Miao Lusheng Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
Among the Miao society, the lusheng has never been a mere musical instrument. For the Miao it is not just an instrument; in its playing performance it merges lyric, melody, and dance into one, and thus became a symbol of Miao culture, while keeping the lusheng performance in its original and archaic form. Precisely because playing the lusheng is both narration and a collective activity, the making of the lusheng must be tied to the festive life of the village; the number of pipes and the width of the scale are determined by the needs of the festival grounds. The lusheng around Leishan developed step by step from six pipes to fifteen to twenty-four pipes; Mo Yanxue advanced the traditional six pipes to today's fifteen to twenty-four, and a large lusheng can reach an overall length of six or seven meters, selling far to domestic and overseas markets. In recent years, he and his son have concentrated their main efforts on developing a new model of twenty-four-pipe, forty-eight-note lusheng. This line of expansion has not changed the lusheng's inherent form: a lusheng is usually composed of three parts—pipes, a wind chest, and reeds; the number of pipes may increase, but the making of the wind chest and reeds remains the fundamental criterion for judging a lusheng's quality. The lusheng produced around Leishan have pure, un-muddied tone and a smooth, clean body, and their fame has spread far and wide.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
In the Miao-inhabited areas of Leishan County, Guizhou, every village has a lusheng, making it an important place of production for the instrument. The lusheng-making craftsmen live respectively in Paika Village of Danjiang Town, Pingxiang Village and Queniao Village of Fangxiang Township, and Taoliang Village and Nianxie Village of Taojiang Township in Leishan County; all these villages lie deep in the mountains with extremely inconvenient transport. To make a lusheng, beyond a certain knowledge of music theory, one must also possess knowledge of physics and understand the principles of mechanics. There are many kinds of lusheng, differing in timbre and also in size and shape; to make a lusheng that meets needs, the craftsman must above all have long experience in making them. The Miao masters who inherit the lusheng-making craft need only a bellows, hammer, brass, axe, chisel, saw, drill, bitter bamboo, tung oil, and lime (some have switched to latex) to produce exquisite and practical lusheng of various kinds. The lusheng made in the Leishan area have pure timbre and a smooth, beautiful exterior, enjoying great renown. The lusheng is a symbol of Miao culture; in performance and playing, the Miao lusheng merges lyric, melody, and dance into one, preserving the originality and archaic quality of Miao historical culture and art. The lusheng-making craft has always been taught hands-on by masters, with no written materials preserved; moreover, the craft is exacting, making its transmission rather difficult. The Miao lusheng-making craft of Daguan, Zhaotong City, Yunnan Province, mainly exists in Tianxing Town, Daguan County, Zhaotong City, within the Miao-inhabited area of Yunnan. The Tianxing Town lusheng uses bitter bamboo, birch-bark, fir, and copper sheets as materials, and is made with tools such as knives, saws, planes, chisels, drills, hammers, scissors, and a smelting furnace. A lusheng is usually composed of three parts—pipes, a wind chest, and reeds—and a common lusheng generally has six sounding pipes. Wang Jiefeng, the inheritor of the lusheng craft in Daguan County, innovated on the basis of inherited family secrets: he changed the sounding pipes to eight or ten, and during the high-temperature smelting of the brass reeds he added a certain proportion of lead, enhancing the reeds' elasticity and toughness; the resulting lusheng sounds brighter and more pleasing, and the century-old Tianxing "Wang Lusheng" thereby gained renown among the Miao villages at the junction of Yunnan and Guizhou, adding luster to the Daguan Tianxing lusheng.
Selecting bitter bamboo for the pipes
Pipes are cut from bitter bamboo whose girth and node spacing set the pitch; uneven nodes or loose fibre spoil the note or split the tube later.
Tuning the pipes
As pipe count and body size vary, the maker calculates each target pitch and files the mouth and body by minute amounts, any change being audible.
Tuning the brass reeds
Brass reeds are smelted and filed to a springy thickness; their weight sets the timbre, thick sounding dull and thin sounding sharp — the hardest part to balance.
Fitting pipes and feet to the wind chamber
Pipes, wind chamber and reeds are joined and sealed with tung oil or lime, or latex today; any leak in the joint ruins the note.
From six pipes to twenty-four
Six pipes are common, but Leishan makers extended them to fifteen, twenty-four and even a twenty-four-pipe forty-eight-tone model, requiring the chamber and reeds to be remade.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
In the Miao-inhabited villages of Leishan County, almost every village is equipped with a lusheng, and the place is thus called an important production area of the instrument. The lusheng-making craftsmen live respectively in Paika Village of Danjiang Town, Pingxiang Village and Queniao Village of Fangxiang Township, and Taoliang Village and Nianxie Village of Taojiang Township in Leishan County; all these villages lie deep in the mountains with extremely inconvenient transport, and the craftsmen's skills are mostly taught locally within the villages. The gear kept by the Miao masters who inherit the craft is not complicated: a bellows, hammer, and axe, with chisel, saw, and drill, plus brass and bitter bamboo, and then tung oil and lime for sealing (some have switched to latex), are enough to make exquisite and practical lusheng of various kinds. The coexistence of simple tools and an exacting craft is precisely the characteristic of the Leishan lusheng. Leishan and Daguan in northeastern Yunnan are both production areas of the Miao lusheng yet differ as north and south: Leishan excels in pipe-number expansion and pure timbre, while Daguan's Tianxing Town prevails through improvement of the reed formula; each locale's craft has something worth learning from the other.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Miao Lusheng Making Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
But now, artisans who can skillfully make the lusheng like Wang Jiefeng are becoming fewer and fewer; this exquisite craft lacks successors and faces the danger of being lost, urgently awaiting rescue and protection. Mo Yanxue (from the official archival record of the associated inheritor): Male, Miao ethnicity, born in 1951, from Leishan, Guizhou. Representative inheritor of the Miao lusheng-making craft, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the first batch. Mo Yanxue learned the family-inherited lusheng-making craft from his family in childhood; the lusheng he makes are finely crafted, beautiful in appearance, and sweet in sound, and he advanced the traditional six pipes to today's fifteen to twenty-four, with a large lusheng reaching an overall length of six or seven meters and selling far to domestic and overseas markets. Mo Yanxue has been making lusheng for forty years, accumulating rich experience. In recent years he and his son have concentrated their main efforts on developing a new model of twenty-four-pipe, forty-eight-note lusheng. A fifteen-pipe lusheng with a rosewood foot that he made was collected by the Guizhou Federation of Literary and Art Circles as one of the Ten Fine Folk Craft Works. Driven by him, the households in his village capable of making lusheng have all gained good economic returns. Since 2002, Mo Yanxue has repeatedly won awards; titles such as "Guizhou Top Ten Folk Craft Masters" and "Guizhou Senior Folk Artisan" are recognition of his achievements.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Mo Yanxue 01-0151
- Wang Jiefeng 01-0152
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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