Li Zhumu Instrumental Music

01 · Historical Records

According to the old artists, Li traditional instruments flourished most in the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns of the Qing dynasty.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The traditional Li instrumental music of Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County has a long history and a distant source, and is current mainly in the Li settlements on the southern foot of Wuzhishan in central Hainan Province. The common Li traditional instruments of this area are chiefly the eight known as the single-log drum, the dingdong wood, the nose flute, the mouth bow, the lie, the koubai, the hollowed ladle and the bida; these instruments carry the atmosphere of primitive social life, being made by hand by the Li people from bamboo, wood and the hides of animals taken from nature, and they vividly embody the life and aesthetic ideas of the local Li people's reverence for nature. The representative Li folk instruments of Wuzhishan city are chiefly the tube ladle, the ladle scraper, the nose flute, the mouth bow, the koubai, the lie, the dingdong wood and the single-log drum, distributed mainly among the Li villages of Wuzhishan city such as Nanchong village in Maodao township. On every festival for celebration and on the third day of the third lunar month, the Li people take out the instruments they have made themselves and play them impromptu, to express their feelings, praise their life and gladden their hearts; some also use them as a means of courting. Li traditional instruments are rare on the Chinese music stage and abroad alike, and the bamboo-and-wood instrumental music formed from them has a strong ethnic character, greatly enriching the treasury of Chinese national instruments.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Li instruments around Baoting are mostly made by their users themselves — cutting bamboo, choosing wood and mounting the skin — and are plain in form and close to nature in timbre; their playing occasions are chiefly the third day of the third lunar month, wedding banquets and gatherings in the communal youth house at night. A player often handles several instruments at once, using the nose flute to convey feeling and the dingdong wood and the single-log drum to mark the beat, forming an approach in which bamboo and wood answer one another; inheritors such as Huang Zhaoan have long taught the playing techniques in primary and secondary schools and in training classes of all kinds.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Li Zhumu Instrumental Music.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Li bamboo-and-wood music has continued to develop and be transmitted among the people in a spontaneous way, and the content of its pieces is very rich, covering labour, love, marriage and funeral, ritual, sacrifice and entertainment; a great many works long remained scattered among the people, and only a hundred-odd have so far been collected, among them representative works such as Luo-ni tune, Si-qin tune and Wei Ge Luo tune. Li bamboo-and-wood music contains rich information on the development history, production and daily life, human relationships and customs of the Li people, and has research value for several disciplines such as anthropology, ethnology, folklore and the study of music culture. At present, under the impact of fashionable music, Li bamboo-and-wood music is gradually declining, the folk players are running short of successors, most traditional pieces are in danger of being lost, and urgent rescue is needed. Huang Zhaoan (as recorded in the official dossier of an associated inheritor): male, Li, born in July 1955, a native of Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County, Hainan Province. As he grew older he became devoted to the traditional instruments of his own people. He often crossed mountains and ridges and went from village to village, carefully uncovering and sorting traditional instruments and instrumental pieces, and worked hard to learn and explore playing technique until he could handle the various Li instruments with full skill. For a long time he taught the playing techniques of Li instruments in primary and secondary schools and in the various training classes organised by the government. In 2008 his solo album Bi Xiao Sheng Sheng Hua Hen Ta (The Nose Flute Calls Her Again and Again) was published and issued by the Guangdong Zhujiang Audio-Visual Press. Representative inheritor of Li bamboo-and-wood instrumental music in the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects. The instrumental pieces he has composed and played have repeatedly won awards from the provincial and municipal cultural departments.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Huang Zhaoan 05-2148

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Li Zhumu Instrumental Music (Baotinglizumiaozuzizhi, Hainan) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Huang Zhaoan · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗