by voice; The Germans found a way to summarize philosophy and describe psychology with sound; In addition, grand musicals and heroic oratorios have been developed in France and Britain. This is the result of progressive artists' conscious pursuit of a new way of expression-the most dramatic way of expression, inspired by the Renaissance.

The artistic intention of opera is to inject lofty feelings into the audience and enrich it. However, this gorgeous Italian opera can't fully satisfy the audience's interest and emotion, so an art form called "living among miscellaneous and opera" came into being.

The first musical in history was john kay's The Beggar's Opera, which premiered in London on 1728. It was called "folk opera" at that time. It takes the songs that were widely circulated at that time as the main story, and satirizes the rulers and gorgeous Italian operas to some extent.

1750, a traveling troupe first staged a beggar's opera in the northern United States, which was the beginning of Americans' personal experience of musicals. After that, British comedy opera, Czech opera and Vienna operetta also made some types of attempts, which can be described as the embryonic form of dry musicals. But it was not until 1866 that the audience in new york was really moved by the impact of the musical The Black Devil. The Black Devil is therefore recognized as the first American musical. Spectacular scenes and a group of beautiful shirtless girls left a deep impression on the audience. Since then, enjoying the drama decorated with songs has become the most attractive form of entertainment.

In fact, the first use of the name "musical comedy" can be traced back to the late19th century, when producer George Edward staged this work at the Getty Theatre in London. 1893, an Englishman, S. Jones, created a play, music, singing and dancing, Happy Girls. The play is full of humor and drama, coupled with easy-to-understand music, which has aroused great repercussions. Especially when George and Edward brought super girls to new york, it was not only accepted by people, but also promoted the development of American musicals.

(B) the development of musicals

After more than half a century's multi-directional exploration after the middle of19th century, musicals gradually gained music and dance. By the middle of the twentieth century, drama combination has become a unique form of drama performance. He said that, in a word, it is to make music and dance give full play to their potential and integrate these factors into an organic art, supported by simple, unique and attractive plots and based on the actors' dramatic performances.

As the definition of musical in The Concise Encyclopedia Britannica shows, it is a kind of "dramatic performance" that can "stimulate emotions and give people entertainment". If drama itself is a comprehensive art, then musical is a "comprehensive" form of drama compared with drama.

Broadway musicals, with their rhythm, fantastic artistic effects and intoxicating dramatic stories, have become a unique "commodity for daily use" and have been recognized and loved by people all over the world. Even if its form itself comes from other categories, it still becomes a blooming artistic miracle. Americans proudly say: "America has given the world a new form!" " " .

Americans' excitement and support for musicals is "like Milan waiting for Puccini's new opera, or Vienna waiting for Brahms' new symphony". They are not only willing to pay a lot of money to see musicals and have a heated discussion at breakfast or parties, but also look forward to Logis' next work. Although musical was born and grew up in the United States, its contemporary art form and strong entertainment make it a performing art that audiences all over the world like.

Until today. In America. In European countries, as well as Japan and South Korea in Asia, musicals are competing in the cultural consumption market with strong vitality. Become a famous pearl of pop culture.

(C) Musical exploration period

Although the history of the United States is short, it has contributed a wide variety of entertainment to please human eyes.

19th century, cities mushroomed all over the United States, so there appeared two forms of entertainment for urban audiences: vaudeville (Vandevi 1 1c) and its more vulgar sister drama-burlesque. Light music suits everyone's taste. Weekly programs include acrobatics, magic, dancing and animal performances. Solos and burlesque, etc. There are many sources of vaudeville: special programs during intermission in legal theaters, performances of black songs, gadgets selling wild medicines, performances in British concert halls, and dirty and shameful "music salons" only for male audiences.

Tony Pasteby, the famous backstage juggler, opened his first theater on Broadway in new york City, promising to "provide proper and clean juggling performances" for the whole family to watch. His head was a sensation, and soon there were hundreds of imitators.

1900 nationalization of youth musicals. B·F· Keith and edward ablee control about 400 theaters in the east and west, including the legendary Palace Theater in new york, which is the goal of all jugglers. Although it imposes a wolf life on performers, it is a fertile ground for entertainment stars to grow up.

And funny performances are mainly for adult men. Not suitable for the whole family to watch, it was originally a funny joke in a legal drama performance, but later developed a tradition featuring semi-naked singers and vulgaria actors wearing baggy pants. This form reached its peak in World War I, when there were several thriving performing groups. Later, striptease appeared, which was considered bold at that time, but it didn't seem strong enough in the 1970 s, so it gradually disappeared.

Early American musicals

Although the Black Devil is the first musical in America in history, its appearance and performance are just a coincidence. In other words, this drama is more like a "high-end expensive miscellaneous", with plots: German comedies, girls dancing in tights, funny songs, costumes of Confucianism and goblins and so on. Although the play will last for five and a half hours, the audience enjoyed it very much.

As "European immigrants" in the United States, Americans who created a brand-new country imitated the original performing arts in Europe after the founding of the People's Republic of China. /kloc-Americans in the 0/9th century have a strong sense of inferiority. Influenced by the Confucianism of the previous generation, they think that culture must be imported from abroad. People believe that foreign goods, such as ballet, opera, operetta and drama, are all arts, and colorful scenes can sometimes be called art. The main reason why they do this is foreign goods. The real art that grows from a healthy countryside and has a sense of creative form is not on this issue at all. This embryonic American musical only stays in the stage of imitating and following European light music singing and dancing techniques, in which songs, dances, pantomime, burlesque and even juggling and magic can be used. The work has neither serious social content nor a unified and complete story.

1820 once a Londoner said, "Who's going to see Wei or American TV?" Early America was too uncivilized and life was too hard to develop many first-class plays because it just wanted to expand the world. At this time, the performance in the United States is far less than that in Europe, although the actors can compete with the best actors in Europe. As far as dance is concerned, there is no reformer like Fu Jin in the United States, and ballet is lifeless. Individual artists only show off their strength in materials limited by stereotypes. Although dance is still very popular in American theaters, it is limited to ballet that shows off skills. Tap dance and jump around when you are happy.

The first step to find materials from the mainland took place in 1890, when a comedy "A Journey to Chinatown" was being staged, which was another popular drama in19th century. This play proves that musicals can have American stories, so they can also have American songs, such as Song of Bawali Street.

This song was originally a beautiful folk song, an out-and-out American song; More importantly, this play not only contains American songs and stories, but also the American way of speaking, that is, all the characters speak in common sayings.

At the beginning of the 20th century, many theaters in new york were always dominated by the business of performance agents such as David Belas and Charles froman, and the stage art design at any cost. Victor. Hobert's beautiful operetta, George Cohen's brass band performance and Flores. Siegfried's wonderful topless performance attracted the audience the most. The response is the best.

(V) Musical operetta era

Many people think that operetta brought to America by European composers is the root of Broadway musicals. Due to years of European operas such as Gilbert and Sullivan's English comedy operas, plus other geniuses such as John. The influence of Strauss's Viennese operetta and Baking Bach's French operetta automatically gave the audience a set of criteria for judging the quality of music, which also affected the audience's appreciation taste: meaningful plots, beautiful music and elegant lyrics became the goals pursued by the creators.

Perhaps it is because composers' works are more likely to show the particularity of dramatic forms, and composers in the early 20 th century are more famous than lyricists. Moreover, the composition of operetta requires well-trained musicians, such as Victor Hobert (1898 Lucky Prophet); Fritz Rechar (merry widow,1907); Rudolph Fleming (19 12 firefly); Sigmund romberg (19 17 May); Emmerich Kalman (1926 Countess Maritz) ...

These Central European composers became the most outstanding figures in this period. Victor Hobert is the greatest hero in the operetta era of China.

The Italian street songs in Hobert's Naughty Little Mary, with soprano solo and chorus, are easily distinguished as operettas rather than musical comedies. One of the elements of original opera is to have imagination, unfamiliar roles, exaggerated language and stay away from the audience's experience. Naughty little Mary was arranged in Italian style.

Creole style (West Indies); The red windmill is Dutch style; Song of the Desert is of African style; "New Moon" is French style; Countess Maritz is a European Hungarian-style person-such examples are endless. Although they are old and dull now, they have made great contributions in the first few years of this century. They let the audience get used to good tunes, lyrics and fresh and moving scripts, but the most important thing is to reach a new level of musical achievement.

The soundtrack of these operas is not just a collection of songs. Musically, they are operated by heart, closer to the grand opera and even the finale. Everyone sings in the ups and downs of the plot, and different feelings are sung at the same time-a really popular counterpoint. Therefore, Broadway audiences never accept to appreciate the grand opera, but through the small opera, they also understand and appreciate the complex composition of music to some extent.

In the 1920s, operetta and musical comedy developed greatly. 1927, Guillaume, Cohen, and Oscar Shuangmstein produced The Vortex Palace (the earliest work among outstanding musicals that are still being staged). In a sense, it is also a real opera. The play has the theme of Americanization, but in the past, it described a certain aspect of American life, which was far from the experience of Broadway audiences. This is an old story about the Mississippi River. The actors use a highly localized dialect instead of a proverb, although this proverb does not refer to a strong southern accent. Dialect refers not only to the rude Broadway dialect, but also to the natural American language we are familiar with. Musically, it is also a small opera, because it does not use Broadway's "music slang". In other words, it doesn't use jazz, which is the main factor of American pop music. The songs in the play are close to artistic songs, but far from slang songs.

Under the influence of Cohen and Hammerstein's The Vortex Palace, Broadway musicals began to try modern drama, and the directors of musicals began to create more stories and songs, thus enriching the forms of musicals.

(6) The birth of RENUE (an interesting irony of current affairs)

Since the beginning of the 20th century, producers of musicals have been consciously cultivating their own musical stars, which is related to the Hollywood film industry in a sense, that is, the so-called "star system". Its meaning means that movie entrepreneurs or musical producers take the initiative to discover and train actors and make them idols in the eyes of the audience; When the audience is fascinated by a star, the producer or producer will write a script according to the performance characteristics and style of the star in order to achieve the purpose of profiteering.

In the twentieth century, this "star system" was established and developed, which also provided a good opportunity for singers, dancers and comedians to perform on stage and show their talents. Under such conditions, Revue obtained the important factors of birth.

Revue is a kind of song and dance performance without a complete story, which coexists with operetta in the same era. In other words, this is also an era of burlesque and vaudeville prosperity. Although Rcvue is different from juggling and VariCty, Revue is also a kind of "juggling" in another sense, which thrives on the music stage with incomplete stories and popular ways. Early famous directors included Haggard Short, John Mary Henderson (a vivid play of Greenwich Forest) and Vincent Minieri (Wandering Style). Playwrights include Howard Dietz (Bobby), Arthur Schiavoz, E·Y· Harburg, harold arlen and Winlong Duck. There are some excellent actors, such as w·C· Fields (Siegfried, George White's TV series Bobby) and the talented girls of Siegfried Song and Dance Troupe. This new way has swept the city.

Although this song and dance has no plot, it also introduces a connecting clue. No matter how weak it is, it may be more convenient to joke with the so-called upper class, make the drama or opera funny with this irony, imitate popular things, or stab people in the back for popular scandals-these are still the main materials of our singing and dancing today.

Jazz entered the musical.

The greatest contribution of singing and dancing is to introduce another form of music into the stage-jazz. Jazz is a kind of popular music that originated in New Orleans in the southern United States at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century. It is the product of the long-term integration of traditional music brought by African Americans and European music. This kind of music has lost its pure African musical style, so it has a new name.

The greatest influences on jazz are blues, ragtime music and small brass bands. "Blues is a black American folk song, often accompanied by a guitar. Most of the lyrics and tunes have sad meanings, which later developed into a mixture of sadness and joy. Ragtime music is a kind of piano music. This music style was the most popular in the 1920s and 1920s, but it originated from a "mob" dance performed by black bard. Tracing back to the source, this kind of performance is an entertainment activity in which white people play black people and perform black songs and dances. But after the liberation of slaves, they also formed a wandering troupe to compete with white singers and dancers. This kind of music is familiar to people in the form of mob dance or piano music that entertain guests in salons, casinos and snack bars. Ragtime music is the closest to European style in origin, at least with traces of African music. Probably because of this, ragtime music has always had a great influence on the commercial pop music owned by white people at that time.

Early jazz and blues music originated from songs sung in fields, plantations, docks, turpentine collection camps and prisons. They have echoes of Africa in the past that haunt people's minds.

Simply put, jazz is a kind of mixed music. We can find American folk songs, black soul music and grievances, as well as various village rhymes. This "cocktail" music has a history of only one hundred years from its origin to now.

One of the characteristics of jazz is its diversity. First of all, it has various styles. It has been changing almost all the time since 100. Jazz has more than a dozen styles, including thick lines and countless thin lines. This is also an attribute of pop music. The second is the change in the process of playing, and improvisation is its typical feature. For example, a piece of music begins with several people playing a melody together, which is played by different music together; Subsequently, the soloist improvised variations according to the development of the main theme. Each round is called a "round", which is a different way of playing. It depends on who has spent more time. "Spin" is the real charm of jazz.

Improvised jazz is also called "hot jazz". As for "Cold Jazz", it is a product of commercialization. This jazz is no longer a solo, but a concert. "Rotation" becomes fixed, and "flower work" is also programmed in advance. If you rehearse in advance, the performance will be much more detailed than "Heat Sense Map". Just a little fresh. Both kinds of jazz optimism have their own audiences today.

Another feature of jazz is a strong sense of movement. Especially "Hot Jazz", when performing, the audience can't sit still. The ever-changing "round play" and the acoustics of different musical instruments seize your soul and shock your heart, and the stage and the stage are almost integrated. This sense of motivation is driven by the unique rhythm of jazz; Melody is second. The main instruments of jazz band are trumpet and piano. Interestingly, the piano of a jazz band needs to be tuned incorrectly to sound good, because it is the kind of movement on the piano. It is really a happy art!

The first unforgettable great song and dance was named "Watch Your Step" and was performed at the New Amsterdam Theatre on 19 14. The biggest contributor to this matter is Alvin Berlin. He made that kind of fine syncopated song, which made the American music stage and jazz music inseparable forever. Jazz has become a musical idiom.

Many composers also introduce jazz factors into their works. George gershwin pioneered a symphony jazz style.

By the 1920s and 1930s, American musicians and playwrights had turned their creative themes to basic music, and American popular jazz was used to enrich their creations. In addition to the dances of European immigrants, dance also absorbed a lot of jazz dance and tap dance developed from black dance. Good Lady, written by Gershwin brothers from 65438 to 0924, initiated the jazz dance style of Broadway musicals in the 1920s, which also made Fred astaire and his sister Adler the leading singing and dancing stars on Broadway. At this point, American musicals have opened a new era, and their works have gradually matured.

(viii) Musical comedy era

What is the relationship between singing and dancing and musical comedy? A song and dance can have no plot and no script, but as a musical comedy, the script is an indispensable foundation. However, musical comedy does learn a lot from singing and dancing: it learns how to play with scripts and how to seek unity from change. This is also one of the biggest tricks of musicals: it gives the audience a lasting and moving story, but it also makes them feel that they have enjoyed the whole evening's entertainment-dancing and burlesque. Emotional singing and beautiful women-all these relaxed gimmicks have been woven into a good story by clever directors. There are changes in unity, which is a key course for musical comedy to learn singing and dancing, and it is also a great progress.

This change is closely related to the change of American art climate at that time. At that time, more and more young drama lovers despised the commercial style of Broadway and were encouraged by the success of European and British "art" companies, such as Abby Theatre in Ireland. They are determined to provide more valuable plays for American TV audiences. There are many "small theaters" all over the country, which are specially used to stage and publicize the serious works of contemporary writers.

In 199 1, several predecessors of the small theater movement organized the new york Theatre Association, with the aim of bringing serious contemporary drama to Broadway. This organization has a great influence on the development of American drama. In addition to introducing new stage arts, performances and directors, guilds. It also encourages a new generation of playwrights to study American life. The most famous ones are O 'Neill, William, Thoreau, Maxwell Anderson and Robert. Thurwood-they are all Pulitzer Prize winners.

The American music scene ended childhood and entered adolescence confidently and tactfully. Since then, a large number of talented people have appeared in the creative team. Besides Alvin Palin, there is also Guillaume Cohen ("Great, Etienne" in 19 15), who is a rare melodist. In addition, george gershwin was awarded the "toe dance"; Vincent Zuman (1925 "Bibo loves boats"); Cole potter (1930 "new york people"); Richard Super Dong Logis (the dearest enemy in 1925) was the creative genius of this period.

The music stage, like all growing children, has thrived and made continuous progress in its own achievements, forming an artistic style that unfolds the plot in the entertainment of music, adopts American melody, colloquially talks, improves the level of music and lyrics, and embodies unity and diversity. Musical comedy is more popular than operetta, and it is also different from current satirical drama because it always revolves around a story. At this time, musical comedy began to pay attention to an extremely important thing: how to integrate songs into the plot.

Oh, Kay, co-written by Gershwin brothers from 65438 to 0926, is regarded as the most typical musical comedy in the 1920s. There is a lovely song in the play called My Watcher. Although this song is beautiful and pleasant to listen to, the lyrics don't seem to be reasonably deduced from the plot, as if they were written before the script was written, but this mistake seems negligible to the relaxed and neurotic audience in the 1920s, as they said: What's the difference? The lyrics are noble and fresh. The songs are even more remarkable. Another ditty in the play is called "Clap Your Hands", and the traces that are inconsistent with the plot are more obvious. This song has no other function except providing jokes. This joke, this exciting tone, is really Gershwin's invention Making a joke with something unrelated to the plot shows that American stage music has really achieved its own character and reached a mature level. This pure singing and dancing technique is absolutely impossible in a ditty. These are too sudden, too simple and too colloquial in the ditty. However, this is a great progress in the development of musical comedy.

With the spread of songs, the lyrics of George M. Gao Shuang and Alvin Berlin became popular, and people gradually realized the importance of lyrics. In addition, the outstanding contributions of other practitioners, such as P·G· Hudeheis, Otto Habbah, Oscar Shuangmstein, Ella Gershwin, B·G· Dehele Via, have raised the lyrics creation to the same status as music creation.

1929 the stock market crash and the ensuing great depression were felt in almost every aspect of the entertainment circle, but drama was the hardest hit. Since then, musicals began to experience a period of depression in the mid-1920s: suddenly few people performed and bought tickets; In addition, movies began to enter the era of "talking movies". Warner Film Studio is in trouble because it doesn't have its own cinema projection line. Therefore, they concentrated all their energy on the experiment of inventing talking movies. At first, the experiment did not bring success. Later, the company chose a popular musical "Jazz Singer" for a more thorough sound experiment, which was released on 1927. The film tells the tearful family background of the old juggler Al Sheng Qiao, and tells the story of how the son of an Orthodox synagogue choir became a successful stage star. In addition to six episodes and some sound effects, the most important thing in this film is that the protagonist Sheng Qiao said a few lines: "Wait a minute, wait a minute, I tell you, you can't hear anything." These are lines. Announced the birth of a truly talking movie in the world movie history) Because the movie ticket price is relatively cheap, people began to walk into the cinema, which made the movie a great success economically. All these have once again forced musicals to improve their quality in order to win a small but selective audience. Adventure-loving playwrights, performance agents and actors lead a subsistence and unstable life in the small commercial "off broadway" theater. The new theater, which is regularly replaced by the troupe, is very prosperous in cities like Minneapolis. The number and scale of colleges and universities in China are constantly expanding. Summer joint-stock companies and dinner theaters, which rotate in fixed theaters in summer, bring their majors to the suburbs and towns of the city. If the twenties can be called the adolescence of musical comedy, then the thirties can represent its sober youth. The serious trend of the times does not mean that our musical dramas are no longer funny and entertaining, but are more inclined to satirize the society and consciously implicate various problems of the government and society. Musicals are explored on the road of entertainment industry. The popular song and dance form has changed from a single story clue to a humorous and satirical creative style, which also provides a good opportunity for singers, dancers and comedians to show themselves. 1935, as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal, the "Federal Drama Project" established by the Engineering Promotion Agency provided jobs for about 1 10,000 unemployed dramatists in four years. In this way, all kinds of dramas, from Greek classical dramas to "fiery" left-wing satirical dramas, were sent to 25 million Americans all over the country, about two-thirds of whom had never seen a professional drama performance before. It was also during this period that a large number of American dramas won audiences in European cinemas for the first time. This kind of music style with serious social satire hidden under the lively and funny appearance lasted until the 1940s. Flores Siegfried was the first person to appear. He stood out from the crowd with his elaborate short message, and he exported 2 1 version. (Siegfried had 65,438+06 movies when he was alive) George White and Ernest Carroll also created their own live dramas. Due to the decline of the national economic situation and the increase of the threat of war in the 1930s, musicals became a stage for people to show their cynical attitude towards the world and were accepted by more adults. Especially "Introduction to Huai Army" written by Molly Riscade of George S. Kaufman in 193 1 year); Mausshardt (1932 "Facing Music"); This feeling is even more profound in the music script written by Kyle Blease Sturth (Cradle of Restlessness, 1938).

In fact, the most serious social satire is the hilarious Introduction of Huai Army, a great Gershwin comedy, which appeared in 193 1, representing the spirit of the 1930s. Its excellent script was co-written by George S. Kaufman and Molly Riscade. It is worth mentioning that it is also the first music script to win a Pulitzer Prize! This was unimaginable before. This is a wonderful story, and in some aspects of its seriousness and funniness, no other drama can achieve this: brilliant songs, completely integrated into the plot; A highly americanized theme; Natural American spoken language; Sharp and brilliant lyrics; There are many changes in the unified style-in other words, this musical represents a peak in the history of musical. In this musical, the technique of operetta is applied to make a creative American drama, which can even keep pace with Gilbert and Sullivan's most wonderful opera "The Emperor". The play is rich in music: counterpoint, notation and numerous recitations. But it is still a musical comedy, not an opera, because it meets the requirements of all musical comedies: it has a beautiful American melody, its characters are neither old nor eccentric, and common sayings are used in singing oral parts. Of course, technically, it draws lessons from many operas, but its soul is the soul of musical comedy.

Through this technical combination of opera and song and dance, music has reached a more serious level, and the requirements for composers are higher: he has to write long music scenes, counterpoint, orchestration and so on, in other words, much more than writing 32 bars of music. Pianist Mark Brisbane entered Broadway in a unique way-the cradle of restless music. Kurt Weil dedicated everything he learned from Germany to Broadway and wrote The Obsessed Woman (194 1). Gershwin himself studied counterpoint and fugue, and entered the Opera House with his Ji Bo and Bass (1935). This is a well-known opera, sung from beginning to end, which shows that Gershwin has entered a serious creative state.

Porgy and Bass and Oklahoma by richard rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein (1943) are musical comedies in a mature sense. Since then, some famous plays have appeared, such as South Pacific (1949), My Fair Lady (1956), west side story (1957) and Fiddler on the Roof (/kloc-

In the early forties, due to the great success of "Oklahoma" by Logis and Hammerstein, songs, songs, dances and stories were perfectly integrated, and storytelling was emphasized. As a result, there have been many musicals adapted from novels, including masterpieces by Shakespeare, Bernard Shaw, Cervantes, Dickens, Dumas, Mark Twain and Eugene O 'Neill. With the development of musicals, the way creators tell stories is more personalized and thoughtful. Some directors gradually revealed their talents in the competition, among them Goyle.