Liu Yousheng

01 · Lineage & Regional School

From the age of fourteen he learned to play the suona in the gongpo-chui (husband-and-wife blowing) manner under his father Liu Zifu; at seventeen he began going out to ply the trade, earning a living by suona playing in his early years and later taking up farming as his main occupation while continuing to play. Within the regional tradition and school record of Suona Art in Yudou, Jiangxi: Yudu suona music has absorbed the characteristics of the “lantern tune” and the “tea tune” of southern Jiangxi tea-picking opera and is divided into the two styles of the “joyful tune” and the “sorrowful tune”. 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.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

He also learned and mastered the craft of making gongpo-chui suonas, from selecting and cutting the timber to boring the holes, opening the finger-holes and polishing, all by the most traditional methods: a saw, a billhook, a reamer and a one-bladed plane are the only tools required to make one. He performed at events including the Sixth Navel Orange Festival of Ganzhou City, the Nanfeng Tangerine Festival, the aerial filming of Jiangxi the Enchanting for Yudu, and the China Poyang Lake International Cultural Festival. Within the documented technical tradition of Suona Art in Yudou, Jiangxi: 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 Hakka suona of Yudu is very widely current in Jiangxi and has a history of several hundred years. The husband-and-wife blowing, a form of Hakka suona playing, is distributed mainly in the Kuangtian, Hefeng, Jingshi and Pangu Mountain townships of Yudu county, Jiangxi, and radiates to the neighbouring counties and cities of Ruijin, Huichang and Shicheng; this distinctive form of playing is extremely common on folk occasions of weddings and funerals, house-warming and birthday congratulations, temple fairs and sacrifices and artistic activity. Yudu Hakka suona playing has the flat drum and the suona as its leading instruments, with small cymbals and horse gongs; in performance unison, antiphonal blowing and equal stress on wind and percussion are used, and it is not limited by time or place, the players being able to sit or walk with light and nimble movement. Suona playing insists on clear drum and clapper, a combination of the coarse and the fine, a high and drawn-out sound and a harmonious blending of timbres; in the treatment of the music it chiefly uses such techniques as adding flowers, subtracting notes and changing mode to achieve changes in rhythmic level. In husband-and-wife blowing two suona of different models are used: the “husband” suona has a low, rich tone and the “wife” suona is high and ringing, and the two are blown alternately, now impassioned and ringing enough to stop the clouds, now full and round and harmonious and pleasing, now mild and plaintive as if weeping and complaining, everywhere showing the character of traditional Hakka art. The husband-and-wife blowing has as many as two hundred and eighty named tunes, its representative pieces including The Turtle-Dove Tune, Husband and Wife Blowing and The Platform for Worshipping the General. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The Turtle-Dove Tune": Representative pieces of the husband-and-wife blowing include The Turtle-Dove Tune, Husband and Wife Blowing and The Platform for Worshipping the General. "Husband and Wife Blowing": The distinctive form of Yudu Hakka suona playing, using a “husband” suona of low, rich tone and a “wife” suona that is high and ringing. "The Platform for Worshipping the General": A representative piece of the Yudu suona husband-and-wife blowing.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

Male, Han ethnicity, born in March 1960, died in March 2018, a native of Yudu County, Jiangxi Province. A national representative bearer of Suona Art (Yudu Suona Gongpo-Chui), a third-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. Liu Yousheng · National Representative Bearer Archive