Study on the Path of Immersion Inheritance and Development of Guangxi Yao Minority Ballads in the Internet Era Based on Virtual Reality Technology

The vocal cadences of Guangxi Yao ballads (hereinafter referred to as: Yao ballads) have the following characteristics: 1)

Real voice is the main voice

Yao ballads are mainly sung in true voice, with simple and melodious tunes, free rhythms, and strong and penetrating voices. In the use of resonance cavity, most of them are oral resonance, the sound hits the upper mouth cover and passes outward, a small amount of the high voice area enters the head cavity and incorporates a small amount of falsetto, which is still dominated by the true voice, and the voice is relatively straight.

Yao songs originate from life, from labor, from love, and from the expression of the most sincere feelings in the heart. Most Yao songs are improvisational in nature and colorful in form. They can be roughly divided into: 1)

Solo Singing

This is a very widely used and common form of singing in Yao songs. When you are happy, you use songs to express your inner joy, and when you are bitter, you use songs to express your inner depression. It has a strong improvisational nature, and the rhythm and singing are relatively free. At the same time is not subject to the limitations of personnel and site, in the fields of labor, home on the way home from work, open mouth can sing, more prominent singer’s voice characteristics, full of personality.

Yao ballads, artistic techniques are diverse, colorful language, some couplets do not pay attention to the level, the battle, neat, as long as the meaning of the right on it. In the language is mainly Chinese, Yao language, Yao song language three languages in accordance with the specific context of free conversion and use of interspersed. Through the conversion of languages, Yao songs are characterized by strong national identity and irreplaceability.

In terms of lyrics, a large number of liner notes are added to make the Yao ballads more vivid, lively, simple but not dull in their lyrics. And some ballads use a lot of anthropomorphism and metaphorical literary rhetorical techniques in the creation of lyrics, and the unique fugue-bi-sing technique makes the songs rich in imaginative space, with a rich aftertaste. The unique national language is used to shape an artistic image with national characteristics, a strong sense of identity, and outstanding national characteristics, which hold a high value for inheritance and development.

As a kind of non-heritage, Yao songs also possess the characteristics of non-heritage at the same time, of which intangibility is the unique characteristic that distinguishes them from other heritages. The core of intangibility refers to the cultural connotations, mastery, thought, and emotion behind it, rather than the ancient or precious physical exhibits on display. However, the cultural connotation of intangibility does not mean that it cannot be transmitted through a tangible medium, but must be embodied in a material form. Yao songs often use unique musical instruments that have an advantageous presentation effect, such as the ox horn, the bamboo zither, the long drum, and the lusheng, all of which are important musical instruments that emphasize the characteristics of Yao songs.

For the “dynamic” interaction of objects, VR technology can make use of 3D modeling technology to simulate realistic and interactive musical instruments in the virtual world, easily solving the problem of access to raw materials. It also supports the dynamic movement of objects using simple operations, and the user is currently practicing this.

However, for the social practice of non-heritage projects, not only do they need to be practiced dynamically through physical objects, but the performance process must also be “dynamic”. For the Yao ballads, there is no specific form in itself, but the creation of Yao ballads, the performance process of Yao ballads, and the interest of ballad duets are the key points that need to be paid attention to and inherited, etc. VR technology can record these key points in an all-aspect and three-dimensional way, and it can present all the processes and details of the performances in a dynamic form. For example, motion capture or motion capture technology is used to realize the recording or real-time presentation of key movements.

Yao songs also have a living heritage, which means that they have continued and developed without interruption in the long river of history. It is not only that it is dynamic, but more importantly, in the process of its continuation and development, it is constantly innovated, and new elements are injected according to the different requirements of the times, so that it can continue to exist and develop. In the current social environment, digital technology is developing rapidly, and VR technology brings a new way of cultural experience with immersion, interactivity, and imagination. It can create realistic, three-dimensional, and creative cultural scenes in which users can immerse themselves. In addition, the virtual singing scene can be simulated based on the reality of the already existing physical objects, but also to achieve the redesign of the singing shape, in a more innovative and imaginative way can adapt and cause a wider range of groups of people’s degree of participation.

For a social practice type of NHM, such as Yao songs, it needs to be practiced and performed by the inheritor or group of inheritors before it can be truly complete and vividly presented. For most of the non-heritages, they are mainly passed on in the form of oral transmission from master to disciple, father to son. This means that human participation is indispensable in the inheritance process of Yao songs. The demonstration of the presence of the inheritor is more helpful in recovering the whole picture, and it can also attract the attention of users to a greater extent, so that they will spontaneously stop and join in the process of creating or singing Yao songs. In addition to the performance participation of the inheritor, the active participation of the public is equally important, after all, the number and ability of the individual inheritor is limited. Then using VR technology can inspire more people to experience and participate in the inheritance.

Any non-legacy has a certain regional nature, which contains the culture and regional characteristics of the specific era. In addition, Yao songs can not only survive in individual places, but they need to be promoted in most areas of China. At present, there are often regional differences in non-legacy projects, but VR technology to technology to achieve the digital display of cultural scenes, breaking the limitations of time and space, allowing people to unlimited time and location, directly into these highly immersive scenes, in the realization of the Yao ethnic ballads cultural scenarios reproduced on the basis of the further enhancement of people’s emotional experience. It brings users an immersive state of temporal and spatial dislocation, and such an immersive state is obviously more conducive to deepening users’ impression, thus strengthening the presentation effect and dissemination of Yao songs.

The virtual reality technology used in this study is designed for the immersive inheritance and development of Yao songs, and the feasibility assessment indexes are established according to the horizontal standard of feasibility assessment, combined with the content and demand design for the immersive inheritance and development of Yao songs in the previous paper. Specifically divided into: uniform and beautiful visual style, reasonable interface layout, smooth operation, interface interaction in line with commonly used habits, timely and clear guidance and prompts, easy to understand information content display, simple operation steps and reasonable interactive feedback, in order to be recorded as assessment indicators 1-8.

Ten evaluators were invited to wear HTC Vive devices and hold the joystick in their hands to start the experience, and the feasibility test was started after the evaluation task was formulated. Upon completion of the test, each tester was required to complete a subjective evaluation. The tester scores each item according to the real feelings during the experience, where 1 means very infeasible and 5 means very feasible, with higher scores representing higher feasibility and better experience, and lower scores representing lower feasibility and worse experience. The feasibility of the operation interface can be evaluated through subjective evaluation and scoring by the evaluator after use.

The statistical results of the feasibility evaluation scale for the virtual reality inheritance and development of Yao songs are shown in Figure 2. Through the effect of virtual experience completion and subjective evaluation scale analysis results, the average score of each feasibility evaluation index is higher than 4 points, and the comprehensive feasibility score is 4.4 points, indicating that this paper uses virtual reality technology to design the user interface of Yao ethnic ballads with a better sense of experience. Among them, the 10 evaluators have the highest average feasibility score of 4.7 for the interface interaction operation in line with common habits, indicating that the path design in this paper is user-centered and adopts visual, tactile, gesture, and other interaction designs to achieve closer to people’s behavioral habits in real life.

Figure 2.

Virtual reality feasibility evaluation scale statistics

Virtual reality display system [25] mainly includes three elements: the main body of the system composition and use, the user, the system display and the role of the object, the display environment and content and play a role in the dissemination of information in the media, that is, virtual reality technology, the relationship between the three elements is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Three Elements of Virtual Reality Display System

In summary, combined with the specific design practice method in user experience design, namely, the five elements of user experience method [26] to analyze the design of the Yao song virtual reality display system.

In this experiment, 2D and virtual reality reductions of the same Yao ethnic ballad singing clip were performed, using these two videos as the original test samples, and the duration of the video tests were both 3 minutes. Ten participants each watched either the virtual reality or traditional 2D clip of the Yao song singing clip and observed the effect of the immersive experience as expressed by the subjective emotions of the users.

This experiment required participants in the evaluation to be measured in a self-reported manner using the Positive Negative Affective Scale (PANAS) for emotion ratings before and after experiencing the two pieces. Twenty of these adjectives were used to describe different levels of positive and negative feelings respectively. The 10 items in the Positive Affect (PA) are inspired, interested, pleasant, excited, enthusiastic, uplifted, proud, determined, strong, optimistic, and active. The 10 items in Negative Affect (NA) were Sad, Upset, Hostile Aversion, Anxious, Fearful, Scared, Angry, Guilty, Nervous, and Trembling. All items were recorded sequentially as emotion numbers 1-20.

All participants in the assessment experiment rated each item on a five-point scale, with 0 being “very slight or not at all”, 1 being “somewhat”, 2 being “moderate”, 3 being “very strong”, and 4 being “extremely strong”. The total scores of the above 10 positive and 10 negative impact items were analyzed according to the score setting.

Figure 4 shows the results of the pre-PANAS test and post-PANAS test mean measurements for the participants. By looking at the stacked bar charts of the two groups, it can be seen that in the VR group, the difference between the mean values of the “pre-PANAS test” and the “post-PANAS test” was large (>0.3): in the PA program, it included, inspired, interested, happy, excited, enthusiastic, determined, strong, optimistic, and active, Excited, Enthusiastic, Determined, Strong, Optimistic, and Active, while NA items included Fearful, Scared, Nervous, and Trembling. On the contrary, in the 2D group, there were only inspired and interested in the PA program, while there were fearful, scared, and nervous in the NA program. From these selected items, the VRND group clearly had a higher proportion of PA and NA items, indicating that the VRND group had a stronger experience of the Yao song, more different emotional perceptions between before and after, and more emotional changes for participants in the VR group.

Figure 4.

Participants’ “Pre-PANAS” and “Post-PANAS” test” test results

This questionnaire is conducted after the design of Yao ethnic song virtual reality application is completed, through this questionnaire research, for the user to experience the real feedback of this application to find out the problems and shortcomings of this application, and guide the direction of the subsequent application correction.

The questionnaire will take the form of “Likert scale” for information collection, in order to obtain the user’s satisfaction assessment of the application, the satisfaction level of the questionnaire from low to high are very dissatisfied (1 point), dissatisfied (2 points), general (3 points), satisfied (4 points), very satisfied (5 points), through this form, to be able to Understand the user’s understanding of this application, and better access to application satisfaction feedback.

The research object of the questionnaire is to participate in the virtual experience of the student group in our school, the research mode is the end of the user experience, on-site questionnaire answering, the number of valid questionnaires recovered by the statistics totaled 20, the recovery rate of 100%. Among them, male students accounted for 50% of the number of questionnaire research, female students for 50%, this questionnaire is mainly from the virtual experience, content learning, promotion willingness of three aspects of the research. Table 1 displays the satisfaction assessment questions and numbers.

By integrating the results of the questionnaire, the results of the detailed satisfaction quiz data are shown in Figure 5. According to the scores of the various indicators of the user research, it can be seen that most of the users are in a state of comparative satisfaction with the experience of this application, with ratings averaging at a level of 4.2 or more. The visual experience (4.8) scored the highest, followed by users who were more satisfied with the knowledge learning of Yao songs (4.65), and the average satisfaction level of those who were willing to recommend this virtual experience to others reached 4.45. Some users rated it close to 4, which is a lower satisfaction level, and through the question and answer session with these users, it was understood that the lower rated options were mainly focused on the following two points: 1)

Some users reflected that when conducting the application experience, the background sound effects sound is small and not obvious enough, the variety of sound effects is small, and more sound effects are needed to create a sense of atmosphere in singing.

Figure 5.

Detailed satisfaction results

In this section, based on the above analysis, the cognitive, attractive and behavioral forces of Yao ballads are converted into the inheritance and development effects of Yao ballads, and the impact of virtual reality technology on the inheritance and development effects of Yao ballads is discussed. Therefore, this paper takes the virtual experience, content learning and willingness to promote Yao ballads provided by virtual reality technology as the independent variables, and the cognitive power, attractiveness and behavioral power, which represent the inheritance and development effects, as the dependent variables, and conducts a correlation study on them.

Table 2 shows the regression analysis results for the inheritance and development effects of Yao ballads. The results of regression analysis show that after putting the application effect of virtual reality technology into the regression model, the explanatory power (R2) for the dependent variable reaches 0.165~0.191, the F value is between 15.524~18.401, and the p<0.001 between the respective variable and the dependent variable shows that the increment of the district group is statistically significant and the model is significant, which proves that the virtual reality technology can significantly explain the model meaning. Specifically, the regression coefficients of the dependent and independent variables, all of which are greater than 0, indicate that virtual reality technology exhibits a positive and active effect on the inheritance and development effects, and passes the 0.001 level significance test. Among them, the regression coefficients of promotion willingness and cognitive power, attraction and behavioral power are the largest, which are 0.398, 0.332 and 0.361 respectively, i.e., if the promotion willingness is increased by 1 unit, the cognitive power, attraction and behavioral power can be increased by 0.398, 0.332 and 0.361 units correspondingly.