He Yutang

01 · Lineage & Regional School

He came from a family of singers; his grandfather was a renowned yangge performer. Within the regional tradition and school record of Northern Shaanxi Folk Songs in Yanan, Shaanxi: Northern Shaanxi folk songs arise directly out of everyday production and life and are closely bound to the local people's speech and intonation, regional character, living environment and emotional life. They are high and rugged, plain and candid yet roundabout and lingering, showing the distinctive regional style of the Loess Plateau; they differ both from the folk songs of the Guanzhong and Central Plains areas and from the grassland folk songs — the musical form of the xintianyou, that representative variety of Northern Shaanxi folk song, with its “double-sentence, upper-and-lower structure” is entirely unlike the folk-song forms of other places. As a product of the long-term fusion of nomadic and agrarian cultures in the history of northern Shaanxi, Northern Shaanxi folk songs were formed early; the xintianyou songs, for example, arose in the middle Zhou period and took stable shape by the Han dynasty, becoming one of the ancient folk-song forms of China.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Influenced by his family, he learned to sing northern Shaanxi folk songs from childhood and developed a voice of rare quality. In the 1980s he took the lead in setting off a craze for folk song in Ansai. His voice is high, intense and strongly penetrating; he is known for his pitch, for the number of songs he commands and for the skill of his hands, and he is famous for cutting paper while he sings, cutting whatever he sings, so that the song conveys its spirit and the paper its meaning. His renditions of Tian Xia Huang He Jiu Shi Jiu Dao Wan (Ninety-nine Bends of the Yellow River) and Shang Yi Dao Po Po Xia Yi Dao Liang (Up One Slope, Down One Ridge) stir the heart, and he has sung insert songs for more than seventy films and television dramas, among them Huang Tu Di (Yellow Earth). He has collected, organized and adapted as many as a thousand folk songs, and he published Selected Folk Songs Sung by He Yutang. He teaches his art with warmth and dedication, bringing up a group of younger singers that includes the celebrated Wang Erni. Within the documented technical tradition of Northern Shaanxi Folk Songs in Yanan, Shaanxi: Northern Shaanxi folk songs are a collective name for the various folk songs current on the Loess Plateau in the north of Shaanxi Province. They are rich in variety, including chiefly the xintianyou, shanqu, paishandiao, boatmen's work songs, dayangge diao, dry-boat tunes, wine songs, ertai, Yulin xiaoqu, Qingjian daoqing, traditional xiaodiao and many custom songs, more than 27,000 pieces in all. During the Agrarian Revolution, the War of Resistance against Japan and the War of Liberation, Northern Shaanxi folk songs played a very important role. Many Northern Shaanxi songs from the revolutionary period directly reflect the history of China's revolutionary struggle; taken together they can form a complete revolutionary epic. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Dongfanghong (The East Is Red)": Northern Shaanxi folk songs have extremely high artistic value and research value in folklore and history; their representative works The East Is Red, Lan Hua, Thirty Li Shop and Driving the Pack Animals are known throughout the country, have been extensively adapted and arranged, and occupy a certain place in the history of music in New China. "Lanhua (Lan Hua Flower)": Northern Shaanxi folk songs have extremely high artistic value and research value in folklore and history; their representative works The East Is Red, Lan Hua, Thirty Li Shop and Driving the Pack Animals are known throughout the country, have been extensively adapted and arranged, and occupy a certain place in the history of music in New China. "Sanshilipu (Thirty Li Shop)": Northern Shaanxi folk songs have extremely high artistic value and research value in folklore and history; their representative works The East Is Red, Lan Hua, Thirty Li Shop and Driving the Pack Animals are known throughout the country, have been extensively adapted and arranged, and occupy a certain place in the history of music in New China. "Ganshengling (Driving the Pack Animals)": Northern Shaanxi folk songs have extremely high artistic value and research value in folklore and history; their representative works The East Is Red, Lan Hua, Thirty Li Shop and Driving the Pack Animals are known throughout the country, have been extensively adapted and arranged, and occupy a certain place in the history of music in New China.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He was a man of the Han ethnic group, born in December 1949 in Yan'an, Shaanxi Province, and died in December 2013. National representative bearer of Northern Shaanxi Folk Songs, a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. In 1986 he won second prize at the First National Music and Dance Competition. In 1987 the Ministry of Culture conferred on him the title King of Folk Song.

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 Yutang · National Representative Bearer Archive