Tibetan Folk Songs
01 · Historical Records
The scripture-recitation tune, also called the "six-syllable mantra song", is a type of song sung by Buddhist believers when worshipping the Buddha and the other deities at monasteries.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Mountain songs are called "Lalu" in the Weizang region, "Lu" in the Kham region and "Le" in the Amdo region; they are songs sung freely in the mountains and fields. Work songs are called "Le Xie" in Tibetan; there are very many kinds of them, and almost every type of labour has its own set song. Love songs include love songs proper and tea-love songs, while custom songs include drinking songs, love-guessing antiphonal songs, wedding songs, arrow songs and farewell songs. Yushu folk songs have a long history and are current throughout every county, township and village of the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Yushu folk songs in the traditional sense consist of "Le", "Layi", "Chuangle", "Jimo", "Qiongle", "Junle", "Yola", together with wedding tunes, welcoming tunes, milking tunes and the like. Among them "Qiongle" is the drinking song, "Junle" the wall-tamping song and "Yola" the harvest and threshing-floor song; "Le" includes song forms such as the opening song, the call song, the display song and the praise song, its content being richly inclusive, able to take in everything under heaven and among mankind; "Lale" are the mountain songs, generally named after a place or a tribe, with singing the scenery of one's home town and voicing one's personal feelings as their main content; "Layi" are the love songs, centred on the singing of love between men and women, but they may not be sung in front of relatives or of opposite-sex blood relations; "Chuangle" chiefly recount the experiences of roving free spirits drifting from place to place, and also touch on men's and women's love, longing and sorrow; "Jimo" are the divination love songs with which young men and young women divine their love affairs. These different kinds of Yushu folk songs, though widely differing in style and each excelling in its own way, all share the characteristics of a broad range and a far-reaching artistic conception. Yushu folk songs may be sung by one person alone, or sung in antiphonal exchange between two. Their structure is generally in three sections, the first and second using imagery by analogy and the third stating the theme; this is the basic expressive device of Yushu folk songs. "Le" and "Layi" are in four-line three-section or three-line three-section form, and some run to five, six or seven lines, each line having seven or eight characters. "Jimo" is in four-line one-section form, each line having six characters, with an even rhythm and equal metrical steps. Representative works of Yushu folk songs include "Geji Zasongzhang" and "Junse Dawa Zhuoga".
Le songs
The richest in content of the categories of Yushu folk song, including song forms such as the opening song, the call song, the display song and the praise song, able to take in everything under heaven and among mankind.
Layi love songs
Centred on the singing of love between men and women, but they may not be sung in front of relatives or of opposite-sex blood relations.
Lale mountain songs
Generally named after a place or a tribe, with singing the scenery of one's home town and voicing one's personal feelings as their main content.
Qiongle drinking songs
One of the component parts of traditional Yushu folk song, used in drinking occasions.
Wall-tamping and harvest songs
Yushu folk songs sung respectively to accompany wall-tamping labour and to accompany harvesting and threshing-floor labour.
Chuang-le
Chiefly recount the experiences of roving free spirits drifting from place to place, and also touch on men's and women's love, longing and sorrow.
Jimo divination love songs
Songs with which young men and young women divine their love affairs.
Wedding, greeting and milking songs
Small tune categories of Yushu folk song divided according to ritual occasion and production occasion, which together with "Le", "Layi", "Chuangle", "Jimo" and the like constitute the traditional Yushu folk song system.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Tibetan folk songs are the principal form of folk music in Tibetan areas; they can be divided into types such as mountain songs (herding songs), work songs, love songs, custom songs and scripture-recitation tunes. Yushu folk songs are the crystallisation of the wisdom and the feelings of the Yushu Tibetan people; they touch on such matters as the language, script and life customs of the local Tibetans, and are precious material for the study of the different social formations of Tibetan society.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Tibetan Folk Songs · Tibetan Folk Songs · Tibetan Folk Songs · Tibetan Folk Songs · Tibetan Folk Songs · Tibetan Folk Songs · Tibetan Folk Songs · Tibetan Folk Songs · Tibetan Folk Songs.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present the various kinds of Yushu folk song are distributed extremely scattered, which is unfavourable to their transmission and promotion; in addition, most performers are already advanced in age and few successors are emerging, so this distinctive ethnic folk art has begun to fall into a survival dilemma and urgently needs protection. Dawa Zhandou (official archive entry of the associated inheritor): A man of the Tibetan ethnicity, born in April 1979, native of Qumalai County, Qinghai Province. He is currently director of the Qumalai County song and dance troupe. Influenced by his family, he loved Yushu folk songs from childhood; from the age of six he followed his grandfather Duoje Zhandou to learn songs such as "Niangcuo Niangre", "Niangcuo Duoshu Dingxiang" and "Sanisuo Ka", and later studied the singing of "Dongpu Dawa Zhuoga" with old folk artists, also collating and recording its score. His performance of "Dongpu Dawa Zhuoga", with its distinctive vocal style and markedly different rhythm and metre, left a deep impression on those who heard it. He has long devoted himself to the performance of Yushu folk songs, the collection of materials and the training of successors. Among the students he has taught, a number such as Zhou Jiangcai and Dangzheng Duoje have become well-known Yushu folk singers. Representative inheritor of the Tibetan folk songs (Yushu folk songs) national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the third national-level batch. He has mastered a rich repertary of Yushu folk song singing methods and techniques, and has taken part many times in provincial and inter-provincial folk song competitions, winning prizes.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Ma Jianjun 03-0871
- Hua Ergong 03-0872
- Dawazhandou 03-0873
- Jiangbaqizha 05-2122
- Wudefen 05-2123
- Majinlian
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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