Lvjiahe Folk Songs
01 · Historical Records
Lvjiahe folk songs are circulated in Lvjiahe Village of Danjiangkou City, Hubei Province. Almost every household here has singers, and singers are found on every hill of the village. The folk songs have a long history and were already widely current in the reign of King Xuan of Zhou; Lvjiahe lies at the junction of Hubei, Henan and Shaanxi, and has been deeply shaped by Ba-Chu culture, Qin-Chu culture and local Taoist culture, so the folk songs developed a marked individual character in transmission.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Lvjiahe folk songs are circulated in Lvjiahe Village of Danjiangkou City, Hubei Province. Almost every household here has singers, and singers are found on every hill of the village. Lvjiahe folk songs have a long history and were already widely current in the reign of King Xuan of Zhou. They fall into several large categories such as yangge, yinge and long narrative poems; the Lvjiahe folk songs collected and collated so far number more than five thousand, with seventy-nine recorded tunes. Apart from yinge, all the other folk songs are called “yangge”. Long narrative poems are song texts that possess a plot, the main works being Long San Jie Bai Shou, Liang Shan Bo Yu Zhu Ying Tai and Qin Xue Mei Diao Xiao. These songs can be sung as yangge or as yinge; it is enough to change the tune. According to preliminary statistics, more than fifteen long narrative poems are currently circulated in Lvjiahe. In Lvjiahe folk songs the zhi mode holds an absolute advantage, followed by the gong mode. The melodies are built mainly on the pentatonic scale, with only a very few folk songs such as the xiqu tunes using a hexatonic scale. There are cases in which the zhi mode uses the two triads “zhi-yu-gong” and “zhi-gong-shang” and the gong mode takes the triad “gong-jue-zhi” as its skeleton tones, but these are not very marked. In terms of formal structure, Lvjiahe folk songs are characterised by three-clause forms, and the number of three-clause works is roughly equal to that of four-clause works. Representative works of Lvjiahe folk songs include Nao Wu Geng and Zhan Hua Qiang.
Long San Jie Bai Shou
One of the representative long narrative poems of Lvjiahe folk songs; it can be sung either as yangge or as yinge.
Liang Shan Bo Yu Zhu Ying Tai
One of the representative long narrative poems of Lvjiahe folk songs.
Qin Xue Mei Diao Xiao
One of the representative long narrative poems of Lvjiahe folk songs.
Nao Wu Geng
One of the representative works of Lvjiahe folk songs.
Zhan Hua Qiang
One of the representative works of Lvjiahe folk songs.
Funeral song sections
Yinge is also called “filial songs”, “mourning songs” or “waiting-for-the-body songs”, and is divided into four main sections: the song head, songs exhorting to goodness, Fan Tian Beng and huanyang songs. It is used exclusively for funerals and is generally sung at night, hence the name “night gong and drum”.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Lvjiahe lies at the junction of Hubei, Henan and Shaanxi and has been deeply shaped by Ba-Chu culture, Qin-Chu culture and local Taoist culture, so the folk songs developed a marked individual character in transmission. Yinge is also called “filial songs”, “mourning songs” or “waiting-for-the-body songs”, and is divided into four main sections: the song head, songs exhorting to goodness, Fan Tian Beng and huanyang songs. It is used exclusively for funerals and is generally sung at night, which is why it is also called the “night gong and drum”. Yangge is closely tied to everyday customs and, by subject matter, is divided into festive songs, lantern songs, drinking-begging songs, longevity songs, labour songs, children's songs and the like.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Lvjiahe folk songs, in which the north and south meet and the east and west converge, have broad content, varied genres and rich vocal styles, and a flexible mode of expression; they incorporate artistic elements of Qin operatic airs and Chu tunes, show marked regional character, and have research value for Qin-Chu culture and Chinese folk music. At present the development of Lvjiahe folk songs has stalled, their survival is precarious, and protection by the relevant departments is urgent. Yao Qihua (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): from childhood he learned Lvjiahe folk songs from his grandparents and parents, is skilled in all kinds of folk ditties and long narrative poems, and can sing more than one thousand two hundred folk songs; the local people call him the “song bag”. Representative works include Zhan Dian Ge, Hei An Zhuan and Bai Nian. He can improvise words and sing them on the spot, and plays several kinds of folk instruments fluently. His singing is full of rise and fall and of feeling, and its content is closely bound up with the production and life of the peasants. As an illiterate song master who preserved a large body of living folk song materials purely by memory, he has sung, collated and composed Lvjiahe folk songs for more than sixty years, and has consciously classified and handed down the local folk songs; he is the principal organiser and inheritor of Lvjiahe folk song transmission. Male, Han, born in May 1942, died in December 2017, a native of Danjiangkou City, Hubei Province. Representative inheritor of Lvjiahe folk songs, inscribed in the third national-level batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Yao Qihua 03-0864
- Hou Tonggui
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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