Artistic Characteristics of Tujia Folk Songs

The folk songs of the Tujia people can be divided into five kinds according to the traditional custom, such as mountain songs, grass-gathering gongs and drums, labor horns, shaking children's songs and children's songs, and custom songs.

Shan songs: Tujia folk songs have two kinds of languages: Tujia songs and Chinese songs; in the voice cavity, there is a high cavity and a flat cavity; in the structure, there are "one voice", "three voices", "four sentences", "five sentences", "four sentences", "four sentences", "four sentences", "four sentences", "four sentences", "four sentences", "four sentences", "four sentences", "four sentences", and "four sentences".

Weeding Gongs and Drums: Also known as Weeding Songs, Harmonized Gongs and Drums, and Digging Songs.

Labor Horns: The Tujia people live in the Wuling Mountains and on both sides of the Youshui and the Li River, and they have an important position in the labor life, thus the boat horns, wood dragging horns, and rockwork horns are the most popular.

Shaking children's songs and children's songs: Longshan's foot of the slope, Baojing's Pushu popular in Tujia language singing shaking children's songs, tunes by the upper and lower sentences, the rhythm is smooth. In Puxu County, there are two kinds of children's songs: the feather-tune style and the levy-tune style, with the melody going downward in many steps.

Custom songs: there are songs of weeping marriage, filial piety songs, and songs of swinging hands. The tunes of the Tujia folk songs are beautiful and heartfelt, with a strong local flavor and a heavy ethnic style interspersed in the rhythm. The general sound examples are so, la, do, re, so, based on which, together with the meanderings and embellishments, they form a touching and very characteristic melody. The structure of the melody is mostly in four phrases, which is usually formed by repeating the two phrases and changing the repetitions to form four phrases. There are also five-stanza Tujia folk songs, most of which repeat the fourth stanza or repeat three or four stanzas with variations. In the structure of Tujia trumpets and ritual songs, most of them have the structural components of leading and closing. Tujia folk songs are in pentatonic scale system, and the beats are a mixture of even and odd beats. The tone is mainly narrow and small, favoring minor key color, and the melody method of cascade and narrow intervals, and the rhythm is generally soothing and moderate, only the rhythm of mourning is changing. Such as "crying marriage song" pentatonic scale modulation, crying with tunes, rhythmic and staccato, is a combination of singing and crying art.

The Tujia folk songs mostly use the levitation, Gong, Fei, Shang four modes, and to the levitation, Gong, Fei most common, corner modes are not much.　　In the tune changes, there are more homophonic alternations and homophonic repetitions. Moreover, the melody is mainly extended by homophonic repetition. The alternation of homophonic repetition also depends on the change and repetition of the melody. For example, some folk songs have a big second tone above the carved main tone, so it makes the melodic tune of the work more clear, and when it is carried out, the number of times that each tone is repeated increases, and the melodic structure of homophonic linking together is always continuous and alternating, so that the melody can be extended.　The most prominent feature of the tunes of Tujia folk songs is that they are based on a three-tone cadence, and the melodic changes are driven by the lyrics, with a phrase that is one of the lyrics, and the length of the phrase corresponds to the ups and downs of the melody. Therefore, the tunes of Tujia folk songs are simple and concise, with beautiful and melodious melodies and a strong sense of rhythm. In the life of the Tujia people, the birth of a child to add female friends and relatives to come to congratulate, called eating toast rice wine; after the feast, the two pro-mothers wearing straw hats, face smeared with some pots and pans, holding a fan or broomstick singing, jumping, mutual blessings, flirting, love, love, that is, so that a singing and jumping, the whole toast rice banquet to a climax. The villagers call it playing "Flower Drums", and some people call it "Flower Drums of Joy" or "Flower Drum Opera". Huang Si Sister" is a traditional program reserved for the rice banquet. The lyrics of "Huang Si Sister":

"(male singing) Huang Si Sister, (female singing) what are you shouting for, (male) I'll send you a silk handkerchief, (female) I want you to have a silk handkerchief what is it for, (male) put it on the head of the sister, walking and looking good, sitting there is someone to look at, my Jiao Jiao Sha. (Woman) aiya my brother, you send on so much, (Man) things to send less sand, you don't say so ......."

The lyrics and tunes of "Huang Si Sister" and the form of singing are delightful and easily accepted by the general public. There are many kinds of happy flower drum tunes, among which there are "Haunted Five Nights", "Yellow Four Sisters", "Visiting Men Song", "Cargo Man Song", "Crab Song", "Bachelor Song", "Frog Song", "Marriage Song", "Ten Sent", "Ten Embroidery", "Ten Love", "Ten Write", "Ten Thoughts", "Guessing the Word Song", and so on. The repertoire of Youyang lanterns includes: "Opening the Door", "Opening the Door of Wealth", "Sacrifice to the God of Wealth", "Zhong Scholar", "Five Nights of the Moon", "Five Nights of the Moon", "Haunted Five Nights of the Moon", "Luoyang Bridge", "Ten Embroideries", "Ten Deliveries", "Ten Singings", "Ten Crosses", "Ten Loves", "Ten Permissions", "Haunted Red Lanterns", "Flowers in Seven Character Sentences", "The Dressing Table", "Swept Away the Five Pestilences", "The Guests in High Ranks of Luck Greetings", "The Tune of Love Songs", "Up the Tea Mountain