Liu Qin

01 · Lineage & Regional School

At sixteen he learned to play the sheng under his father Liu Wenyu, became familiar with the transmission history of the ancient Shifan music and preserved its scores, being able not only to sing the notation but to play it proficiently on the sheng. Together with Yu Xueshen, the eighth-generation bearer, he translated and collated the gongche notation of the ancient Shifan music into numbered notation, making it easier to transmit. In 2003 he assisted Beijing Television in making the feature programme The Heirs of the Shifan Sacred Society. Within the regional tradition and school record of Jizhong Sheng and Guan Ensemble in Yi, Hebei: Jizhong sheng-and-guan music is current in nearly thirty counties and cities south of Beijing, west of Tianjin and north of Cangzhou and Dingzhou; it is a drum-and-wind music peculiar to the Jizhong Plain, popularly called a “music society” by the people, and, because it is led by the guan and accompanied by the sheng and other instruments, also called “sheng-and-guan music”. Jizhong sheng-and-guan music is found all over the Jizhong Plain; the farmers of this region form societies by village, borrowing instruments to meet, and play in local sacrificial rites, funerals and other folk activities, handing it on from generation to generation in their own distinctive way. The Donghan village shifan ancient music is a form of classical music that passed from the imperial court into the folk in the Qing dynasty; it is current in Donghan village, Lingyunce Manchu and Hui Autonomous Township, Yi County, Hebei Province. The performing forms of the Donghan village shifan ancient music comprise the travelling music and the seated music, and in performance it follows the gongche notation that came from the imperial court into the folk.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in March 1934, a native of Yi County, Hebei Province. His family has studied the ancient Shifan music for five generations, and he plays the sheng in the village's Shifan Sacred Society. He has trained more than sixty students and leads them in performances within the county at festivals. Since 1997 he has actively made premises available for students to practise in the slack farming season and in the evenings. In 2006 he assisted Hebei Television in making the feature programme Talking about the Shifan Sacred Society. Within the documented technical tradition of Jizhong Sheng and Guan Ensemble in Yi, Hebei: Besides wind instruments such as the sheng, guan and flute, Jizhong sheng-and-guan music also uses such percussion instruments as cloud gongs, drums, nao, cymbals and clapper bells. The pieces of sheng-and-guan music fall into three kinds: suites, short pieces and independent sets of percussion music; of these the suites are of great length and complex structure, and form the main part of the whole performing repertory. It uses a great many instruments in performance, at most as many as 108 pieces, hence the character “shi” by which its completeness is summarised; and because the performance procession carries ten banner flags, it is called the “shifan ancient music”, also called the “shifan holy society”. In its transmission the Donghan village shifan ancient music has blended such elements as court music and Jiangnan sizhu; the kinds and numbers of instruments it uses are very numerous, among them the huobusi, zhaqin and tiqin, which are old and rare instruments. The scores comprise twenty-five wen pieces and more than ten wu pieces; played, they are plain and distinctive and elegant, with high, beautiful and melodious melodies that have both the flavour of Jiangnan sizhu and the character of classical court music. The forms of the wen pieces of the shifan ancient music fall into three types, the single piece, the combined piece and the suite. The single piece consists of one tune pattern and varies in length; Shan Tao Hong and Wan Nian Huan belong to this type. The combined piece consists of two tune patterns joined together. The suite consists of three or more tune patterns linked in a fixed order, the “four comings” — Chun Lai, Xia Lai, Qiu Lai and Dong Lai, joined from four tune patterns — being a representative example. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Shan Tao Hong": A representative piece of the “single piece” type of wen music in the Donghan village shifan ancient music. "Wan Nian Huan": A representative piece of the “single piece” type of wen music in the Donghan village shifan ancient music. "Chun Lai": One of the “four comings” suite, joined from the four tune patterns Chun Lai, Xia Lai, Qiu Lai and Dong Lai. "Xia Lai": One of the “four comings” suite.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

A national representative bearer of Jizhong Sheng and Guan Ensemble Music (Ancient Shifan Music of Donghan Village), 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 Qin · National Representative Bearer Archive