Daoist Music

01 · Historical Records

Mount Tai Daoist music is transmitted within the territory of Tai'an City, Shandong Province. It began in the Northern Wei dynasty and has a history of more than 1,500 years up to the present.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Daoist music is also called “daochang music” (music of the ritual ground); it is the music used in Daoist zhaijiao liturgical observances, and, like Daoism itself, it too has its origin in the ritual song and dance of ancient shamans. Daoist music consists of instrumental and vocal parts. In the instrumental part the leading instruments are bells, ching, drums, wooden fish and small gongs, supported by wind, plucked and bowed string instruments; the vocal part is centred on chanting, and comprises the solo singing of the high-ranking officiant who proclaims the precepts, recites dharani, praises the spirits and chants the declaration, together with the spoken declaration of the dujiang daoshi and the unison singing of the assembled daoshi. In the course of its long development it has widely absorbed the essence of folk beliefs and customs, of court sacrificial music and of local music, so that it has continually enriched and perfected itself. Because of the worship of Mount Tai by Chinese people through the ages, Mount Tai Daoist music was able to enter the Fengshan ceremony and become an important part of the Fengshan rite. Mount Tai Daoist music has a very rich repertoire, and the singing inside the halls mainly uses the “Shifang yun” (rhymes of the ten directions) unified by the Quanzhen school. In addition, it has widely absorbed folk musical elements and gradually accumulated a large batch of pieces; the collection 《Yuyin Xianfan》 alone contains more than one hundred of them. Surveys show that the singable repertoire still extant in Mount Tai Daoist music, the pieces held in the Dai Temple collection and those scattered among the people total more than five hundred. It is particularly worth noting that the famous “curve notation” (quxian pu) of Mount Tai Daoist music has so far not been deciphered by anyone. Mount Tai Daoist music falls into two main categories, vocal and instrumental. The vocal part is chiefly the jingyun chanting of the Quanzhen school, including such forms as song and zan, buxu and ji; the chanting takes such forms as solo, unison and loose-metre recitation, and is divided into the yang tune and the yin tune according to the occasion, the yang tune being used mainly for sacrifice and the yin tune mainly for external daochang rites. The instrumental part mainly uses ritual implements (faqi) as percussion instruments, and additionally uses wind and string instruments for the pieces. Its representative works include 《Bu Xu Diyi》, 《Daxuexian》, 《Ying Neilian》 and 《Qingjiang Yin》 and others. While fully inheriting the artistic characteristics of Daoist music — its solemnity and dignity, its airy antiquity and plainness, its nobility and elegance — Mount Tai Daoist music has also undergone creative development, forming a distinctive style of magnificent momentum and great grandeur; it establishes a school of its own within Chinese Daoist music and has a realm entirely to itself.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Mount Tai Daoist music is divided into two categories, vocal and instrumental. The vocal part is the Quanzhen-school jingyun chanting, containing such forms as song and zan, buxu and ji; it includes solo, unison and loose-metre recitation, and is divided into the yang tune and the yin tune according to the occasion, the yang tune being used mainly for sacrifice and the yin tune mainly for external daochang rites. The instrumental part is based on the repertoire held in the Dai Temple collection and on folk sanqu, with the guan, flute and sheng matched against percussion instruments such as the small gong and the dangzi.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Grounded in the ancient and weighty culture of Mount Tai, it vividly displays one aspect of the breadth and depth of traditional culture, and has research value in religious studies, cultural studies, folklore, history, aesthetics and musicology alike. At present, with the passing away of a generation of older inheritors, Mount Tai Daoist music has no successors, and part of its tune patterns and repertoire has already been lost; it urgently needs protection. Huo Dezhong (per the official archive record of the associated inheritor): Daoist name Huo Huaixu, male, Han ethnicity, born in September 1948, native of Pingyuan County, Shandong Province. In 1985 he became a monk at the Bixia Temple of Mount Tai, Shandong, and took the elder priest Zhang Changming as his master; he is a twenty-second-generation mysterious-seed disciple of the “Jinshan School”, a branch of the Quanzhen Longmen school. In 1987 he received the guan (capping ceremony) at the Bixia Temple of Mount Tai; his capping master was the elder priest Kuangchang of Mount Lao. Driven by a genuine love of the art of music, he has studied Mount Tai Daoist music deeply over more than twenty years of Daoist cultivation. What he mainly sings is the “Shifang yun”, the unified rhymes of the “Quanzhen school”. Most of the instrumental pieces were made to suit the laypeople of the external daochang rites and absorb a good deal of folk music. The jingyun he sings has sparse characters and long vocal lines; its melodies are delicate, plain and elegant, deep and tender, and there are many inserted syllables used to fill out the vocal line. The Tai'an Municipal Taoist music ensemble that he founded, with more than twenty members, often performs for the masses, and is one of the more representative and influential groups among Daoist music ensembles. Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level intangible cultural heritage item Daoist Music (Mount Tai Daoist Music).

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Zhang Yubao 03-0894
• Li Manshan 03-0895
• Shi Jitong 03-0896
• You Wuzhong 03-0897
• Zhang Minggui 03-0898
• Wu Bingzhi 04-1537
• Feng Yingzhan 05-2153
• He Chunsheng 05-2154
• Wu Lixun 05-2155
• Zhan Heping 05-2156
• Zhang Jintao 05-2157
• Huo Dezhong 05-2158
• An Baohui 05-2159
• Wu Huyong

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Daoist Music (Taian, Shandong) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Huo Dezhong · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗