Grand Song of the Dong Ethnic Group
01 · Historical Records
The Dong grand song has a long history and had already reached a relatively mature stage as early as the Song dynasty: the famous Song poet Lu You recorded in his Laoxue'an Biji the practice of the “Geliao”, as the Dong called themselves, visiting one another in groups and singing. By the Ming dynasty Kuang Lu in his Chi Ya recorded even more explicitly the scene of the Dong “singing long songs with closed eyes”—an important document for the performance of the Dong grand song several hundred years ago.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Dong grand song of Liuzhou city and of the Sanjiang Dong autonomous county, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, is called “gal laox” by the Dong. “Gal” means song, while “laox” carries both the sense of “great” and the senses of “many people, many voices” and “ancient”. “Gal laox” is an ancient song kind sung collectively by a choir in which many people take part, and it is therefore rendered as the “grand song”. Locally these areas are habitually called the “Six Caves” and the “Nine Caves”. The grand song is generally sung on occasions when villages or clans visit one another in groups; it is the core content of cultural and emotional exchange among the Dong and to a certain degree embodies and conveys the soul of Dong culture. The Liping Dong grand song is one of the most distinctive of Chinese folk musical arts and a rare shining pearl in the garden of international folk music. As a multi-part folk song it has reached levels rarely seen in the world in multi-voice thinking, multi-voice form, choral technique and cultural connotation. Its representative pieces include The Yelao Song, Ga Gaosheng, Ga Yinye and Ga Xi. By its distinctive manner of singing and its special form of organization the Liping Dong grand song transmits the history and culture of the Dong. The Sanjiang grand song is usually sung antiphonally at festivals by men's and women's choirs seated in the drum tower or gathered round the fire pit, in order to tell of the philosophy of life and to pass on knowledge of production and daily life. By genre it may be divided into seven kinds: the drum-tower grand song (“ga deilou”), the sound grand song (“ga suo”), the children's grand song (“ga lawen”), the narrative grand song (“ga jin” and “ga jing”), the ceremonial grand song, the operatic grand song and the mixed-voice grand song (“ga shiniso”). There are several hundred main song tunes, and representative works include Ga Gaosheng (The High Mountain Song), Neng Men Gao Jing (The High Mountain Well-Water Song), Ga Lunlian (The Cicada Song) and Ga Yiyou (The Knowing-Cicada Song). The Dong have no script, and the grand song is taught orally by the “sangga” (song masters) from one generation to the next. The grand song has a unique formal structure: each song consists of the three parts of “song head”, “song body” and “song tail”. It is usually in two voice parts, known among the folk as the “male tone” (the high part) and the “female tone” (the low part). The Sanjiang Dong grand song is rich in content and varied in kind, with a beautiful and pleasing melody, and is praised as the world's “most beautiful sound of nature”.
The Yelao Song
Representative pieces of the Dong grand song include The Yelao Song, Ga Gaosheng, Ga Yinye and Ga Xi.
Ga Yinye
A representative piece of the Dong grand song, among the several hundred song tunes of the repertory.
Ga Xi
A representative piece of the Dong grand song, sung by the Dong choirs of the southern-dialect area.
Gagaosheng (High Mountain Song)
Gagaosheng is one of the standard repertoire titles of Dong Grand Song, whose representative works also include Yelaoge, Gayinye, Gaxi and others of the same order. Among the several hundred principal song forms recorded for Sanjiang, Gagaosheng is the example glossed as the high mountain song, a name that marks its origin among the communities of the upper river valleys. Like the other Grand Song titles it belongs to the collective repertoire of the village song teams rather than to a single soloist, and it is performed when teams of singers meet as guests at one another's houses or during festival observances in the drum tower or around the fire pit. The melody is carried by two vocal parts, the high male-range line called the xiong yin and the low line called the ci yin, which the singers hold in sustained, closely spaced harmony over a simple, slowly unfolding tune.
Neng Men Gao Jing
A representative work of the Dong grand song, also known as the High Mountain Well-Water Song.
Ga Lunlian
A representative work of the Dong grand song, also known as the Cicada Song.
Ga Yiyou
A representative work of the Dong grand song, also known as the Knowing-Cicada Song.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Liping Dong grand song is a folk choral music sung by folk choirs in the southern-dialect area of the Chinese Dong, circulating mainly in southern Liping county and the adjoining north of Congjiang county, including the present townships of Yandong, Koujiang, Shuangjiang, Yongcong, Zhaoxing, Shuikou and Long'e in Liping county and Wangdong, Guping, Gaozeng, Guandong and Luoxiang in Congjiang county. The Sanjiang Dong grand song of Guangxi circulates mainly in the Dong stockades along the Rongjiang river in the Meilin, Fulu and Yangxi townships of Sanjiang county and in the Dong village settlements of Luocheng. By timbre the Sanjiang Dong grand song may be divided into the men's grand song, the women's grand song, the children's grand song and the mixed men-and-women grand song.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Grand Song of the Dong Ethnic Group · Grand Song of the Dong Ethnic Group · Grand Song of the Dong Ethnic Group · Grand Song of the Dong Ethnic Group.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
It is not merely a musical art but an important part of Dong social structure, marriage relations, cultural transmission and spiritual life. It has a great number of pieces and extremely wide content and possesses research value in many fields—social history, the history of marriage, the history of thought and the history of education—and is the spiritual pillar that sustains the survival of Dong society. With the continuous development of reform and opening up and of the market economy, the Dong grand song faces the danger of being lost, and its protection and transmission can give an important impetus to cultural development in the Dong areas and to the building of a harmonious society. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Wu Guangzu, male, Dong, born 1944, a native of Sanjiang Dong autonomous county, Guangxi. He has so far collected and collated more than ten Dong grand song works with different tunes, including The High Mountain Well-Water Song, The Squirrel Song and The First Month Establishes Spring and Autumn. A representative bearer of the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the Dong grand song, he began learning to sing the Dong grand song, Dong opera and Dong pipa song in 1952 and is now head of the Meilin Dong grand song team and of the literary and artistic team, teaching the Dong grand song, the pipa song, the ox-leg-lute song and other Dong folk music to the young. Since 1999 he has many times led the Dong grand song team to perform in the great cities; in 2004 he was awarded one of the first batch of “ten best folk artists” by the CPC Sanjiang county committee, and in 2005 he was named by the regional department of culture, the science and technology bureau and the general administration of sport a “Shixi well-off cultural demonstration household”. Qin Naihao, female, Dong, born 1945, a native of Sanjiang Dong autonomous county, Guangxi. From 1956 to the present she has studied and taught the Dong grand song in the intervals of farm work. Between 2001 and 2003 she was engaged several times by the Guilin tourism bureau to serve as a teacher of the Dong grand song. She now guides the Silver Bell children's class of Gao'an primary school in practising the children's-voice singing of the Dong grand song. She has a complete command of the traditional singing of the Dong grand song of the Rongjiang river area of Sanjiang and is of relatively high representativeness and influence. She is a representative bearer of the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the Dong grand song. In 1986 she took part in the folk-song competition of the five provinces (regions) of Guangxi, won the second prize and was awarded the title of “song master”.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wu Pinxian 02-0253
- Wu Guangzu 02-0254
- Tannaihao 02-0255
- Wu Renhe 03-0826
- Pan Sayinhua 03-0827
- Hu Guanmei 04-1510
- Jia Fuying 05-2050
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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