Guangdong Music

01 · Historical Records

Guangdong music has a history of more than four hundred years; since the Ming and Qing dynasties it has passed through stages of germination, development and maturity, and there are now more than five hundred pieces whose titles and scores can be traced. Its ensembles take a number of forms; the most typical are the “five-head” group of the 1920s and 1930s (also called the “hard-bow group”, namely the erxian, the tiqin, the sanxian, the yueqin and the transverse flute) and the “three-head” group (the yuehu, the yangqin and the qinqin), the sizhu instruments matching one another in perfect accord and enhancing each other, fully displaying the subtlety and the beauty of Lingnan sizhu music. In the Ming and Qing periods the bayin bands mainly played Buddhist music and folk ditties. After 1949 the Guangdong music activities of Taishan city were brought into the cultural centres of town and village and became activity items of those centres.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

With its light, gentle, ornate, fine and rich character and its fresh, flowing and melodious Lingnan style, it is dearly loved by the people; its influence reaches everywhere north of the Yangtze and it is current in the Chinese communities of every part of the world. Representative pieces include Rain Striking the Banana Leaves, Thunder on a Dry Day, The Lament of Two Voices, The Three Jewels of Buddha, Rising Step by Step, Autumn Moon on the Calm Lake, Amusement in Times of Peace and Boats Racing for the Brocade. In long practice of composition and performance, Guangdong music has openly chosen and absorbed the useful elements of foreign music and of other Chinese folk arts, transformed them and made them serve its own purposes, forming a distinctive folk musical genre. It has a group of outstanding composers, performers and representative instruments, and is ranked with Cantonese opera and the Lingnan school of painting as one of the “three great treasures of Lingnan art”. Overseas, wherever there are Chinese people there is Guangdong music. Taishan city lies in the south-west of the Pearl River delta and is a famous home of overseas Chinese for the whole country. The “bayin band” of Taishan is one of the forms of activity of Guangdong music, with distinctive local colour and a long history. After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement the bayin bands were reformed, combining the playing of pieces with the singing of operatic arias and gradually reaching maturity. At present the city has more than one hundred and twenty Guangdong music activity organizations, distributed throughout town and countryside.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Guangdong music is a traditional sizhu genre current in the Pearl River delta centred on Guangzhou and in the Guangfu dialect area, and is a treasure of the traditional folk culture of Lingnan.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Guangdong Music.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Guangdong music is a bond of emotion between overseas Chinese and their ancestral homeland, and has contributed not a little to the transmission of fine Chinese cultural traditions among overseas Chinese. As an outstanding representative of Lingnan culture, Guangdong music has deep cultural foundations and rich content; after several hundred years of transmission and development it has formed its own system and a style of its own, and is deeply rooted in the folk life of Lingnan. This treasure of fine traditional culture now also faces problems of transmission and development, and protection and support urgently need to be strengthened. Tang Kaixuan (associated bearer, as recorded in the official archive): has served as art adviser of the Guangdong music quyi troupe, adviser of the yangqin professional committee of the Chinese national orchestral association, and council member of the Guangdong music association, among other posts. He began to study Guangdong music in childhood and in 1961 was admitted to the Guangdong music quyi troupe; besides the instruction of professional teachers he received the teaching by example of such famous Guangdong music performers as Liu Tianyi, Zhu Hai, Liang Qiu and Chen Pingjia. He has been engaged in playing the yangqin in Guangdong music for nearly fifty years; the mixed bamboo technique he advocated ended the dispute between the right-hand and the left-hand bamboo techniques of the Guangdong yangqin, and he also devised a new performing technique of continuous wheel strokes. In performance and composition he has both kept the characteristics of Guangdong music in mind and made new attempts at the combination of accompanying instruments, such as arranging Rain Striking the Banana Leaves as a yangqin solo, which was fully affirmed by the folk music world. Male, Han, born in September 1945, died in July 2014, a native of Guangzhou city, Guangdong province. He was a representative inheritor of Guangdong music, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the third batch. He Kening (associated bearer, as recorded in the official archive): male, Han, born in February 1950, a native of Guangzhou city, Guangdong province. A national first-grade performer. Since graduating he has worked at Guangdong music performance and composition, also serving as designer of the vocal style of Cantonese song and as principal of the music troupe's band, with outstanding performances in gaohu solo, ensemble and small-group playing. He took part in the work of rescuing, collating and recording the “eight great scores” organized by the government departments concerned. His works such as Spring Filling Yangcheng and Zither Delights of Liwan won prizes in successive Guangdong music composition competitions. He is a representative inheritor of Guangdong music, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the fifth batch.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Chen Zheshen 02-0291
• Tang Kaixuan 03-0844
• He Kening 05-2079
• Liu Yingqiao 05-2080

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Guangdong Music (Guangzhou, Guangdong) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Tang Kaixuan · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. He Kening · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗