Mongolian Morin Khuur Music

01 · Historical Records

The horse-head fiddle is one of the earliest bowed string instruments of the Mongol people, and its predecessor is generally thought to be connected with the horse-tail huqin and the hubo-si type of instruments used by the northern nomadic peoples in the Tang and Song periods. From the Yuan dynasty onwards, with the development of Mongol musical culture, the horse-head fiddle spread widely over the grasslands and gradually took fixed form with a horse's head as its ornament. From the Qing dynasty to the Republican period the horse-head fiddle became an indispensable instrument of Mongol ceremonial and customary activity and formed several performing schools in different regions.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The horse-head fiddle is a typical representative of Mongol musical culture: whether in its modelling, its materials of manufacture, or its tone colour, its style of musical expression and its method of playing, it embodies the inner character of the Mongol people, fully reflects the historical form of Mongol nomadic life and expresses the Mongol people's philosophical reflection on and apprehension of nature and the universe. The Mongol horse-head fiddle has a long history: it already existed at the time of the formation of the Mongol people. It may be said that the horse-head fiddle has come along with the Mongol people from the far distance of the grasslands and of history, carrying within it rich historical and cultural information. The horse-head fiddle is not only played on certain formal and solemn occasions but also appears in daily activities such as folk weddings and ceremonies and gatherings of relatives and friends; it can both accompany songs and perform pieces in solo. It has a profound social and customary foundation and performs such social functions as spreading culture, cultivating character and transforming customs. The traditional pieces of the horse-head fiddle mostly evolved from folk songs and may be divided into five kinds: 1. native folk songs, such as Zhu Se Lian and Ba Ya Ling; 2. the named tunes of heroic epics, such as The Galloping Horse Tune and The Battle Tune; 3. the horse-step tunes, that is, tunes representing the image of the horse; 4. qin pieces developed from folk songs, such as He Yin Hua and Modelei; 5. ancient Han Chinese tunes, such as The Pu'an Incantation and Liu Qing Niang. The horse-head fiddle is extremely revered in Mongol culture and has become an extremely important form of expression of Mongol culture. In recent decades the development of the horse-head fiddle has met with serious difficulties.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

In its long historical development the horse-head fiddle formed different schools bearing a distinctly regional colour, and these schools are closely bound up with the gathering and scattering, the union and separation, within and outside the Mongol people and with historical change. Historically the horse-head fiddle had four great traditional performing schools, each with its own traditional performing repertory.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Mongolian Morin Khuur Music · Mongolian Morin Khuur Music.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

But today the transmitters of the horse-head fiddle grow fewer and fewer and the loss of pieces is serious, so that protection brooks no delay. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Qi Baoligao, male, Mongol, born 1944, a native of Inner Mongolia. He has twice reformed the materials of manufacture of the horse-head fiddle and has unified its methods of playing, greatly improving and enriching its power of artistic expression. His representative works include the solo The Grassland Joins to Beijing, the concerto Beloved Homeland, the ensemble Recalling and the quartet Fate. He has published such works as The Method of Playing the Horse-Head Fiddle. He is a representative bearer of the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the Mongol horse-head fiddle music, and is vice-director and a first-class actor of the Inner Mongolia Ethnic Song and Dance Theatre. Bulin, male, Mongol, born February 1940, a native of Horqin Left Middle Banner, Inner Mongolia. The “theory of three tunings and five methods of playing of the horse-tail huqin” that he proposed is now accepted by the academic world. He has also composed many horse-head fiddle pieces rooted in tradition, such as The Ballad and On the Gobi Plateau, combining many traditional methods of playing the horse-tail huqin in himself and, on the basis of thorough mastery, being good at innovation; he is one of the few grand masters of horse-head fiddle art who fuse tradition and modernity, practice and theory. He is a representative bearer of the third batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the Mongol horse-head fiddle music.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Qi Baoligao 02-0273
• Bulin 03-0836
• Baoyuming
• Qinggelei

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Mongolian Morin Khuur Music (Inner Mongolia) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Qi Baoligao · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Bulin · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗