Yulin Xiaoqu
01 · Historical Records
As for the origin of Yulin xiaoqu, local tradition holds that it is bound up with the garrison life of Yulin Wei in the Ming dynasty: the officers stationed around Yulin kept singing girls, who brought shidiao xiaoqu from the Jiangnan region along with the troops; the tunes were first sung in the yamen and the barracks of the garrison town, and later passed into the folk, where the original Wu-dialect vocal style was replaced by the local dialect and the tunes of northern Shaanxi folk songs were absorbed, so that the art gradually developed into the seated singing of xiaoqu in the qupai form. The old families and the sons of shopkeepers in the city of Yulin were the principal groups who sang it, and they mostly sang for their own amusement at New Year, at temple fairs and at private gatherings in their own homes. After the 1950s the local cultural departments made a general survey and recorded the tunes and the sung texts; a Yulin xiaoqu research society was founded in the 1980s, and the Yulin xiaoqu singing troupe was organized in 2002.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The performance form of Yulin xiaoqu is that one or two people take the lead in singing, while several others share out the accompaniment on yangqin, guzheng, pipa, sanxian, jinghu, small cymbals and the like, and also sing along in turns in different role types. Its vocal music is very rich; the vocal form is of the qupai type, either a single tune repeated over and over or several tunes linked and sung in succession. The pieces carried by its accompanying instruments deal much with the love of men and women and the deep affection of parents and children, and the art is especially good at expressing the sorrow of parting and the resentment of separation that grow out of them. The traditional programmes of Yulin xiaoqu are of both short and long length, and Sunset at Dusk, A Courtesan Files a Complaint and Flying a Kite, together with Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai and Scholar Zhang Teases Yingying, are all representative works among them. Historically Yulin xiaoqu was sung mainly by enthusiasts who performed it for their own amusement and pleasure; later there also appeared singing in the streets as a means of begging, singing at private gatherings, and raised-platform performances run for profit.
Zhang Sheng Teases Yingying
A representative traditional title, with the genre specialising in love and parting.
At Dusk and Flying the Kite
Short pieces typical of the genre, once sung for pleasure and later for alms, at halls and on stage.
The saucer and the Qin zither
The accompanying instruments: yangqin, zither, pipa, sanxian, fiddle and a saucer struck with chopsticks.
Linked singing
The genre's tune-body form, in which a single tune is repeated or several are strung together.
Hall performances and street singing
The three settings that developed: private pleasure, begging in the streets and paid performances at halls and on stage.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Yulin xiaoqu is a form of quyi singing that took shape in and is mainly current in the Yulin area of northern Shaanxi; according to local tradition it was brought from the Jiangnan region by the singing girls kept by the officers garrisoned at Yulin in the Ming dynasty, and in the course of its long development and change it came to be sung in the local dialect and absorbed and adapted local folk songs and ditties, until it was enriched and perfected into the quyi genre it is today. In the cultural life of the local people, Yulin xiaoqu has played an important role.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
However, at the present day the development of this art form has run into the difficulty of having too few people to carry it on; it faces the danger of being lost, and steps must be taken to protect it. Lin Yubi (official archival record of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han nationality, born in 1945, a native of Yulin, Shaanxi Province. Over more than fifty years in the art he has mastered most of the Yulin xiaoqu tunes transmitted in the Yulin area. Representative inheritor of Yulin xiaoqu in the second national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects. Wang Qing (official archival record of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han nationality, born in 1954, a native of Yulin, Shaanxi Province. President of the Yulin xiaoqu Research Society. In 1968 he began to study under his father Wang Ziying, the noted Yulin xiaoqu instrumentalist; while learning to sing he also studied in turn the playing techniques of the sanxian, pipa, Qin zheng and yangqin. In 1983 he became a council member of the Shaanxi Qin Zheng Society, and in 2002 he became head of the Yulin xiaoqu singing troupe. Over the years he has been engaged in research and in collecting materials for performance, for transmission, for publication and for recording. Representative inheritor of Yulin xiaoqu in the second national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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