Jingzhoumiaozugeteng
01 · Historical Records
The Jingzhou Miao geteng arose in the Miao areas of settlement in the Qiaoli area of Jingzhou, Hunan. The Qiaoli Miao have a long history: in their beautiful natural surroundings the forebears imitated the harmonies of nature—bird calls, the cicada's song, the sound of flowing water and the sough of the woods—and the intervals they discovered in productive labour and hunting, and after long selection and refinement created the distinctive multi-voice Miao geteng, which has been handed down from generation to generation along with Miao folk custom.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Qiaoli in Jingzhou lies in the border area between Hunan and Guizhou in the south-west of Hunan. The Qiaoli Miao have a long history going back far. The Qiaoli Miao are diligent and simple, open and bold, and have long had the cultural feeling and healthy upward attitude of life of “nourishing the body with rice and the heart with song”. The Miao forebears, rising at sunrise and resting at sunset in their beautiful and fresh natural surroundings, imitated the harmonies of nature—bird calls, the cicada's song, the sound of flowing water and the sough of the woods—and the intervals discovered in productive labour and hunting, and after long selection and refinement created the Miao song of distinctive charm. Its lyrics are mostly in four seven-character lines, and its content touches on many aspects: historical legend, sacrificial rite, productive labour, marriage and love, admonition and reasoning, and the singing of natural features. The singing adopts a progressive form from low to high, light to heavy and few to many, mostly with a single person starting the song in the low voice part, the other parts entering one after another, and the several parts flowing in alternation. The Jingzhou Miao songs include the Mountain Song, the Water-Carrying Song, the Tea Song and the Three Songs. Their singing activities are often closely linked with Miao folk custom and fused with it.
The Mountain Song
One of the pieces of the Jingzhou Miao geteng.
The Water-Carrying Song
One of the pieces of the Jingzhou Miao geteng.
The Tea Song
One of the pieces of the Jingzhou Miao geteng.
The Three Songs
One of the pieces of the Jingzhou Miao geteng.
The Tea-Song Tune, the Wine-Song Tune and the Rice-Song Tune
The tune categories of the Jingzhou Miao geteng divided by style, melody, content and custom.
The Mountain-Song Tune, the Water-Carrying-Song Tune and the Three-Note-Song Tune
The tunes whose intervals and intonation differ both from other Miao folk songs and from the neighbouring Dong and Han folk songs.
Progressive Multi-Voice Choral Singing from Low to High
The form of singing in which a single person starts the song in the low voice part, the other parts enter one after another and the several parts flow in alternation.
The Jingzhou Miao Geteng Training Institute
The first training institute, founded in 2010, and the transmission practice with nearly a hundred apprentices.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Nearly twenty thousand Miao live in this area. The Jingzhou Miao songs may be divided by style, melody, content, manner of singing and ethnic custom into the tea-song tune, the wine-song tune, the rice-song tune, the mountain-song tune, the water-carrying-song tune and the three-note-song tune. Their musical intervals and intonation differ both from the Miao folk songs of other places and from the neighbouring Dong and Han folk songs, with a clear individuality and character. The language of singing is mainly the local Miao dialect, the “sour speech”. With the development of transport and communications in the Qiaoli area the state of long relative isolation between the local Miao and the outside world has been broken, and the traditional cultural space on which the Miao songs depended for survival and development has rapidly shrunk; the important song masters and singers decrease year by year and the local Miao's interest in singing grows ever more indifferent, so that the Miao songs and the Miao traditional culture they represent have no successors.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Song is an important vehicle for recording the conditions of life of the Qiaoli Miao, for the exchange of feeling between people and for the transmission of ethnic culture, and is moreover an indispensable part of their daily life. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Long Jingping, male, Miao, born May 1959, a native of the Jingzhou Miao and Dong autonomous county, Hunan. From primary school he learned to sing Miao songs with the elders of his clan. After decades of collecting and sorting he cooperated with the county Miao studies association in publishing Selections of Jingzhou Miao Geteng and with the county cultural department in compiling the Teaching Materials for Miao Geteng Music. In 2010 he founded the first Miao geteng training institute in Jingzhou. He is a representative bearer of the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the Jingzhou Miao geteng. In 2010 he won the silver prize in the Hunan qualifying round of the CCTV young singers' contest, and in September 2012 he took part in the sixth Chinese original folk-song contest sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, winning the outstanding singing prize of the multi-person group section and a special award of the organizing committee. In his years of teaching and transmitting the art he has trained nearly a hundred apprentices, and the outstanding apprentice Pan Yi and others have many times won prizes in contests at provincial, municipal and county level.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Long Jingping 05-2045
- Pan Xuewen
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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