He Shuling

01 · Lineage & Regional School

He Shuling, Female, Han, from Yuncheng, Shandong, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Shandong Qinshu Balladry (Ⅴ-21). The tradition is documented in Yuncheng, Shandong. Within the regional tradition and school record of Shandong Qinshu Balladry in Yuncheng, Shandong: Yuncheng lies in southwestern Shandong, adjoining Heze, Juancheng, Juye and Liangshan, and is the earliest place where the southern line of Shandong Qinshu Balladry was transmitted. Locally this seated singing form is called zhuangjia shua or wanju; it is generally set up on tables in a circle during the slack farming season, at festivals and at temple fairs, with the singers accompanying themselves and the listeners gathered close, joining in with the refrain whenever the performance reaches a stirring passage. Yuncheng qinshu performers travel out along the roads to neighbouring villages to tell stories as their main way of earning a living; for the fulfilment of a vow, a birthday celebration, a marriage or the birth of a child, the host family engages a qinshu troupe to come, for a single night or for several days of continuous singing. By the middle of the Qing dynasty, "qinzheng qingqu" — pure melodies for zither and guzheng — gradually broke out of the small circle of literati and connoisseurs, changing from the original practice of carrying the instrument round to visit friends into the self-amused "zhuangjia shua" of the slack farming season, also called "wanju", and began to flourish in the villages around Yuncheng.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han ethnicity, born in October 1946 in Yuncheng County, Shandong Province. In 1963 she passed the entrance examination for the Yuncheng County quyi troupe and began studying Shandong Qinshu. In 1964 she attended the qupai recovery training course organised by the Yuncheng County Cultural Centre. From 1969 she studied under Li Suyun. Her singing is marked by clear and true articulation, a poised and dignified manner, a union of voice and feeling, and rich variation. She has a thorough command of the playing techniques of five accompanying instruments and is also active in composing new repertoire. For several decades she has devoted herself to the transmission and development of Shandong Qinshu. Within the documented technical tradition of Shandong Qinshu Balladry in Yuncheng, Shandong: Shandong Qinshu Balladry is a linked-singing form built on folk little melodies, of which it has more than two hundred; at its height the number of sung and instrumental tune patterns reached as many as three hundred, with Shanghe Diao, Fengyang Ge and Meihualuo the most commonly used. The instruments that accompany the singing have also grown more numerous, with the yangqin as the principal melodic instrument, joined by the zheng, the zhuqin, the jinghu, the banhu, the soft-bowed hu, the four-string fiddle, the small cymbals and the large wooden clappers. The traditional repertoire falls into three categories: paced tunes, medium-form pieces and long-form pieces. There are more than a hundred titles in all, together with more than six hundred shumao openings, poems and prefaces. Shandong Qinshu Balladry arose in Yuncheng at the beginning of the Ming dynasty and has a history of roughly six hundred years to the present day. The Yuncheng County Gazetteer records that "qin melodies first came from families of scholars"; they were called "qinzheng qingqu". In this period, emphasis in singing fell on the beauty of the competing vocal styles, on the number of tune patterns, and on the level of instrumental technique. In order to meet the needs of listeners, the repertoire had developed from singing short passages to singing long passages, and on to short, medium and long story catalogues. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Qin and zheng chamber songs": The early form in Yuncheng, recorded in the county gazetteer as having arisen among scholarly households. "Shanghe and Fengyang tunes": Among the most used tune titles, generally opening a piece and with Duozi Board or Meihua Luo closing it. "The soft-bow fiddle and four-string lute": Two of the accompanying instruments used beside the lead yangqin, added or dropped according to the occasion. "Openers, poems and introductions": Short preludes, poems and introductions — over six hundred of them — used before or between the main tales.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

She is a national representative bearer of Shandong Qinshu Balladry, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. Her works Nü Siyangyuan (The Woman Stockkeeper), Qianli Song Nuan (Warmth Sent a Thousand Li) and An de Xin Jia (Our New Home) have won awards at national and provincial level on numerous occasions. Since 1997 she has trained a number of bearers of Shandong Qinshu, enabling many of its qupai to be inherited intact.

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. He Shuling · National Representative Bearer Archive