Tianmen Folk Songs
01 · Historical Records
In 2009 the Tianmen folk song “Xing Fu Ge”, as a representative work of Hubei folk songs, was included in the “Music” volume of the Experimental Senior High School Curriculum Standards Textbook as national material for musical appreciation. From the early years after the founding of the People's Republic of China to the early 1980s, a group of performers headed by the well-known Hubei singer Jiang Guiying carried Tianmen folk songs out of Hubei and to Beijing, performing many times at Zhongnanhai; Tianmen folk songs came almost to stand for Hubei folk songs.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
It is the mother body of the many arts of Tianmen and of the whole Jianghan Plain: it nurtured the high register and the gong-and-drum register of the four main vocal styles of Jingzhou flower-drum opera; its ditties became the vocal style of Geqiang shadow puppetry and the fixed tune patterns of the dianzi xiaoqu and the sanbang drum. Its subjects touch on religion, history, labour, daily life, love and many other aspects. The theme song of the film “Honghu Red Guards”, “Honghu Water, Waves Beating the Waves”, was adapted from the Tianmen folk songs “Xiang He Yao” and “Yue Wang Lang”. The traditional folk songs “Xing Fu Ge”, “Xiao Nü Xu” and “Hao Huang Gua” are still widely sung to this day.
Xing Fu Ge (Happiness Song)
In 2009 the Tianmen folk song “Xing Fu Ge”, as a representative work of Hubei folk songs, was included in the “Music” volume of the Experimental Senior High School Curriculum Standards Textbook as national material for musical appreciation.
Experimental Senior High School Curriculum Standards Textbook: Music
In 2009 the Tianmen folk song “Xing Fu Ge”, as a representative work of Hubei folk songs, was included in the “Music” volume of the Experimental Senior High School Curriculum Standards Textbook as national material for musical appreciation.
Xiao Nü Xu
One of the traditional folk songs among Tianmen folk songs that is still widely sung to this day.
Hao Huang Gua
One of the traditional folk songs among Tianmen folk songs that is still widely sung to this day.
Xiang He Yao and Yue Wang Lang
The theme song of the film “Honghu Red Guards”, “Honghu Water, Waves Beating the Waves”, was adapted from the Tianmen folk songs “Xiang He Yao” and “Yue Wang Lang”.
Six genre categories
Tianmen folk songs fall into six main genres — “haozi”, “field songs”, “ditties”, “lamp songs”, “religious songs” and “children's songs” — of which field songs and ditties are the most numerous; at present more than eight hundred and forty traditional Tianmen folk songs have been collected.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Tianmen folk songs are current mainly in the cities and counties of the Jianghan Plain and the Hanjiang River basin — Tianmen, Mianyang (Xiantao), Qianjiang, Hanchuan, Honghu, Zhongxiang, Jingshan, Yingcheng and other places. Tianmen folk songs are an important branch of Chu music: their lyrics have the clarity, refinement and novelty of the ancient Chu Ci, their music carries the characteristics of the Chu “eight tones”; and they are also full of the local colour of the water-town region of the Jianghan Plain. By genre they fall into six main categories — “haozi”, “field songs”, “ditties”, “lamp songs”, “religious songs” and “children's songs” — of which field songs and ditties are the most numerous.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present more than eight hundred and forty traditional Tianmen folk songs have been collected. Zhou Lanxian (official archive record of the associated inheritor): Female, Han, born in November 1937, a native of Tianmen City, Hubei Province. Her voice is plain, simple and sweet, her singing style fresh and lyrical, with the narrative character of local ditties. She has sung close to a hundred Tianmen folk songs. In 1963 she was transferred to the rural cultural work team of Tianmen County, and took part many times in the provincial and municipal folk song performance events. Representative inheritor of Tianmen folk songs of the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage. In recent years she has devoted herself to the sorting of Tianmen folk songs and to the training of inheritors. The singing of Tianmen folk songs takes the local dialect as its basis and lays stress on clear diction and a full, rounded tone, following the melody of the words: haozi stress the lead and the mutual urging, field songs excel in drawn-out tones and interpolated phrases, ditties use many filler words and filler lines, and lamp songs combine singing with dancing; these genres are used in turn amid the labour and the seasonal festivals of the Jianghan Plain.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhou Lanxian 05-2163
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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