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. Chen Zheshen (associated bearer, as recorded in the official archive): male, Han, born in 1938, a native of Taishan, Guangdong. His gaohu playing has a beautiful melody and a mellow timbre with the rich characteristics of Lingnan music; he composed more than eight hundred songs and Guangdong music works, winning many prizes, and has published such books as Selected Works of Chen Zheshen and A Collection of Taishan Folk Songs. He is a representative inheritor of Guangdong music, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the second batch; an associate research librarian, he formerly served as deputy director of the cultural centre of Taishan city, Guangdong province, and as chairman of the local federation of literary and art circles, among other posts. Liu Yingqiao (associated bearer, as recorded in the official archive): male, Han, born in October 1950, a native of Taishan city, Guangdong province. He learned the instrumental playing of Guangdong music from folk artists while still at primary school; in middle school he was the bamboo flute player of the amateur art troupe of Yuehua middle school, and later joined a rural amateur cultural and artistic publicity team as bamboo flute player and arranger. From 1970 to 1981 he played the bamboo flute as well as the clarinet, erhu and sanxian in the Taishan Cantonese opera troupe. While accompanying the drama music he also arranged the instrumentation of Cantonese opera plays, and in the meantime studied xiao and flute playing successively with the performers Chen Tianshou and Chen Zheshen. In 1974 he studied instrumental playing at the Guangdong People's Art Institute with Wang Jin, Huang Jincheng and others, and studied music theory systematically, coming to a deep understanding of the style and character of Guangdong music. After retirement he served concurrently as deputy head of the Taishan Guangdong music troupe and in other posts, took an active part in the performance, study and composition of Guangdong music in Taishan city, and trained apprentices. 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 (Taishan, Guangdong) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Chen Zheshen · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Liu Yingqiao · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗