Gupenge
01 · Historical Records
The drum-on-basin song originated in the ancient Chu-region custom of beating the fou jar and the basin to make offerings to the spirits of the dead; it is now current in Changde City and Zhangjiajie City of Hunan Province, Jingzhou City of Hubei Province and other places. In the Tang dynasty it developed into a form in which stories about historical figures were sung in order to comfort the deceased and to teach the younger generation to repay kindnesses and practise filial piety. From the 1970s of the twentieth century onward its sentence patterns were gradually expanded, its texts fixed, and the form changed from singing to speech-and-song narration. This performance form has been handed down to the present through the master-apprentice system; from the 1980s onward it gradually entered performance venues such as teahouses, longevity halls and stages, and it developed two-person and multi-person performance on stage, with female performers beginning to enter the trade.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The drum-on-basin song is popularly called the "funeral drum" and the "filial drum", among other names. It is an ancient form of quyi whose principal form is the singing of stories accompanied by a beaten clapper. According to incomplete statistics, more than a thousand drum-on-basin pieces have been discovered, of which over 800 are traditional and close to 200 are newly composed; the language is lively and vivacious and the imagery is distinct. The drum-on-basin song is performed mostly by one person beating a drum and narrating in speech and song, with singing as the main element; it later developed into the case of two singers with two drums and of several singers standing with several drums. Its vocal style is plain and unadorned, its metrical patterns are rich and clear, and it gradually developed into a form for singing stories of historical figures in order to comfort the deceased and to teach the younger generation to carry on the tradition, repay kindnesses and practise filial piety. More than a hundred pieces in the song books of the drum-on-basin song of Li County and its surroundings have now been collated; they are accompanied by a large drum about half a person's height, set at an angle inside a wooden basin, and later an ordinary large drum one chi in diameter was used instead. The traditional mode of performance was carried out mostly inside the mourning hall, serving both to mourn the dead and to make offerings to their spirits, and it also added accompaniment on bronze gongs and bronze cymbals. The performance sequence is: first strike three rounds of the drum, sound the horn to open the singing, invite the deities, pacify the five directions, comfort the deceased, narrate and sing the main text, comfort the deceased and offer the libation of wine, see off the song boy, recite the words of praise, and send forth the spirit. The distinctive quality of the drum-on-basin song lies in the fact that its sung text is rhymed, mostly sustaining a single rhyme right through, and that it is characterized by improvised composition and singing. The Shijing, "Chen Feng · Yuanqiu", records "they strike the fou jar on the pit; the way of Yuanqiu". The drum-on-basin song was originally sung by one person with one drum while seated in the mourning hall, popularly called "sitting the funeral drum", and served exclusively to accompany the dead and keep vigil by the coffin. During the Jiaqing reign of the Qing dynasty, five-syllable lines were changed into seven-syllable lines. The drum-on-basin songs of Li County and its surroundings have varied subjects and rich content, and many of them extol virtue and advocate filial piety.
Seated wake drumming
Originally one singer and one drum seated in the mourning hall, a vigil form traceable to the Book of Songs.
Opening the wake ritual
The opening sequence of the Li county form: three drum rolls, the horn call, summons to the gods and the settling of the five directions.
Closing the wake ritual
The closing sequence after the main tale: offering wine, sending off the singers and releasing the soul.
The drum lodged in a wooden basin
A drum half a man tall set slantwise in a wooden basin, later replaced by an ordinary foot-wide drum.
Four Li county songbooks
Four traditional songbooks of the Lizhou drum, edited from 2007 by the inheritor Li Jinchu.
The shift from five to seven characters
In the Jiaqing reign the line was lengthened from five to seven characters; further changes came in the 1970s.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Besides preserving ancient songs and ballads and ancient written texts such as the Shijing, it also applies a large number of local dialects and colloquial sayings in its sung text, which is irreplaceable for the study of Chinese folk literature and of language and script.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Gupenge.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The information on the funerary ritual culture of ancient Jingchu preserved in it has a certain reference value for China's ritual culture. Li Jinchu (per the official archival record of an associated inheritor): male, of Han ethnicity, born in December 1947, a native of Li County, Hunan Province. A member of the China Quyi Artists Association. From the 1980s onward he also brought the drum-on-basin song, which had previously been performed only in mourning halls, into quyi teahouses for performance, broadening its market. Beginning in 2007 he set about collating the four traditional song books of the Lizhou large drum — "Wu Nv Xi Tang" (Five Women Play at Tang), "Tian Kai Bang" (Heaven Opens the List), "Bai Ma Tuo Shi" (A White Horse Carrying a Corpse) and "Shuang He Yin" (The Twin Seals Joined) — and he also collated nearly ten modern song books such as "Tong Guan Ci" (Words of Crossing the Checkpoint) and "Huang Li Mi" (The Royal Almanac Enigma). He has a good voice, enunciates clearly, keeps the rhythm fast without becoming chaotic and slow without becoming slack, and fully brings out the humorous and satirical character of the art. He organizes one or two training classes every year to impart his skills to young performers. Representative inheritor of the drum-on-basin song item among the national-level intangible cultural heritage projects in the fifth batch. He takes part year after year in quyi benefit performances for the public, and his works have won awards many times.
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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