Lishui Guci
01 · Historical Records
Lishui guci had already taken shape at the latest by the middle of the Qing dynasty. Recorded performance activity can be traced back to the twenty-sixth year of the Daoguang reign of the Qing dynasty (1846). In the late Qing dynasty a "Lishui County Drum-Song Guild" was founded in Lishui, showing that its development had a considerable social basis.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Lishui guci is a form of storytelling performed with alternating speech and song in the Lishui accent, circulating in Lishui City of Zhejiang Province as well as in Jinyun County, Yunhe County, Songyang County, Jingning She Autonomous County and Qingtian County. Because the drum is its principal accompanying instrument, it is called "Lishui guci". It is further divided according to mode of itinerant performance: the flat drum used in mobile performance (that is, "mentou gu" performance) and the large hall drum used in seated, booked performance (that is, "baochang gu" performance). Lishui guci is usually performed by one person, who beats the drum clappers himself while speaking and singing; there are also cases in which one person leads while several others accompany the singing, holding large and small gongs, chayue cymbals, qiaqia boards and liulun boards. Its vocal melodies belong to the banqiang (metrical) system, the main metrical forms being "gaodiao", "didiao", "pingdiao" and "jinliushui". The lyrics consist mainly of seven-syllable lines, with four lines to a stanza as a rule. The repertoire includes both long and short pieces; the subject matter of traditional pieces is chiefly chivalry, legal cases, worldly affairs and myth, and more than two hundred traditional items are known to have been transmitted. Representative long works include "the Nine-Dragon Whip", "the Body-Piercing Mirror" and "the Ballad of Lady Chen Shisi"; short pieces include "Whole Family Happiness" and "the Hundred-Year-Old Archway". Lishui guci has a rich repertoire of performing techniques, combining narration, expression of feeling and reasoning, and combining narration, imitation and chahua (comic interludes).
Doorway and booked performances
Its two modes differ by drum: the flat drum for itinerant doorway singing, the large hall drum for booked indoor sessions.
Long narrative titles
Representative long pieces on chivalry, legal cases, domestic life and myth; over two hundred traditional items are known.
Short pieces
Representative short items used to open a session or to fill a request, as distinct from the serialised long pieces.
Metres of the banqiang style
Its banqiang melodies are led by the high, low, plain and fast-running metres, with seven-character lines grouped in fours.
Singing the Lady's tale
Local gazetteers of the Daoguang and Tongzhi reigns record singing the Lady Chen Shisi tale as a widespread urban and rural practice.
The Lishui drum-song guild
A Lishui drum-song guild founded in the late Qing shows the genre had acquired a substantial social footing by the 1840s.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
It has many styles and schools, each with its own characteristics according to the area in which it circulates. The "Lishui County Gazetteer" of the Daoguang reign of the Qing dynasty and the "Customs" chapter of the "Yunhe County Gazetteer" of the Tongzhi reign both record drum-song performances whose main content was "singing the Lady's ballad", showing how widespread the activity of "singing the Lady" was in the towns and countryside of Lishui at that time. As a form of quyi native to Lishui City, Zhejiang Province, Lishui guci carries the wisdom and creativity of the local people, reflects local aesthetic ideals, conceptual consciousness and spiritual pursuits, enriches the life of the masses and promotes social harmony; it also has a certain reference value for the study of the local history of aesthetics, of intellectual and cultural history, of linguistic and customary history, and of the history of folk belief.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Lishui guci is sung in the Lishui accent, and one person striking the drum clappers himself is enough to open a session; long works such as "the Nine-Dragon Whip", "the Body-Piercing Mirror" and "the Ballad of Lady Chen Shisi" can be told in sequence for months on end, while short pieces such as "Whole Family Happiness" and "the Hundred-Year-Old Archway" are used to open a session or to fill a request. In former times performers divided into two lines, mentou gu and baochang gu: the former went from village to village and house to house plying their trade with the flat drum, the latter were engaged by a host to sing seated in the main hall or ancestral hall, using the large hall drum. The vocal music belongs to the banqiang system, with metrical forms such as gaodiao, didiao, pingdiao and jinliushui changing as the plot rises and relaxes, spoken narration and comic interludes interspersed throughout, combining narration, expression of feeling and reasoning. In recent years the Lishui City Liandu District Cultural Centre (Liandu District Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Centre) has recorded veteran performers on audio and video, compiled catalogues of the traditional repertoire, and sustained transmission through bringing drum-song into schools and touring at storytelling venues; but the itinerant mentou gu has already virtually disappeared, and performers able to sing the entire "Ballad of Lady Chen Shisi" are growing ever scarcer.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。