Ta'er Temple Flower Stand Music

Qinghai
🎧  Listen to Introduction

For a long time, a unique butter sculpture has been blooming on the beautiful Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. With butter as the raw material and bright colors, it is used to shape various Buddha statues, figures, birds and animals, flowers, trees, pavilions and towers, etc., which are used for worship and offering. Among the many temples of all sizes that make and display butter sculptures on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the butter sculptures of the Ta'er Monastery in Qinghai are the largest, most distinctive and most exquisite. The flower music of the Ta'er Monastery is the music played for the production and display of butter sculptures, which is a unique form of music in the Ta'er Monastery. The exhibition of butter sculptures is held at the annual Dharma Assembly in the first month of the year. During the Dharma Assembly, the general public came from all directions to turn the prayer wheel, pray, kowtow and worship, and the atmosphere was very warm. On the evening of the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar year, a grand butter flower lantern festival was held. The lights in the Ta'er Monastery are bright. The upper and lower flower courtyards have built wide rectangular lamp sheds on the south and northeast sides of the debate hall respectively. The carefully made butter flower stands are placed in their respective lamp sheds. Butter lamps and various tributes are placed in front of the flower stands. The believers and tourists who come to worship and visit are crowded, rubbing shoulders with each other, queuing up to pass by the butter flower stands in turn, stopping to admire and worship. At this time, there is a flower stand band in each of the two butter flower lamp sheds, playing music for the butter flower exhibition, and the atmosphere is solemn and warm. The accompaniment of music should be to use music to create a sacred and solemn religious atmosphere, and to serve Buddha with "sound". During the butter flower fair, the flower stand music can create a solemn and solemn atmosphere, and can also stimulate the collective subconsciousness of the believers, making people feel a closer connection with the gods and gain a better experience. Under the butter flower stand, accompanied by the inspiration of the flower stand music, people pray devoutly, their hearts will be greatly moved and comforted, and finally they will gain hope and peace. The flower stand band of Ta'er Temple is the only butter flower band in Tibetan Buddhist temples in Qinghai so far. The Tibetan Buddhist flower stand band has wind instruments such as flute, pipe, suona, sheng, as well as percussion instruments such as drums, cymbals, cloud gongs, and dangxiang. The main instrument is bamboo flute. In history, flower stand music used Tibetan gongche notation. The older generation of monks knew Tibetan music notation, but after they passed away, no one can recognize it now. At its peak, the flower stand band had more than 40 members and more than 30 songs. Currently, the monks can only remember 13 songs. In the past, the performance of the flower frame band was a highlight of the annual butter flower exhibition. In the history of the annual butter flower exhibition, in addition to the butter flower works of the upper and lower flower courtyards being compared and appreciated by the public from the subject matter to the sculpture skills, the two bands belonging to the two flower courtyards would also show their best state, compete with each other, and make continuous progress in the competition and learning from each other. However, now, such scenes of competition skills are becoming increasingly rare, and the competitive consciousness between the two flower frame bands is becoming increasingly weak. Some art monks have reduced their attention to flower frame music, neglected to practice at ordinary times, and are not active in activities, so flower frame music is facing a great dilemma. In recent years, more than 100,000 people have come to watch butter flowers on the night of the 15th day of the first lunar month every year, and the atmosphere is very warm. In the crowd, the sound of music cannot overwhelm the sound of people. "There are many people in the venue. There are about 100,000 people coming to watch the butter flower exhibition at night. No one asks if they play it wrong." Since no one asks and they can't hear it, the enthusiasm of the music monks is further affected. In order to solve the problem of volume, the band initially used amplifying microphones and speakers to amplify the volume. Later, with the rise of tape recorders, around 2000, the flower frame band began to record the music they played in advance with a tape recorder. On the night of the 15th day of the first lunar month, the flower frame music was played with a tape recorder and speakers, and the flower frame band played along to create an atmosphere. In some years, all recordings were played, and the flower frame music was in danger. The Ta'er Monastery Flower Frame Band is the only butter sculpture band on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and has an important position in history. As a carrier, flower frame music has important functional significance for both the monks who make butter sculptures and the believers who come to worship at the butter sculpture fair. The unique internal competition mechanism of the Ta'er Monastery once made flower frame music flourish. However, it has experienced a cultural fault, the departure of old monks, the decline of the young generation's level of neglect in practice, the impact of modern society has led to a lack of successors, and the young monks' lack of understanding of the important cultural value of flower frame music. The situation of the flower frame music in the Ta'er Monastery is worrying. How to make the cultural value of Huajia music be valued in the temple, how to arouse the cultural awareness and enthusiasm of the monks, and create a more favorable inheritance environment for the monks from the perspective of system and policy, the problem cannot be delayed. (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.) (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.)

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