Mongolian Morin Khuur Music

01 · Historical Records

According to the Travels of Marco Polo, a two-stringed zither was current among the Mongols in the twelfth century, and the academic world for the most part identifies it as the predecessor of the horse-head fiddle.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The Mongoljin horse-head fiddle music is a traditional form of musical expression created in the course of the nomadic and farming life of the Lejin tribe of the Mongols. The county has thirty-five townships under it and a total population of 740,000, of whom the Mongols are more than twenty per cent. The Mongoljin horse-head fiddle music is melodious, deep, broad and lyrical and mostly adopts epic narrative-singing music, the storytelling music of the hurqin, folk songs and other folk instrumental pieces; the pieces often played number more than seventy, including Asiru, The Pu'an Incantation, Hai Xiu Hua, Chun Mei, Modeleima, The Bright Moon, Huo Ying Hua, Liu Qing, Noon Jiya, Yun Liang, Ten Thousand Horses Galloping, The Grassland Joins to Beijing, New Spring, The Rising Sun and Auspicious Blessing. Many of the pieces of Mongoljin horse-head fiddle music repeat their titles: Asiru, for instance, has eleven, and Altan Baga has four. The Asiru type of music is brisk in rhythm, its melody moving chiefly in stepwise thirds and also in leaps, cheerful and lively in atmosphere, mostly in the gong mode and also in the yu mode, and possessing the aesthetic character of court ceremonial music. The horse-head fiddle is a bowed string instrument that arose and circulates among the Mongols, named for the horse's head carved at the upper end of the neck. It has a long history and was already current among the people in the time of Genghis Khan. In its early period it was mostly used for solo, later becoming the accompanying instrument for the narration of heroic epics, and today it is used mainly for solo, unison and ensemble. The playing techniques of the Mongoljin horse-head fiddle fall into the two great kinds of the “chaor technique” and the “four-string fiddle technique” and into five skills: first the harmonic technique; second the chording technique; third the spiccato technique; fourth the plucking technique; and fifth the imitative technique.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Fuxin Mongol autonomous county of Liaoning was historically called “Mongoljin” (originally a tribal name, now become a regional name); it lies in the north-west of Liaoning province and is under the city of Fuxin. The Mongoljin horse-head fiddle music is distributed mainly in the Mongol villages of the county's thirty-five townships. As an important part of Mongoljin music it has accumulated and created a great many excellent works of different styles in its historical course; it is a vivid portrayal of the social life of the Mongoljin people and contains their distinctive aesthetic culture and humanistic thought, with a strong regional character and irreplaceable historical, cultural, artistic and social value.

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

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The Mongoljin horse-head fiddle music is transmitted chiefly by the master-and-apprentice method; in the past it was taught by the gongche notation or by oral instruction, and today it is recorded and transmitted in the numbered notation or the staff.

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 (Fuxin, Liaoning) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗