Suona Art

01 · Historical Records

Suona is a transliteration of the Arabic “surna” (zurna), called in antiquity “suoliao” or “su'ernai”, and widely current in many countries of Asia, Africa and Europe; it came into China at the latest in the Jin and Yuan periods. In addition, the small suona used in the performance of Fujian nanqu is called the “aizi” or “nan'ai”; the suona used to accompany Puxian opera is called the “meihua” or “chuibian”, and a larger kind is called the “dalong” or “dahaidi”; the all-wood suona of the Uyghur is called the “su'ernai”; and the Tibetan, Miao, Mongol and Korean peoples each have suona of different form. It is said that a prince of the Ming imperial house developed the “eye pipe” on the basis of the suona's eight finger-holes, making a great contribution to the development of Chinese national wind music. At the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing there were the “Tongle Hui” and the “Jia family troupe”; from the Qing to the Republican period there were such suona performing organizations as the “Majin troupe”, the “Maodan troupe” and the “Yinhe troupe”, of great local influence. From the founding of New China to the 1980s the suona troupes of Qinyang grew to more than thirty, with more than four hundred people engaged in suona playing, so that every township had its suona and every village its music. In December 1997 Qinyang city was granted the honorary title of “home of folk art of Henan province” by the Henan provincial department of culture and was afterwards named by the Ministry of Culture a “home of Chinese folk art”.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

In Chinese folk usage it also has the names of bronze flute, tin flute, pear blossom and sea flute. The suona is made up of the reed, the staple, the air disc, the body and the bronze bell; its finger-holes are arranged in order according to the heptatonic scale, the distances between them being basically equal, it can turn through seven modes, and its range is generally two octaves and a major second. It has such blowing techniques as portamento, tonguing, arched-breath tone, top-breath tone, the rolling “du-lu” and circular breathing, and is a solo instrument of very strong expressiveness. Its volume is great and its tone high and ringing, making it one of the indispensable instruments of the wind-and-percussion band; in antiquity, besides playing military music, it was used for the drum-and-wind music of the yamen and as accompaniment to opera, song and dance, and in the daily life of the people it is mostly used for festivals, weddings and funerals and theatrical scenes. The Qinyang suona is a wooden double-reed instrument; its features are great volume, bright, rough tone quality, ease of playing and a gift for expressing warm and unrestrained scenes and the emotions of great joy and great sorrow. It developed along with the times and in recent years has gradually added such subsidiary instruments as the menzi, the shounuo (large mi), the kaqiang (small mi), the guanzi and the whistle, greatly enriching its expressive power and performing content. It is said that he founded the “golden drum assembly” at Jiufeng temple, and on the twenty-third day of the ninth lunar month the suona troupes from every place would gather here; the degree of its flourishing may be seen from this alone. Under the influence of the four great families the suona troupes and the ranks of artists within Qinyang continually grew in scale and were considerable in number. According to incomplete statistics, the pieces played by Qinyang suona number more than three hundred. In present-day folk and artistic life, on the basis of inheriting tradition, folk artists have composed some new and relatively representative pieces, such as Ode to My Homeland, Words of Love at Jiufeng and Spring in Qinyang. The Xifeng district of Qingyang city, Gansu, lies where Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia meet and is the political, economic and cultural centre of Qingyang city, bordering Heshui county and Zhenyuan county to east and west and adjoining Ningxian, Huanxian, Huachi and Qingcheng counties to south and north. The Qingyang Xifeng suona is a folk wind-and-percussion music led by the suona, also called drum-and-wind music; processed and transmitted by artists of successive generations, it has become a unique musical kind in Chinese folk music by reason of its great number of named tunes, its vast ranks of performers, its rich folk content and its strong local character. In the Xifeng district alone there are thirty-one suona troupes with 286 people engaged in the trade. Its forms of performance are the “large piece” combination and the “small piece” combination. Ordinary players can command more than two instruments and may be moved about at will without change of personnel. The Qingyang suona has abundant named tunes, a plain flavour and a system and style of its own; after general survey more than twelve hundred traditional pieces were collected and recorded, and as many as 496 were included in the Collected Folk Instrumental Music of the Qingyang Region. By origin and development these named tunes may be divided into the three kinds of the traditional named tune of relatively high instrumentalisation, the folk-song variation and the local opera named tune, a representative piece being Draping Red and Hanging Flowers. The “running announcement”, for instance, is one form of expression rich in connotation: through oral transmission it gives the fullest play to the artists' powers of improvisation, fully displaying the wisdom of the labouring people and playing an important part in carrying on traditional virtues and strengthening social cohesion.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Qinyang suona is divided into the treble, alto and bass kinds, and its playing technique is very rich: in this region every occasion of marriage and funeral, temple consecration, business opening or birthday congratulation requires a suona troupe to play and add a lively atmosphere. In the Qinyang area there are the sayings “the great palanquin, Majin blows; if Majin does not blow there is no wedding” and “when the bride and the son-in-law arrive, if Maodan does not blow no one mounts the palanquin”, which precisely reflects the influence of these suona troupes. By locality and technical style the suona of Qinyang may be divided on the whole into four great families and two schools. Taking the Qin river as the boundary, they are divided into the north-Qin school and the south-Qin school; the north-Qin school is represented by the Zhang, He and Ma families and the south-Qin school by the Jia family. Centred on Xifeng, it is distributed in the surrounding Qingcheng, Huanxian, Heshui, Ningxian and Zhengning counties and some townships of Zhenyuan county.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The cultural value of the Qingyang suona is shown not only in the distinctiveness of its music but also in the extension of its content. Yet this distinctive musical kind is at present in a seriously endangered state, and corresponding rescue and protection measures brook no delay. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) He Deyi, male, Han, born 1953, a native of Qinyang, Henan. Born into a family of suona players, his playing belongs to the He family school, one of the four great schools of Qinyang suona, in a line of six generations. He came into contact with suona art at five and by eighteen had fully mastered the craft. His playing is rough and unrestrained, full of breath and rich, carrying a single breath ten li at a stretch, and at the same time he combines the modern soft-technique suona's round, lingering dragging tone, so that by mouth, teeth or tongue he can reach perfection. His representative works include A Spray of Flowers, Chaoyang Gully and The Witty Duel. He is a representative bearer of the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the art of the suona. Li Jinhai, male, Han, born 1948, a native of Qinyang, Henan. After the age of twelve he learned the art of suona playing with the older generation of artists, including Ma Yinhe of the Ma school and He Quanlong of the He school. Broadly adopting the strengths of all, he summed up the north and south schools of Qinyang playing that are divided by the Qin river and fused them into one. In such pieces as The Eighteen Beats and The Quick-Beat Tune he is skilled in using the “great return of breath”, holding a single breath for three to five minutes, and he further perfected the “three-hole guan” playing technique, with a sweet and round sound. His representative works include The Charm of Qin, Love at Jiufeng and Spring in Qinyang. He is a representative bearer of the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the art of the suona.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• He Deyi 02-0276
• Li Jinhai 02-0277
• Yao Shaolin 03-0837
• Lu Buliang 03-0838
• Niuqiyun 03-0839
• Liu Yousheng 03-0840
• Mo Baihuai 04-1520
• Li Qishan 04-1521
• Wang Shifa 04-1522
• Ma Zigang 04-1523
• Liu Fushou 05-2062
• Cui Qingyun 05-2063
• Liu Xiaohong 05-2064
• Tang Haifeng 05-2065
• Yang Chengwei 05-2066
• Li Shupeng 05-2067
• Jiang Fajie 05-2068
• Liu Qiulin 05-2069
• Ding Qinghua 05-2070
• Wang Shuyin 05-2071
• Liu Guofu 05-2072
• Chen Dewang 05-2073
• Liu Daorong 05-2074
• Zhou Benxiang
• Xiehaiming
• Sun Huayang
• Yao Xina
• Suo Zhongxiu

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Suona Art (Qinyang, Henan) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. He Deyi · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Li Jinhai · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗