Wuhe Folk Songs
01 · Historical Records
Wuhe folk songs have a comparatively long history and reached their height in the Ming dynasty.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Wuhe folk songs circulate chiefly in the lower reaches of the middle course of the Huai River in the northeast of Anhui province; centred on Wuhe, they have spread to more than a dozen counties and cities in Anhui and Jiangsu and to parts of Shandong. They are of many kinds and rich in repertoire, made up mainly of xiaodiao (minor tunes), labour chants and yangge (field songs). A general survey has counted more than 160 folk songs, of which the xiaodiao are the most numerous and the most distinctive. Wuhe lies at the meeting point of northern Huai, southern Huai and northern Jiangsu, so it is both influenced by the Central Plains culture and permeated by the Wu and Chu cultures. Wuhe folk songs therefore carry the ku register and ku intonation and the bold, unrestrained manner of northern Huai, but at the same time have steady rhythms and gently undulating melodic lines; they are strongly lyrical and display the artistic quality of hardness and gentleness in balance. Wuhe folk songs are performed chiefly by singing and by bai kou (speech delivery without melody), and also take the forms of solo, antiphonal duet, shuo chang (narrated singing) and small-group performance. The mode is most often the zhi mode, but in many xiaodiao the modes alternate within the melody. Si Ji Song Huai Bei, for instance, opens in the gong mode, moves into the zhi mode, and yet ends its final line on the yu note, giving an unexpected sense of freshness; this rich play of modes has formed a distinctive style in Wuhe folk songs. Wuhe folk songs were originally sung without accompaniment and gradually developed into accompanied singing, the accompanying instruments being mainly erhu, suona, dizi, sheng and wooden clappers. The erhu is locally called “ermengzi” and is made with snake skin or snakehead fish skin; in some places a home-made liuqin is used in place of the erhu for accompaniment.
Zhai Shi Liu
Wuhe folk songs have representative works such as Zhai Shi Liu and Da Cai Tai that have never ceased to be sung, and many notable performers emerged in the course of their long transmission.
Da Cai Tai
Wuhe folk songs have representative works such as Zhai Shi Liu and Da Cai Tai that have never ceased to be sung, and many notable performers emerged in the course of their long transmission.
Si Ji Song Huai Bei
A representative tune of Wuhe folk songs; it opens in the gong mode, moves into the zhi mode and closes its final line on the yu note, a distinctive play of modal colour.
Three main genres
A general survey has counted more than 160 folk songs, divided into three main groups — xiaodiao (minor tunes), labour chants and yangge (field songs) — of which the xiaodiao are the most numerous and the most distinctive.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Wuhe folk songs circulate in the lower reaches of the middle course of the Huai River in the northeast of Anhui province; centred on Wuhe, they have spread to more than a dozen counties and cities of Anhui and Jiangsu and to parts of Shandong. Wuhe stands at the junction of northern Huai, southern Huai and northern Jiangsu, influenced by the Central Plains culture and permeated by the Wu and Chu cultures; the songs accordingly combine the ku register and ku intonation and the bold manner of northern Huai with steady rhythms and gently undulating melodic lines, showing strong lyrical expressiveness and the artistic quality of hardness and gentleness in balance.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Wuhe folk songs have representative works such as Zhai Shi Liu and Da Cai Tai that have never ceased to be sung, and many notable performers have emerged in the course of their long transmission. As an outstanding representative of the folk music culture of the middle and lower Huai River region, Wuhe folk songs have important value for the study of regional culture and folk art. At present, under the impact of the market economy, people's values have changed greatly, and many folk arts, folk songs among them, are finding their situation extremely difficult. Only a few of the old Wuhe folk song performers are still alive, all of them over eighty years old; this folk art with such distinctive features has no successors and is on the verge of extinction, so rescue and protection cannot wait.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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