On the evening of 1st December, 2016, Ms. Li Xiaonuo, researcher of Shanghai Conservatory of Music, was invited to be the guest speaker of ‘Science & Humanity Forum’ and brought students and faculty the special lecture of “Aesthetic Message Delivered by Music Piece”. The lecture was held in Lecture Hall of Centre of Entrepreneurship and was hosted by Ms. Fang Hui, Vice Secretary of General Party Branch of SPEA. Nearly 300 students and faculty came to this lecture.
Ms. Li started from the question of “what is Music”, and she introduced two characteristics which are the symbolic meaning of arts and music and sound. She indicated that the law of synaesthesia is the basic of music character presentation. Music can make people produce other feelings besides auditory sense because of this mental mechanism of synaesthesia.
After that, she elaborated the cranial nerve mechanism of music message delivery and what is synaesthesia. She took Andante of Chopin, piano sonata of Mozart and violin solo Tzigane as examples to illustrate the relationship between five characteristics of sound which lead to synaesthesia. The five characteristics are pitch, the loudness of sound, speed and tempo, speed of articulation and intensity.
Then, Ms. Li told us that sound of music will bring people relevant aesthetic messages through effect of synaesthesia. One piece of great music is able to deliver semantic information, emotion information and creation information. Centering on these three kinds of information, she explained deeply by playing Beethoven’s The Fifth Symphony, Der holler rache in Mozart’s Magic Flute, opera Carmen, Chopin’ Polonez and Tchaikovsky’s Onegin. She also helped students to understand the saying, “a thousand people have a thousand Hamlet, but he will not become Don Quixote”. That means one piece of music will bring different people different feelings, but it will not be the feelings of another piece of music.
Wonderful content and lively form of lecture arose students and faculty on scene great interests. During the interactive session, we discuss with Ms. Li actively on the topics of musical thoughts of ancient Chinese musician and differences and commons between domestic and foreign classic music. Professional explanation and abundant examples not only brought us a feast of hearing, but also improved our perceive level of music appreciation.
Article: Ma Yuchi (student), Fang Hui Photogragh: Luo Shuwei (student), Chen Yiting (student)