Jizhong Sheng and Guan Ensemble

01 · Historical Records

The Donghan village shifan ancient music is a form of classical music that passed from the imperial court into the folk in the Qing dynasty; it is current in Donghan village, Lingyunce Manchu and Hui Autonomous Township, Yi County, Hebei Province. The performing forms of the Donghan village shifan ancient music comprise the travelling music and the seated music, and in performance it follows the gongche notation that came from the imperial court into the folk.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Besides wind instruments such as the sheng, guan and flute, Jizhong sheng-and-guan music also uses such percussion instruments as cloud gongs, drums, nao, cymbals and clapper bells. The pieces of sheng-and-guan music fall into three kinds: suites, short pieces and independent sets of percussion music; of these the suites are of great length and complex structure, and form the main part of the whole performing repertory. It uses a great many instruments in performance, at most as many as 108 pieces, hence the character “shi” by which its completeness is summarised; and because the performance procession carries ten banner flags, it is called the “shifan ancient music”, also called the “shifan holy society”. In its transmission the Donghan village shifan ancient music has blended such elements as court music and Jiangnan sizhu; the kinds and numbers of instruments it uses are very numerous, among them the huobusi, zhaqin and tiqin, which are old and rare instruments. The scores comprise twenty-five wen pieces and more than ten wu pieces; played, they are plain and distinctive and elegant, with high, beautiful and melodious melodies that have both the flavour of Jiangnan sizhu and the character of classical court music. The forms of the wen pieces of the shifan ancient music fall into three types, the single piece, the combined piece and the suite. The single piece consists of one tune pattern and varies in length; Shan Tao Hong and Wan Nian Huan belong to this type. The combined piece consists of two tune patterns joined together. The suite consists of three or more tune patterns linked in a fixed order, the “four comings” — Chun Lai, Xia Lai, Qiu Lai and Dong Lai, joined from four tune patterns — being a representative example.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Jizhong sheng-and-guan music is current in nearly thirty counties and cities south of Beijing, west of Tianjin and north of Cangzhou and Dingzhou; it is a drum-and-wind music peculiar to the Jizhong Plain, popularly called a “music society” by the people, and, because it is led by the guan and accompanied by the sheng and other instruments, also called “sheng-and-guan music”. Jizhong sheng-and-guan music is found all over the Jizhong Plain; the farmers of this region form societies by village, borrowing instruments to meet, and play in local sacrificial rites, funerals and other folk activities, handing it on from generation to generation in their own distinctive way.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The shifan ancient music has been transmitted through nine generations and has a history of more than two hundred years. Most of the martial pieces of the Donghan village shifan ancient music have been lost, only a dozen or so surviving to the present. The Donghan village shifan ancient music embodies rich information on national music culture, and is of high reference value for the study of the history of ancient music, the history of instrument development and especially Qing-dynasty court music. As times develop, traditional forms of entertainment are under impact, and this ancient art is gradually losing the vitality it once had; plans urgently need to be drawn up by the departments concerned for active and effective rescue and protection. Liu Qin (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): male, Han, born in March 1934, a native of Yi County, Hebei Province. His family has studied shifan ancient music for five generations, and he plays the sheng in the village shifan holy society. He has trained more than sixty pupils, and leads them to performances within the county at festivals. Since 1997 he has actively provided premises for pupils to practise in the slack farming season and in the evenings. In 2006 he worked with the Hebei Television station to make the feature programme Talking about the Shifan Holy Society. Representative inheritor of the third national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage project Jizhong sheng-and-guan music (Donghan village shifan ancient music).

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Feng Yuechi 02-0302
• Cai Yurun 02-0303
• Shangxuezhi 02-0304
• Hu Deming 02-0305
• Xia Laofei 03-0849
• Liu Qin 03-0850
• Wang Ruhai 03-0851
• Hu Guoqing 04-1528
• Shi Junping 05-2083
• Shao Shutong 05-2084
• Cai Baoheng 05-2085
• Zhang Zhanmin 05-2086
• Jia Tingxin
• Lizhanglin
• Pan Desen

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Jizhong Sheng and Guan Ensemble (Yi, Hebei) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Liu Qin · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗