Shifan Music
01 · Historical Records
In the 1930s, because of the destruction caused by war, all the shifan associations in Foshan stopped their activities.
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. Of the two original forms, the "plain shifan" accompanied by gong and drums and the "mixed shifan" combining sizhu music with gong and drums, only the plain shifan survives today; it is closely related to the shifan luogu of southern Jiangsu. Yuan and Nan dynasty tune patterns are preserved among the Foshan shifan; in the course of transmission they became closely bound up with folk activities, absorbing flying-cymbal performance and the instruments commonly used by local bayin gong and drums, and took shape as a form of folk instrumental music with strong local colour. The greatest feature of Foshan shifan is that the light small cymbals are not struck in the conventional way: the performer holds one cymbal by its boss while swinging the other, to which a cord has been tied, so that it grazes and strikes it; ten or eight people at once perform a variety of patterns, presenting strong dance appeal and visual pleasure, hence the name "flying cymbals". This kind of flying-cymbal performance is now unique in China. As celebratory gong-and-drum music, Foshan shifan is played mainly at folk festivals such as the Dragon Boat Festival, the Seventh Night Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival, and at activities such as deity birthdays and the "Autumn Colours" procession (also called "Autumn Scenery"). At present there are two complete sets of Foshan shifan tune patterns with full recording and score documentation: one set is Gua Pai, Chang Luo and Sui Jin from the Mingxing Yingying group, and the other is the set from Chaji Village, comprising Shua Jin Qian, He Gu Yin, Tao Gu Qi and Chang Luo. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, some local shifan organisations were restored.
Gua Pai
One of the tune patterns in the Mingxing Yingying set of Foshan shifan, with complete recording and score documentation.
Chang Luo
One of the tune patterns in the Mingxing Yingying set of Foshan shifan, with complete recording and score documentation.
Sui Jin
One of the tune patterns in the Mingxing Yingying set of Foshan shifan, with complete recording and score documentation.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Foshan shifan is a form of folk instrumental performance with marked local characteristics, distributed within a radius of five or six kilometres around Foshan Town in Nanhai District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province, with a history of six or seven hundred years. According to what old artists have passed down orally, Foshan shifan was brought to the area from Anhui and the Jiangsu-Zhejiang region about two hundred years ago. Foshan shifan is distributed within a radius of five or six kilometres around Foshan Town in Nanhai District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province, with a history of six or seven hundred years; according to what old artists have passed down orally, it was brought to the area from Anhui and the Jiangsu-Zhejiang region about two hundred years ago. At present there are two complete sets of tune patterns with full recording and score documentation: one is Gua Pai, Chang Luo and Sui Jin from the Mingxing Yingying group, the other is the set from Chaji Village. Halls such as the He Guang Yi Tang shifan association form the basic organisation, each with successors of its own, and they have broken with the old rule that shifan techniques were transmitted only to men and never to women.
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
Foshan shifan has a style of its own, possesses high artistic and folklore research value, and can also provide important material for the study of the evolution of shifan luogu in southern Jiangsu. At present many old artists have died in succession and only a small number of successors are able to carry on this traditional technique; in these circumstances Foshan shifan is hanging by a thread, and measures need to be formulated actively so that systematic protection work can begin without delay. He Hanpei (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han nationality, born in November 1947, native of Foshan City, Guangdong Province. In 1962 he joined the He Guang Yi Tang shifan association and began performing shifan. For many years he served as shifan director of the He Guang Yi Tang, and from 2002 began organising the collection and collation of materials on techniques, tune patterns, photographs of activities and the like. So that new members could gain an intuitive understanding of shifan tune patterns, he worked out with experts and scholars a "written-pronunciation learning method", teaching tune patterns that had previously been passed on only by oral instruction through written pronunciation. To prevent shifan from being lost, he took the lead in breaking with the tradition that shifan techniques were transmitted only to men and never to women, and organised the formation of a performance team of nearly sixty people. Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage project Shifan Music (Foshan 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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