Artistic characteristics of Miao folk songs

Miao ballads have distinctive features, with neat lyrics and rigorous structure. Most of them are seven words and four sentences, and a few are separated by three words and seven sentences.

Singing forms include solo, two-person chorus and multi-person chorus. They like to sing in the way of question and answer, or narrative or guessing, with slow rhythm and long and weak tone. Most music tunes are clear, high-pitched and euphemistic, and nasal sounds are a major feature of Miao ballads. The tunes of Miao folk songs used to be short first and then long, which can generally be divided into two categories: high-pitched and flat-pitched. Most of the high-pitched songs are sung in the field by combining true and false sounds. The melody is high and wide, with great fluctuation and strong sense of rhythm. He is good at singing and dancing, and is mostly used to sing folk songs such as production, labor, social life and love. The level tone is lowered, the melody fluctuates slightly, the range generally fluctuates within eight degrees, the rhythm is slow and free, the lyric is long, and there are many setbacks. The tone of frustration is long and weak, and the lingering sound is endless. It takes a long time to sing a song, which is mostly used to sing folk songs with customs such as etiquette, marriage and sacrifice. Miao ballads are simple and fresh, euphemistic and implicit, with rich feelings and profound meanings. They use metaphors, personification and other expressions in a large number, which are particularly romantic. From the content, Miao folk songs cover history, literature, philosophy and religion, and are an important part of Miao folk literature and art heritage.