Yuediao

01 · Historical Records

Hubei Yuediao, also called "dayuediao" (the Great Yuediao), was also known as "Xiangyang qiang" and "Xianghe Yuediao"; it is a banqiang (ban-style) genre of vocal operatic music formed when Ming-dynasty Qinqiang (Tongzhou bangzi) was carried into the Xianghe area and combined with the local folk music, and it circulates mainly in Gucheng County and Xiangyang City in north-western Hubei. It flourished from the late Qing and the early Republic, then fell into decline because of the wars. Since 2009 a transmission base for Hubei Yuediao has been set up on the strength of the Gucheng County opera troupe.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, a Hubei Yuediao opera troupe was once re-established in Shihua Town, Gucheng County, and later disbanded. Hubei Yuediao has both the true character of the "Xiangyang style", dense and stirring in tone, and the soaring, impassioned beauty of Qinqiang. It plants the four Xiangyang tones in its vocal styles and spoken parts; in singing, words are articulated on the natural voice (bensang), melody is carried on the falsetto (jiasang), and the closing notes are turned upward; the vocal styles of more than ten role types each show a distinct character, such as the "bianyin" (edge tone) of sheng roles, the "niaoyin" (bird tone) of dan and tie roles, the "huyin" (tiger tone) of jing and zhuo roles, and the "cangyin" (grey tone) of mo and fu roles. Its ban styles include "manban" (slow ban), "duoban" (stacked ban), "erliu" (second flow), "daqiban" (great rising ban), "xiaoqiban" (small rising ban), "jianban" (intervening ban), "feiban" (flying ban) and "gunban" (rolling ban); as for banyan (beat division), there are one ban with three yan, one ban with one yan, and ban with no yan, and the vocal styles are mostly of the "yanqi banluo" type, starting on the yan and closing on the ban. "Siju Yuediao" (four-sentence Yuediao), also called "Siju Chengqing Yuediao", is one of the more representative vocal styles of Hubei Yuediao. Its musical structure consists of matched upper and lower phrases, and its mode is mostly the seven-tone gong mode. The band is divided into wenchang (civil side) and wuchang (martial side). The principal instrument of the civil side is a modified banhu called siguxian huqin (four-string fiddle), accompanied by erhu, yueqin, sanxian and other instruments; the martial side has such percussion instruments as the bian drum, zhan drum, tang drum, yaban (clapper boards), gong, chai and dang. The performance features techniques such as "shua gaozi" (playing the knee blocks), "ding deng" (balancing a lamp on the head), "jianzi zayan" (sticking the eye with scissors) and "tu huo" (spitting fire), as well as movements with swords and spears, staves and clubs, fists and feet, and leaps and somersaults; there are now more than 370 traditional plays, including more than 160 benxi (full-length plays), more than 150 chuxi (excerpt plays), nearly 50 zhexi (single-act plays) and more than 10 liantaiben (multi-act connected plays). Representative repertoire includes Bintie Jian (The Cast-Iron Sword), Hongshu Jian (The Red Written Sword), Longfeng Jian (The Dragon-and-Phoenix Sword), Chungang Jian (The Chungang Sword), Ding Deng (Balancing the Lamp), Li Cuilian Da Shang Diao (The Great Hanging of Li Cuilian), Qinfang Song Deng (Carrying the Lamp to the Study) and Da Jin Zhi (Beating the Golden Branch). The vocal system, ban-style music and performance conventions of Hubei Yuediao matured early, and its influence on Chinese operatic art is far-reaching; in particular the Xiangyang style, that is, the xipi vocal system, has been taken over by a number of genres.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

In its transmission Hubei Yuediao kept the Qinqiang style while also absorbing the local Xiangyang style, and by the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty it had become a genre of considerable influence. The historical legends, heroic biographies, folk myths, love stories and the like that it carries have shaped and enriched the spiritual and cultural life of several generations of people in the Xianghe river basin.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Yuediao · Yuediao · Yuediao.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Ye Xiangcheng (official archive record of the associated inheritor): A man of the Han ethnicity, born in October 1936 in Gucheng County, Hubei Province. He came into contact with Yuediao, Hanju and other local operatic genres from childhood; at the age of eight he became a pupil of the Yuediao artist Li Hongfa, completed his training at fourteen and first appeared on stage at fifteen. He is skilled in the various Yuediao vocal styles and in playing the siguxian, and can sing more than seventy tune patterns (qupai) and over one hundred traditional plays. Among them such representative plays as The Legend of the Great Tang Heroes, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Xue Gang's Revolt against Tang have stayed in the repertoire for a long time without fading. He has led his troupe to travel to various places to perform, and his performing footsteps have covered Xiangyang and the surrounding regions. He is a representative inheritor of Yuediao in the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage items. Although already over eighty, he still carries out regular Yuediao teaching and has trained more than thirty inheritors, many of whom have grown into the transmission backbone of the new generation of Hubei Yuediao.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• He Quanzhi 02-0493
• Mao Ailian 03-1001
• Yuan Xiulian 05-2324
• Ye Xiangcheng 05-2325
• Shenxiaomei

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Yuediao (Gucheng, Hubei) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Ye Xiangcheng · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗