Yang Kaiyuan

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Yang Kaiyuan, Male, Miao, from Jianhe, Guizhou, is a sixth-batch national representative bearer of Polyphonic Folk Songs (Ⅱ-30). The tradition is documented in Jianhe, Guizhou. Within the regional tradition and school record of Polyphonic Folk Songs in Jianhe, Guizhou: The Miao multi-part folk song is the most important component of the surviving traditional culture of the local Miao. The Miao multi-part folk song circulates mainly in the Miao villages of Taijiang county, Jianhe county and other places in Guizhou; by the reckoning of the old singers this folk song, sung by young men and women, has a history of more than seven hundred years, and its emergence and development are closely bound up with the history of the Miao migration and settlement in the Qingshui river basin and with Miao ethnic history, cultural history and folklore.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

The bearer record for Yang Kaiyuan is anchored in the documented technical standards of Polyphonic Folk Songs in Jianhe, Guizhou. Within the documented technical tradition of Polyphonic Folk Songs in Jianhe, Guizhou: Multi-part folk song refers to folk songs whose texture and structure take a multi-part form; China's multi-part folk songs are concentrated chiefly among the dozen or so minority nationalities of the Zhuang, Dong, Bouyei, Gaoshan, Maonan, Qiang, Miao and Yi, most of them adopting the two-part form and a small number being three-part and four-part art. The Miao multi-part folk song is an original-ecology folk song current in the Miao villages of Taijiang county, Jianhe county and other places in Guizhou; by the reckoning of old singers this folk song, sung by young men and women, has a history of more than seven hundred years. Its principal tone series are the gong, shang, yu, zhi and jue notes, its harmonies the perfect fifth, the perfect octave, the major third and the major sixth, and its metre relatively free, mostly mixing 3/4, 4/4, 2/4 and 6/8; its tune is beautiful and pleasing and its feeling finely moving, showing a clearly marked ethnic and regional character. The Miao multi-part love song is sung in two ways, antiphonal singing of the main melody between man and woman and choral singing of the main melody by men and women, and has a distinctively ethnic character. A complete multi-part love song generally runs from six to sixteen musical phrases; taking an eight-phrase love song as an example, the first to the sixth phrases at the beginning are a single male part, and from the seventh phrase the female part joins in harmony to form multiple parts; after the male part has sung the eighth phrase the female part leads the second section while the male part harmonises to form polyphony, and from the third phrase there is a single female part, until in the seventh phrase of the second stage the male part joins in harmony to form multiple parts. Repeated in this way in mutual answer, they constitute the embryo of Miao polyphonic music. The content of the multi-part love song mostly reflects the course of young men and women from first acquaintance to marriage, including the “meeting song”, the “praise song”, the “single song”, the “youth song”, the “courtship song”, the “mutual-love song”, the “parting song”, the “wedding song”, the “marriage-fleeing song” and the “divorce song”, each sung to a different tune, and at the singing there are generally more than two men and two women. Representative works of the Miao multi-part folk song include If You Were a Flower and Fine Scenery in the Third Month of Spring. Its emergence, development and final formation are closely bound up with Miao ethnic history, cultural history and folklore. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "If You Were a Flower": One of the representative works of the Miao multi-part folk song. "Fine Scenery in the Third Month of Spring": One of the representative works of the Miao multi-part folk song. "The Alternation of Male and Female Parts in an Eight-Phrase Love Song": Taking an eight-phrase love song as an example, a single male part opens the singing, the female part joins in harmony from the seventh phrase to form multiple parts, and repeated mutual answering constitutes the embryo of Miao polyphonic music.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2025, Yang Kaiyuan was announced in the sixth batch of national representative bearers for Polyphonic Folk Songs, with Jianhe, Guizhou as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Polyphonic Folk Songs in Jianhe, Guizhou: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2008 (batch 2), with Jianhe, Guizhou as its declared area, and Jianhe County Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding Center as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.

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. Yangkaiyuan (Jianhe, Guizhou) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Yangkaiyuan · China ICH Official Archive