Dong Pipa Songs

01 · Historical Records

Pingjia village was founded in the Yongle reign of the Ming (about 1405), and it is said that this kind of song was already sung here at that time and has been handed down without a break ever since. In 1952 music workers of the Guizhou provincial cultural department discovered this pipa song and selected it to take part in the Guizhou provincial minority nationalities artistic festival, afterwards recommending it for performance in Beijing.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

In the national literary and artistic compendia the lyrical pipa song is mostly placed in the category of the folk song, while the narrative pipa song is placed in the category of the narrative-singing art (called pipa ballad-singing); some are both at once. Because the pipa songs of different places use different models of pipa and different tunings, different local speech, different performing places and different uses of the voice, many different styles have been formed. The Sanbao pipa song, also called the Chejiang pipa song, is one kind of lyrical pipa song; it is accompanied by a medium-sized four-string pipa with the guoji (ox-leg lute) playing in concert, the instrument being handled by a man, with a man playing and singing or a man playing while a woman sings, the male voice in the natural voice and the female voice in the small voice, and it is sung on the occasion of “walking in song and sitting out the moon”, circulating mainly in the Rongjiang county area centred on Sanbao. The Wanzhai pipa song, also called the Forty-Eight Stockades pipa song, is both a kind of lyrical pipa song and a kind of pipa ballad-singing: the male voice is accompanied by a three-string or five-string medium-to-large pipa and the female voice by a three-string or five-string small-to-medium pipa, both singing while playing. It circulates mainly in the Forty-Eight Stockades area where Rongjiang and Liping counties adjoin and in the Seventy-Two Stockades area of Rongjiang county. In the whole Dong area only the Forty-Eight Stockades area has women who play the pipa and sing; the Seventy-Two Stockades ballad-singing is a kind of narrative pipa song, mostly performed by middle-aged and elderly male artists accompanying themselves on a three-string or five-string large pipa, singing at the invitation of listeners in the main hall or the long gallery of a dwelling house, mainly narrative songs or songs of reasoning, and is current only in the Dong area of the Seventy-Two Stockades of Rongjiang county. The Pingjia pipa song, also called the Hongzhou pipa song, is a kind of lyrical pipa song; it is accompanied by a man on a three-string small pipa shaped like an ox-leg lute, with a man playing and singing or a man playing while a woman sings, both male and female voices in falsetto, quite distinctive, circulating mainly in the Dong area centred on Hongzhou township of Liping county and Boyang township of Tongdao county, Hunan. The Six Caves pipa song is a kind of lyrical pipa song; it is accompanied by a four-string small pipa, with a man playing and singing or a man playing while a woman sings, sung on the occasion of “walking in song and sitting out the moon”; originally both male and female voices were in falsetto, and now some have changed to the natural voice, and it circulates mainly in the areas of Liping and Congjiang counties commonly called the “Six Caves”, the “Thousand and Five” and the “Ten Caves”. The Rongjiang pipa song is both lyrical and narrative, and its performing form, performing place and performing content are the same as those of the Six Caves ballad-singing; it circulates mainly in the Rongjiang river section of Sanjiang and Rongshui counties of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and in the area of Liping county centred on the “Four-Foot Ox”. Its main pieces include The Opposite Bank, First Meeting, The Road Is Uneven, Long Time No See and Both of Us Willing. The Xunjiang pipa song is both lyrical and narrative, and its performing form, places and content are the same as those of the Six Caves ballad-singing; it circulates mainly in the area along the Xunjiang river and the Qushui river in Sanjiang and Longsheng counties of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and in Tongdao county, Hunan. The Hongzhou pipa song is current in Pingjia village of Hongzhou township, Liping county, Guizhou; the village lies 33 kilometres east of the Liping county seat, on the borders of Hunan, Guizhou and Guangxi. Because Pingjia village was then under the jurisdiction of Hongzhou, this pipa song was named the “Hongzhou pipa song”. Its most striking feature is that both men and women sing in a high falsetto, with a melody at once melodious and pleasing and quite distinctive in style. Its tunes and lyrics are rich, and its kinds include the love song, the song of filial respect for the elders and the narrative song, among others. The love song is sung antiphonally by young men and women playing the pipa at home or on the hillsides, mainly to pour out their mutual affection. The song of filial respect for the elders is sung by young men and women playing the pipa in public, its content being how to be filial to the old, and a famous one of these is called The Young All Respect the Old. The narrative song is sung by older people in the drum tower or in public, its content mostly recounting ethnic history, great events and folk tales. The Hongzhou pipa song is transmitted mainly among spontaneously organized groups of enthusiasts, and not directly between father and son or between close relatives. The old teach songs, the young sing songs and the children learn songs—this is the traditional custom of the Dong countryside. The Hongzhou pipa song holds an important place in Dong music: it is a treasure among Dong pipa songs and a heritage of ancient folk song. Among pipa songs it is the only rare variety sung in falsetto, its pipa-making craft is a thing apart, and its singing and playing are a delight for the people to hear, so that it has become an inseparable and important part of local life.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Dong pipa song is distributed in the southern-dialect area of the Dong and may be divided into the two great kinds of the lyrical pipa song and the narrative pipa song. It is found in the area along the Xunjiang river and the Qushui river in Sanjiang county and Longsheng county and in Tongdao county, Hunan.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Dong Pipa Songs · Dong Pipa Songs.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The content of its singing covers almost every aspect of Dong history, myth, legend, story, ancient rules and principles, production experience, love and marriage, custom and social intercourse, handed down from generation to generation in a long and unbroken line of song. The lyrics of the pipa song embody the highest level of Dong poetry and are important material for the study of Dong social anthropology, ethnology and folklore. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Wu Jiaxing, male, Dong, born 1942, a native of Rongjiang, Guizhou. He learned songs with his parents from childhood and in 1960 studied pipa playing and singing with the song master Pu Tao. By 1965 he could sing antiphonally in the song hall of his own village, and in 1970 he went to sing antiphonally in the song halls of other villages and began to take pupils. Thereafter he taught songs away from home for many years, for more than thirty years up to the present, and is a song master famous in the Forty-Eight Stockades area. Today, besides teaching songs in his stockade, he also serves as the music teacher of “ethnic music into the classroom”. He has mastered a whole set of the playing and singing skills of the Dong pipa song, and his representative works include The Women's Song and The Dong Children Love the Pipa. He is a representative bearer of the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the Dong pipa song.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Wu Jiaxing 02-0256
• Wu Yuzhu 02-0257
• Wu Shiheng 03-0828
• Yang Yueyan 05-2051
• Wuzhangjiao

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Dong Pipa Songs (Rongjiang, Guizhou) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Wu Jiaxing · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗