Northern Shaanxi Folk Songs

01 · Historical Records

As a product of the long-term fusion of nomadic and agrarian cultures in the history of northern Shaanxi, Northern Shaanxi folk songs were formed early; the xintianyou songs, for example, arose in the middle Zhou period and took stable shape by the Han dynasty, becoming one of the ancient folk-song forms of China.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Northern Shaanxi folk songs are a collective name for the various folk songs current on the Loess Plateau in the north of Shaanxi Province. They are rich in variety, including chiefly the xintianyou, shanqu, paishandiao, boatmen's work songs, dayangge diao, dry-boat tunes, wine songs, ertai, Yulin xiaoqu, Qingjian daoqing, traditional xiaodiao and many custom songs, more than 27,000 pieces in all. During the Agrarian Revolution, the War of Resistance against Japan and the War of Liberation, Northern Shaanxi folk songs played a very important role. Many Northern Shaanxi songs from the revolutionary period directly reflect the history of China's revolutionary struggle; taken together they can form a complete revolutionary epic.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Northern Shaanxi folk songs arise directly out of everyday production and life and are closely bound to the local people's speech and intonation, regional character, living environment and emotional life. They are high and rugged, plain and candid yet roundabout and lingering, showing the distinctive regional style of the Loess Plateau; they differ both from the folk songs of the Guanzhong and Central Plains areas and from the grassland folk songs — the musical form of the xintianyou, that representative variety of Northern Shaanxi folk song, with its “double-sentence, upper-and-lower structure” is entirely unlike the folk-song forms of other places.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Northern Shaanxi Folk Songs.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Northern Shaanxi folk songs have extremely high artistic value and research value in folklore and history; their representative works The East Is Red, Lan Hua, Thirty Li Shop and Driving the Pack Animals are known throughout the country, have been extensively adapted and arranged, and occupy a certain place in the history of music in New China. At present a break in transmission has appeared in the inheritance of Northern Shaanxi folk songs: folk singers of the older generation are growing old and the younger generation's sense of cultural identity with this traditional musical form is steadily weakening, so that the transmission and development of the songs are being obstructed. He Yutang (per the official record of the associated inheritor): Influenced by his family, he sang Northern Shaanxi folk songs from childhood and trained a voice of gold. In the 1980s he took the lead in starting a folk-song craze in Ansai. His singing is high and stirring, strongly penetrating; he is known for his high pitch, his large repertory and his clever hands, and he is skilled at cutting paper while he sings — whatever he sings he cuts, the song transmitting its spirit, the paper-cut giving expression to its meaning. His performances of The Yellow River Has Ninety-Nine Bends and Up One Slope and Down One Ridge are deeply moving, and he has sung theme songs for more than seventy films and television series, among them The Yellow Land. He has sorted and adapted as many as a thousand folk songs, and Selected Folk Songs Sung by He Yutang has been published. He teaches with great enthusiasm and has brought out a new generation, including the well-known singer Wang Erni. A man of the Han nationality, born in December 1949 and deceased in December 2013, from Yan'an City, Shaanxi Province. Representative inheritor of Northern Shaanxi folk songs for the third national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage. In 1986 he won second prize at the first national music and dance competition. In 1987 the Ministry of Culture conferred on him the title “King of Folk Songs”.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Wang Xiangrong 03-0860
• He Yutang 03-0861

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Northern Shaanxi Folk Songs (Yanan, Shaanxi) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. He Yutang · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗