Shifan Music
01 · Historical Records
Louta fine shifan is a form of folk instrumental music circulated in the southern part of Xiaoshan, Zhejiang Province. According to the recollections of Louta elders, this fine shifan took shape in the Ming dynasty and already has a history of several hundred years.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Shifan music is also called "ten classes" or "five pairs", taking its name from the ten instruments played, which are made of silk, bamboo, leather, wood and metal. This music is light and lively, strongly rhythmic, harmonious in pitch and pleasing to the ear, and it is widely circulated in Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other parts of China. Most shifan melodies come from folk minor tunes and huapa (suona pieces); they have also drawn much nourishment from opera, quyi storytelling and song tunes. Their performing forms are divided into seated performance, marching performance and dancing performance, and the player in charge of the clapper boards normally acts as the conductor. Louta fine shifan takes classical tune patterns as its performing content; it is a music category belonging to shifan. This music is dedicated to singing the merits of Yu the Great's flood control; it takes part neither in rituals for appeasing ghosts and honouring gods nor in performances at weddings, funerals or birthday celebrations. The Louta fine shifan ensemble takes the folk tune patterns Wang Zhuang Tai, Yi Tiao Qiang and Ba Ban as its basic performing content, the three patterns answering one another in front and behind, with clearly distinct layers. Wang Zhuang Tai mainly depicts the prosperous age in which the mountains and rivers are magnificent, the country is at peace and the people are well off; Yi Tiao Qiang shows scenes of labour and highlights the carrying of stone slabs; Ba Ban expresses lively scenes of celebration and prays for favourable weather and good harvests in the coming year. The performers number thirty to thirty-five, and the whole ensemble accommodates a wide variety of forms, with blowing, bowing, plucking and percussion all complete, using more than twenty kinds of instrument in a fairly complete configuration. These include wind instruments such as sheng, xiao, guan and dizi; bowed string instruments such as banhu, erhu, zhonghu, the large hu, the four-string hu and the high hu; plucked instruments such as pipa, the large, medium and small sanxian, yueqin, yangqin, guzheng, zhongruan and daruan; and percussion instruments such as the shifan drum, three-block clapper, clasp bell, triangle bell, small cymbals and small drum, with the shifan drum the most distinctive and representative. Louta fine shifan adopts playing techniques suited to the function of each instrument: the zhongdi and the xiao mainly carry the melody, the sheng chiefly sounds overtones to set off the atmosphere, the bowed strings alternate long and short bows and enrich the movement by means of accented notes and ornamental figurations, and the plucked strings use flicking, rolling and tremolo techniques to set off the melody. Every instrument fully displays its own strengths, answers and cooperates with the others, and merges into one, producing a strikingly novel artistic effect, so that Louta fine shifan possesses high artistic value.
Wang Zhuang Tai
One of the basic tune patterns of Louta fine shifan, mainly depicting the prosperous age in which the mountains and rivers are magnificent, the country is at peace and the people are well off.
Yi Tiao Qiang
One of the basic tune patterns of Louta fine shifan, showing scenes of labour and highlighting the carrying of stone slabs.
Ba Ban
One of the basic tune patterns of Louta fine shifan, expressing lively scenes of celebration and praying for favourable weather and good harvests in the coming year.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Louta fine shifan is circulated in the Louta area of the southern part of Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. According to the recollections of elders it took shape in the Ming dynasty and already has a history of several hundred years, taking the folk tune patterns Wang Zhuang Tai, Yi Tiao Qiang and Ba Ban as its basic performing content. The ensemble consists of thirty to thirty-five players, with blowing, bowing, plucking and percussion all complete, using more than twenty kinds of instrument including sheng, xiao, guan and dizi, banhu, erhu, zhonghu, the large hu, the four-string hu and the high hu, pipa, sanxian, yueqin, yangqin and guzheng, as well as the shifan drum, three-block clapper and clasp bell.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Shifan Music · Shifan Music · Shifan Music · Shifan Music · Shifan Music · Shifan Music · Shifan Music · Shifan Music.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Louta fine shifan is an archaizing form of folk instrumental performance whose presentation retains something of the Han and Tang styles, and it has high historical and cultural research value. Four tune patterns have now been recovered from Louta fine shifan — Nan Tanhuang, Nv Tanhuang, Qi Duo Hua and Meihua San Nong — and more than ten further tune patterns are still being collated, so it is necessary to invest more manpower and material resources and to strengthen protection of this precious folk art form. Lou Zhengshou (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han nationality, born in November 1944, native of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. His performing style is both delicate and bold, according to the different tune patterns. In the late 1980s he campaigned actively to revitalise Louta fine shifan, reorganising villagers with a foundation in the music to practise and perform Louta fine shifan. Representative inheritor of the third national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage project Shifan Music (Louta fine shifan). Since taking office as president of the Louta fine shifan association in March 2007 he has organised members to carry out activities regularly, taken part in various performances, and proactively joined hands with several schools including Louta Town Central Primary School to form a Louta fine shifan band and to train inheritors of Louta fine shifan.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Chen Yingmu 02-0286
- Louzhengshou 03-0843
- Wang Rongtang 04-1524
- Li Zhenyu 04-1525
- Fang Yuanwang 04-1526
- He Hanpei 05-2076
- Liu Guangrong
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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