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Suona Art

Ⅱ-37Traditional MusicYudou, JiangxiBatch 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.

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. The Hakka suona of Yudu is very widely current in Jiangxi and has a history of several hundred years. The husband-and-wife blowing, a form of Hakka suona playing, is distributed mainly in the Kuangtian, Hefeng, Jingshi and Pangu Mountain townships of Yudu county, Jiangxi, and radiates to the neighbouring counties and cities of Ruijin, Huichang and Shicheng; this distinctive form of playing is extremely common on folk occasions of weddings and funerals, house-warming and birthday congratulations, temple fairs and sacrifices and artistic activity. Yudu Hakka suona playing has the flat drum and the suona as its leading instruments, with small cymbals and horse gongs; in performance unison, antiphonal blowing and equal stress on wind and percussion are used, and it is not limited by time or place, the players being able to sit or walk with light and nimble movement. Suona playing insists on clear drum and clapper, a combination of the coarse and the fine, a high and drawn-out sound and a harmonious blending of timbres; in the treatment of the music it chiefly uses such techniques as adding flowers, subtracting notes and changing mode to achieve changes in rhythmic level. In husband-and-wife blowing two suona of different models are used: the “husband” suona has a low, rich tone and the “wife” suona is high and ringing, and the two are blown alternately, now impassioned and ringing enough to stop the clouds, now full and round and harmonious and pleasing, now mild and plaintive as if weeping and complaining, everywhere showing the character of traditional Hakka art. The husband-and-wife blowing has as many as two hundred and eighty named tunes, its representative pieces including The Turtle-Dove Tune, Husband and Wife Blowing and The Platform for Worshipping the General.

The Turtle-Dove Tune

Representative pieces of the husband-and-wife blowing include The Turtle-Dove Tune, Husband and Wife Blowing and The Platform for Worshipping the General.

Husband and Wife Blowing

The distinctive form of Yudu Hakka suona playing, using a “husband” suona of low, rich tone and a “wife” suona that is high and ringing.

The Platform for Worshipping the General

A representative piece of the Yudu suona husband-and-wife blowing.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Yudu suona music has absorbed the characteristics of the “lantern tune” and the “tea tune” of southern Jiangxi tea-picking opera and is divided into the two styles of the “joyful tune” and the “sorrowful tune”.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Husband-and-wife blowing is an important representative of Hakka musical culture and contains profound folk content and traditional accumulation, having extremely important reference value for the study of southern Jiangxi culture and of ethnomusicology. Today most of the old suona artists able to play “husband-and-wife blowing” are advanced in years and no longer perform, while many young people go out to work, so that there is a lack of transmitters: the Yudu suona husband-and-wife blowing is on the verge of being lost and protection brooks no delay. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Liu Yousheng, who also learned and mastered the craft of making husband-and-wife-blowing suona: selecting, cutting, boring and opening the holes and polishing are done by the most traditional craft, requiring only a saw, a billhook, a reamer and a plane. He has taken part in performances at the sixth navel-orange festival of Ganzhou city, the Nanfeng tangerine festival, the aerial filming of Yudu for “Charming Jiangxi” and the China Poyang Lake international cultural festival. Male, Han, born March 1960, died March 2018, a native of Yudu county, Jiangxi. He is a representative bearer of the third batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the art of the suona (Yudu suona husband-and-wife blowing).

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Suona Art (Yudou, Jiangxi) · China ICH Official Project Archive
  2. Liu Yousheng · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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