Mo Baihuai

01 · Lineage & Regional School

He began studying suona performance under his father at the age of six, later learning suona technique from his father's senior fellow disciple Zhu Meijiang. At twelve he was engaged as an instrumentalist by the Xiangtan County Huagu Opera Troupe; during this period he studied under renowned suona masters including Zhu Meijiang and Liu Ruoquan, and in the late 1970s he performed in productions such as Liu Hai Kan Qiao (Liu Hai Chops Firewood), winning acclaim throughout the province. After decades of composing and performing incidental music for huagu opera, he became an outstanding representative of the fourth generation of the Qingshanqiao branch of the southern Chinese suona tradition. Within the regional tradition and school record of Suona Art in Xiangtan, Hunan: The Qingshan suona is processed and created on the basis of the typical tonal features of central Hunan and has a strong local character, reflecting the aesthetic taste, customs and traditional ideas of the area where it circulates; it has relatively high value for artistic and folk-cultural research. Suona is a transliteration of the Arabic “surna” (zurna), called in antiquity “suoliao” or “su'ernai”, and widely current in many countries of Asia, Africa and Europe; it came into China at the latest in the Jin and Yuan periods. In addition, the small suona used in the performance of Fujian nanqu is called the “aizi” or “nan'ai”; the suona used to accompany Puxian opera is called the “meihua” or “chuibian”, and a larger kind is called the “dalong” or “dahaidi”; the all-wood suona of the Uyghur is called the “su'ernai”; and the Tibetan, Miao, Mongol and Korean peoples each have suona of different form. By the Qing at the latest the wind-and-percussion music led by the suona was already quite common in the folk life of Xiangtan. In the 1920s and 1930s a great many excellent suona artists emerged in the Qingshanqiao area, and the Qingshanqiao drum-music trade union was founded.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, of Han ethnicity, born in June 1964 in Xiangtan County, Hunan Province. He is a National First-Class Performer and an expert receiving the special government allowance of the State Council. While devoting attention to organizing folk culture and uncovering folk art, he strives to integrate the southern and northern suona traditions. Within the documented technical tradition of Suona Art in Xiangtan, Hunan: In Chinese folk usage it also has the names of bronze flute, tin flute, pear blossom and sea flute. The suona is made up of the reed, the staple, the air disc, the body and the bronze bell; its finger-holes are arranged in order according to the heptatonic scale, the distances between them being basically equal, it can turn through seven modes, and its range is generally two octaves and a major second. It has such blowing techniques as portamento, tonguing, arched-breath tone, top-breath tone, the rolling “du-lu” and circular breathing (blowing without a break for a long time), and is a solo instrument of very strong expressiveness. Its volume is great and its tone high and ringing, making it one of the indispensable instruments of the wind-and-percussion band; in antiquity, besides playing military music, it was used for the drum-and-wind music of the yamen and as accompaniment to opera, song and dance, and in the daily life of the people it is mostly used for festivals, weddings and funerals and theatrical scenes. The Qingshan suona is one of the kinds of Chinese folk wind-and-percussion music, circulating mainly in the three townships of Qingshanqiao, Shigu and Fenshui in Xiangtan county, Hunan and the surrounding area, and played mainly in such folk activities as weddings and funerals and joyful occasions, dragon-playing and lion-dancing, Buddhist and Daoist rites and shamanistic and nuo sacrifices. By historical origin, named-tune structure and expressive function its named tunes may be divided into the three kinds of the night-drum named tune, the road-drum named tune and the hall named tune. The night-drum named tune is an instrumental named tune used exclusively for funerals; the road-drum named tune is mainly a combination of suona and gong and drum, mostly played on the march; the hall named tune is popularly called the “sitting-hall named tune”, “sitting music”, “sitting in the hall” or “great music” and is a form of wind-and-percussion music shared with folk opera. In musical structure, tune names, melodic features, expressive style and performing technique the various named tunes still preserve a relatively primitive appearance, the representative ones being chiefly Lament in Confusion, Flying Diagonally, A Single Beat of the Drum, Making Merry at the Fifth Watch, Picking Lotus Twice, The Nine Modes, The Victory Command and Playing the Child. The members of the trade union possessed superb performing technique and were famous far and wide, so that the four counties of Hengxiang (Hengshan, Shuangfeng, Xiangtan and Xiangxiang) called Qingshan suona playing the “national music of Qingshanqiao”. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The Night-Drum Named Tune": The instrumental named tune of the Qingshan suona used exclusively for funerals. "The Road-Drum Named Tune": The named tune consisting mainly of a combination of suona and gong and drum, mostly played on the march. "The Hall Named Tune": Popularly called the “sitting-hall named tune”, “sitting music” or “great music”, a form of wind-and-percussion music shared with folk opera.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is a representative bearer of Suona Art (Qingshan Suona), a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Mo Baihuai · National Representative Bearer Archive