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Suona Art

Ⅱ-37Traditional MusicZhaozhou, HeilongjiangBatch 2 (2008)Extension ItemFeatured

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. Its founder Yang Dianjia was a native of Laizhou, Shandong; in childhood he fled famine to the north-east and learned his craft in a drum-music troupe.

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 (blowing without a break for a long time), 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. In 1904 he founded a music troupe in Fuyu county, Jilin, and thereafter was always active in the “Three Zhao” area of Heilongjiang, serving mainly folk activities of weddings and funerals, festival celebrations and sacrificial rites. The Yang family drum-music canopy keeps and uses manuscripts of named tunes in the ancestral gongche notation, whose manner of notation and interpretation is quite distinctive. The pieces they play include suites, groups of pieces, named-tune pieces, reformed pieces and variations; some of these pieces show the character of Jiangnan music, while the greater part blends the style of the northern frontier. Its common named tunes include The Small Herd Boy, Beating the Dates, Seeing Off the Sweetheart and The Mountain-Leaning Tune, and its representative pieces include The Red Goose Alights on the Sand Beach and The Great Flower Basket. Its instrumental combinations fall into two kinds, the suona arrangement and the sheng-guan arrangement. Its percussion instruments include the kettledrum, great clappers, bamboo clappers, cloud gongs, hand gongs, nao and cymbals, and bangzi. The playing of the Yang family troupe has transmitted the musical style of Manchu and Han suona and in its development has enriched the techniques of the sheng and guan and other instruments, reaching a relatively high artistic level.

The Small Herd Boy

Common named tunes of the Yang family drum-music canopy include The Small Herd Boy, Beating the Dates, Seeing Off the Sweetheart and The Mountain-Leaning Tune.

Beating the Dates

A common named tune of the Yang family drum-music canopy of Zhaozhou, Heilongjiang.

Seeing Off the Sweetheart

A common named tune of the Yang family drum-music canopy, serving folk activities of weddings and funerals.

The Mountain-Leaning Tune

A common named tune of the Yang family drum-music canopy of the “Three Zhao” area.

The Red Goose Alights on the Sand Beach

A representative piece of the Yang family drum-music canopy.

The Great Flower Basket

A representative piece of the Yang family drum-music canopy.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Yang family drum-music canopy circulates mainly in the countryside of the county town of Zhaozhou and the “Three Zhao” area of Heilongjiang (Zhaozhou, Zhaodong and Zhaoyuan), is transmitted from generation to generation in family fashion and serves all year round the folk activities of weddings and funerals, festival celebrations and sacrificial rites.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The Yang family drum-music canopy is the only surviving original-ecology folk ceremonial band in the county town of Zhaozhou, Heilongjiang, and also one of the very few folk ceremonial bands in China to have been transmitted in family fashion. It has been transmitted through five generations over a hundred years and has always preserved a relatively traditional appearance. Its music shows distinctively northern musical features and traditional cultural characteristics and has important research value in musicology, folklore and history. At present, with the great influx of Western culture, the space of survival of the Yang family drum-music canopy grows ever smaller, the young are unwilling to inherit the traditional craft, and the troupe has no fixed place of activity, its instruments are worn and its income extremely low, so that its performing technique faces the danger of being lost and urgently awaits rescue. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Yang Chengwei, male, Han, born September 1947, a native of Zhaozhou county, Heilongjiang. Under the influence and nurture of his family he could beat the drum and cymbals at seven, learned the suona with his father Yang Fengqi at nine and at thirteen formally entered the Yang family drum-music canopy and went out with his elders to “take jobs”. Over many years he has led his family in holding fast to the traditional style of the music, carrying on folk activity all year round and being deeply recognised and praised by the broad masses. He has many times taken part in performances at such large cultural activities as the Daqing city “Song of the Great Earth” peasants' art festival, the intangible cultural heritage publicity day and the Laojieji temple fair, and each year carries out nearly two hundred folk activities in the villages. In recent years, in order to transmit and develop Yang family folk music better, he has set up the Yang family music transmission base and has taken more than twenty apprentices. He is a representative bearer of the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the art of the suona (Yang family drum-music canopy).

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Suona Art (Zhaozhou, Heilongjiang) · China ICH Official Project Archive
  2. Yang Chengwei · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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