Yongxinxiaogu
01 · Historical Records
Yongxin small drum is a form of quyi storytelling founded in Yongxin County, Jiangxi Province; because the tunes it sings are derived mainly from the local haozi work songs, it is popularly known as “chang haoyin” (singing the haozi tunes). According to the Yongxin County Gazetteer of the Qing dynasty, Yongxin small drum was founded during the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty, and its founder was Ouyang Chengxiang.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Having lost his sight as a boy, Ouyang Chengxiang went to live in Sheng'en Hall, a charitable institution established by Yongxin County; he took as his model yugu, another local form of quyi, remade the yugu barrel into a small drum covered with cowhide, struck it himself for accompaniment, and adapted the tunes of the local haozi work songs and mountain songs for his narrative-singing performance, and in this way Yongxin small drum took shape and developed. In its traditional performance form, one performer hangs the small drum at the waist and strikes it for accompaniment, adds bamboo clappers to mark the beats, sings in the local Yongxin pronunciation, and performs standing, alternating narration and singing, with the singing predominating. There are also performances today in which two or more people narrate and sing in combination, and elevated-stage performances to which a small band is added as accompaniment. The text of the pieces is a mixture of prose and verse, and the lyrics are basically composed of seven-syllable lines. Its vocal styles and tunes form a metrical system of tune patterns developed from the local labour haozi and mountain songs, and include the plain vocal style, the high vocal style and others. The principal accompanying instruments, besides the small drum and the bamboo clappers used in the traditional performance form, include the erhu, the pipa, the sanxian and so on. Its traditional repertoire includes long, medium and short pieces alike, and representative works are Baishou Ji, Wuzi Xingxiao, Duqian Ji, Lanpo Niang and others.
Baishou Ji (Paying Birthday Homage)
Its traditional repertoire includes long, medium and short pieces alike, and representative works are Baishou Ji, Wuzi Xingxiao, Duqian Ji, Lanpo Niang and others.
Wuzi Xingxiao (Five Sons Practising Filial Piety)
Its traditional repertoire includes long, medium and short pieces alike, and representative works are Baishou Ji, Wuzi Xingxiao, Duqian Ji, Lanpo Niang and others.
Duqian Ji (The Story of Gambling)
Its traditional repertoire includes long, medium and short pieces alike, and representative works are Baishou Ji, Wuzi Xingxiao, Duqian Ji, Lanpo Niang and others.
Lanpo Niang (The Lazy Woman)
Its traditional repertoire includes long, medium and short pieces alike, and representative works are Baishou Ji, Wuzi Xingxiao, Duqian Ji, Lanpo Niang and others.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
It is now current in Yongxin County, Jiangxi Province, and the surrounding area, and it is most popular around Longyuankou Town in that county. Yongxin small drum mainly reflects the folk tales of the locality and the things that happen in the lives of ordinary people; it carries and embodies the aesthetic taste, values, ethics and morals, and local customs of the local people, and it is an important carrier of Yongxin's local culture and social psychology. Yongxin small drum reflects the creative ability of folk artists, is an important carrier of local social history and indigenous culture, is an artistic embodiment and a concentrated display of the local dialect pronunciation and musical culture, and has a certain value for the study of dialect vocabulary and aesthetic psychology.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Zhu Yousheng (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): A man of the Han nationality, born in June 1945, native of Yongxin County, Jiangxi Province. As the eleventh-generation inheritor of Yongxin small drum, he has mastered its performance skills in a relatively systematic way and has fairly completely inherited its traditional repertoire. While widely collecting, sorting out, inheriting and performing the traditional pieces, he has also composed and performed a large number of new pieces, and the result in transmission is remarkable. He has taken part many times in the national, provincial and municipal folk art exchange performances. Representative inheritor of Yongxin small drum for the fifth national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage projects. In 1976 he took part in the national quyi exchange performance organised by the Ministry of Culture and won the Award for Excellent Performance.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhu Yousheng 05-2528
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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