Zhang Lianti

01 · Lineage & Regional School

In order to train successors for Liaoyang drum music, he turned his attention to the next generation of the Zhang family: his son Zhang Yuchun, his daughter Zhang Yuting and five nephews have all become fourth-generation bearers of the Zhang family drum-music band. Within the regional tradition and school record of Liaoning Drum Music in Liaoyang, Liaoning: Liaoyang is an important centre for the circulation of Liaoning drum music; the bands are mostly made up of families of drum musicians, whose players learn to blow the suona and the sheng-and-pipe from their elders as children and also practise the ban-gu, the tang-gu, the big gong and the rao-cymbals. The local bands are skilled at performing funeral pieces, and can also perform Han blowing tunes and great named-tune pieces; the suona pieces most often performed include Xiao Ou Tian Ge, Na Zha Ling, Ku Huang Tian and Jin Lian Suo, while the sheng-and-pipe repertoire is represented by tune patterns such as Yu Fu Rong and Jing Shui Ping. Liaoning drum music was in its early days sheng-and-pipe music; suona music was added in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the band took shape and became mature in the middle of the Qing dynasty. Especially among them, the Han tunes and the great named-tune pieces bear clear structural marks of the great suites (daqu) of the Tang dynasty and of the qupo pieces of the Song dynasty. In addition, the seven mode names given to the suona in Liaoning drum music provide important clues for the study of the development and evolution of the form of the suona.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, of Han ethnicity, born in September 1962 in Liaoyang County, Liaoning Province. Born into a family of drum music, he loved it from childhood and learned to play suona and sheng pipes from his eldest and second uncles. He is especially skilled at funeral pieces, commanding nearly thirty traditional suona pieces and more than twenty traditional sheng-pipe pieces. His representative suona pieces include Xiao Ou Tian Ge, Ne Zha Ling, Ku Huang Tian and Jin Lian Suo. His representative sheng-pipe tune titles include Yu Fu Rong and Jing Shui Ping. Within the documented technical tradition of Liaoning Drum Music in Liaoyang, Liaoning: Liaoning drum music has been very popular since ancient times, and once exerted a far-reaching influence on the drum music of all parts of Northeast China. The mural paintings of Han and Wei period tombs excavated in Liaoyang City, Liaoning Province, include a picture of ancient drum-and-trumpet performance inscribed with the six characters “guchui yan die huanxi”. Judging by its repertoire, it preserves a small number of Tang and Song tune patterns, while most of its music consists of Yuan and Ming southern and northern tunes and of Ming and Qing tune patterns; judged by its structure, the body of the drum music is very strict, each category of piece has a definite structural model, and the number of beats is strictly prescribed. Judging from the tonality of certain pieces, Liaoning drum music was clearly influenced by the music of northern minorities such as the Khitan and the Jurchen. In its modes, the “thirty-five modes” formed by Liaoning drum music through the borrowed-character technique are in fact a continuation of the “changing register and shifting mode” that originated in the Tang and Song dynasties, a survival of the “twenty-eight modes of Yan music”. Commonly used pieces include Gong Chi Shang, Mei Hua Diao, Shang Cai Qu, Ju Ju Shuang and Gui Zhi Hua. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Gong Chi Shang": The commonly used pieces of Liaoning drum music include Gong Chi Shang, Mei Hua Diao, Shang Cai Qu, Ju Ju Shuang and Gui Zhi Hua. "Mei Hua Diao": The commonly used pieces of Liaoning drum music include Gong Chi Shang, Mei Hua Diao, Shang Cai Qu, Ju Ju Shuang and Gui Zhi Hua. "Shang Cai Qu": The commonly used pieces of Liaoning drum music include Gong Chi Shang, Mei Hua Diao, Shang Cai Qu, Ju Ju Shuang and Gui Zhi Hua. "Ju Ju Shuang": The commonly used pieces of Liaoning drum music include Gong Chi Shang, Mei Hua Diao, Shang Cai Qu, Ju Ju Shuang and Gui Zhi Hua.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Liaoyang Drum Music, a fifth-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. Zhang Lianti · National Representative Bearer Archive