The Historical Origin of Folk Minor

The emergence and development of minor has gone through a long period of time, and some narrative chapters in The Book of Songs have given birth to some factors of this genre. The harmony song in Han dynasty is a form of singing accompanied by silk and bamboo, which is obviously different from the songs of other disciples (oratorios and the like), and it can be said that harmony song is one of the sources of minor. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, folk Yuefu folk songs appeared in the form of time series, such as "Songs at Four o'clock at Midnight", "From the Army to the Five Watches" and "Willow Songs in Mid-Autumn Festival". From these, we can see the structural principles of several traditional tunes widely circulated in later generations, such as Four Seasons, Five Tables and December. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, more and more folk songs were selected and refined, which became a part of rap and song-and-dance performances, called songs, and also an early form of minor genre. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, with the increasing prosperity of China's urban economy, minor entered a mature stage of all-round development. On the one hand, many folk songs introduced from rural areas to cities have become part of minor tunes after being sung and processed by artists. On the other hand, in order to meet the needs of the citizens, Xiao Ling and San Tao, which rose in the Yuan Dynasty, gradually parted ways with the rigorous North-South songs and became popular, easy to understand, smooth and beautiful songs, which still retain the name of Qupai. This part of the ditty is merged into minor to make it more colorful. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the trend of compiling folk songs was revived among some scholars. According to statistics, there are 6044 kinds of popular songs that have been printed and engraved in the middle of Qing Dynasty (see Liu Fu and Li Jiarui: Summary of Popular Songs in China). Most of them belong to small schools. The most influential periodicals are Nishang Wings, Snow White's Legacy, Flowers of North-South Fashion Minor, Guangdong Style and Liu Yue.

Minor is widely distributed, covering almost all Han areas in China. Among them, Shandong, Hebei in the lower reaches of the Yellow River and Jiangsu in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River are more representative in number and category.

In the process of the spread of minor, its tunes have changed in different degrees because of the singer's personality, aesthetic habits, new words and singing methods, thus forming different variants and containing different emotions and expressions. For example, Meng Jiangnu and the Dressing Table, Ten Cups of Wine, Weeping July 7th, Wuxi Scenery and Exploring the Qingshui River, Cutting Indigo Flowers and Dock Tune, Flying Kites, Four Seasons Songs, etc. , both inherited and derived, forming their own. Generally speaking, the wider a minor spreads and the longer it lasts, the more variations it has; Moreover, the relationship between various variants and the original song is far and near, complicated and diverse.