What are the folk characteristics of Miao songs?

Multi-voice Miao songs in Xiangxi are mainly spread in Huayuan, Jishou, Luxi, Guzhang, Baojing, Longshan and other counties and cities, and some are spread in Huaihua, Changde and Zhangjiajie. There are many branches in Miao nationality in western Hunan. According to different regions, tribes and surnames, it is divided into many branches, such as seedlings, flower seedlings, raw seedlings (black seedlings), gelao seedlings and indigenous seedlings (mature seedlings). Miao people have lived here for generations. They are hardworking, brave, good at singing and dancing, and have created brilliant national culture and art in their long-term work and life.

The multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan are composed of eight kinds: folk songs, Nuo songs, crying wedding songs, story songs, cow-persuading songs, door-stopping songs, fairy-carrying songs and sweet-jumping songs (new female songs). Sometimes it can be developed to six or even dozens of sentences according to needs. When singing, voices come and go, and the characteristics of multiple voices are obvious. In multi-voice Miao songs, high and low voices enter successively, and the two voices flow alternately. Sometimes you can sing three or four voices at the same time by adding "pulling the cavity" and "leading the singer". Multi-voice Miao songs have simple tone, smooth melody development and smooth lines. Multi-voice Miao song is a popular folk song singing form among Miao people in western Hunan. It is conducive to the exchange of feelings, ideas and cultures between people. Cheerful and catchy, it has been circulating among Miao people in western Hunan for a long time.

(A) the emergence and development of multi-voice Miao songs in Xiangxi

Miao people in western Hunan are of the same origin as "Three Miao" and "Nine Li" more than 5,000 years ago. Because the rulers of past dynasties tried their best to carry out the policy of national oppression and discrimination, the Miao nationality in western Hunan was driven into the deep mountains and forests. There are many records about the regions and regions of "Jiuli" and "Three Temples" in history. According to Wang Tongling's History of China, "the seven provinces in the Yangtze River valley (Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan and Sichuan) are the distribution areas of Miao people". According to "Han Feizi", "The three seedlings are not satisfied, Hengshan is in the south, Minshan is in the north, the wave is in the left Dongting, and the water is in the right Peng Li". According to historical records? Biography of Wu Qi; "Yesterday's Sanmiao family, left Dongting and right Peng Li." According to historical records, if Jiuli and Sanmiao are connected, it will be a vast land. Miao people in Xiangxi, like other Miao people, were forced to move into the depths of the mountains for historical reasons. Most of them live scattered in mountains and valleys. In order to survive, they work hard, and their only way is to communicate their thoughts and feelings in the form of songs and music. [2] Because the Miao people have no writing, their cultural inheritance can only be realized through songs and music. In this way, songs and music have become a way of cultural exchange among Miao people. When did the multi-voice part of Miao songs in western Hunan appear? According to "Introduction to Multi-voice Folk Songs in China" (written by Fan Zuyin, People's Music Publishing House, 1994 edition), "The emergence of agriculture has led to the consolidation and development of human settlement life. The relatively stable farming collective life provides the necessary environment and conditions for the development of group singing. " It can be inferred that the multi-voice factor of Miao songs in western Hunan also germinated during the agricultural collective life of Miao people. Due to the needs of settlement life itself and the expansion of agricultural production scale, the multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan came into being.

There is such a two-part ancient song that records the origin and migration of Miao people in luxi county, western Hunan. The song named Tribal Change is the earliest multi-voice song of Miao people in western Hunan. The content is mainly about the migration of Miao ancestors and national roots. Song lyrics *** 128 lines. According to Mr. Shi Zongren's translation and Mr. Lu Qun's arrangement, a passage is quoted as follows:

In ancient times, Miao people lived in a vast water town.

In ancient times, Miao people lived near water towns.

Since the world came into being, the devil has appeared.

Miao people can't live in peace,

The suffering Miao people will move out of the water town.

The suffering Miao people will move away from the water town. ...

The melody of this two-part song is simple, similar to recitation, and the lining cavity plays a major role when the two-part melody alternates.

In He Peng, Guzhang County, Xiangxi, there is a famous folk chorus "Picking the Essence", which is performed while singing and working. Miao people call it "Gong Songfu". The lyrics are to the effect that:

Tung trees bear seeds and bend branches,

Ah, you,

All the branches are covered with gullies,

Qi Xin, together, carefully selected.

Aju,

Choose carefully and blow carefully. [3]

This multi-voice Miao song is composed of bass first, treble later, and finally bass and treble alternately flow. Although there are only two parts, the theme of each part is different and ingenious.

Judging from the formation and development law of multi-voice folk songs, Miao multi-voice folk songs are also folk songs attached to collective labor, which are formed through a certain skilled labor mode. For example, the multi-voice chorus of Miao people in western Hunan, such as drums and singing like flying springs, are the products of highly developed agricultural production of Miao people. With the evolution of the times, there will be a spiritual pursuit and a higher aesthetic way. Multi-voice Miao love songs, Nuo songs, crying wedding songs, story songs, cow-inspiring songs, gate-blocking songs, fairy-singing songs and incense-jumping songs will gradually spread among Miao people, because the social background of forming such multi-voice folk songs is very extensive.

(2) The content and genre of Xiangxi multi-voice Miao songs.

Xiangxi Miao multi-voice songs are rich in content and diverse in genre forms. As far as the singing style of Miao songs is concerned, most of them belong to or close to folk songs.

The main contents of multi-voice Miao songs in Xiangxi are: 1. It shows the love between young men and women and reflects the daily life of Miao people. 2. Sacrifice, sacrifice to God, and be willing to repay God. 3. When a daughter gets married, she cries. 4. Tell Miao heroes and tell folk stories. 5. Spinning bull dance, custom sacrifice. 6. Miao people are hospitable and stop eating. 7. Sacrifice the gods to eliminate evil spirits. 8. Miao people celebrate the bumper harvest and wish good weather in the coming year. [4]

The genre of multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan is very complicated. According to the singing occasions and singing forms, the author divides the multi-voice Miao songs into two categories: "less martial arts" (high-pitched) and "less sa" (flat-pitched). Some domestic folk song researchers also regard "Shaowu" as the expressive tune and "Shaosa" as the declarative tune according to the singing characteristics of Miao songs. [5] "Shao Wu" cavity melody ups and downs, lyrical, high-pitched agitation, lyrical and beautiful. "Shaosa" cavity has a straight melody and a beautiful melody, which belongs to recitation. In the singing of multi-voice Miao songs, genre classification is very strict, and different occasions need different stresses and categories. When singing five kinds of songs, such as "offering sacrifices, weeping for marriage, spinning cows, jumping incense and carrying immortals", we must sing with "Shao Sa" (flat cavity).

In the lyrics of multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan, the author finds that it can not only express the meaning of the song content, but also be used as a lining cavity of "harmony", that is, in order to strengthen the "harmony" of the song, some lining words are used in the song, which are mixed with the main word, and sometimes used alone as a part. In this way, the multi-voice Miao songs are more colorful and heavy under the effect of interlining. According to the author's rough statistics, there are four main types of multi-voice Miao songs with lining words and cavities. First, the lining words and cavities enter behind the main words or phrases, and then penetrate each other, and the melody lines are clearly intertwined. Second, interlingual words and interlingual melodies begin first, then subject words and phrases, and then merge together. Third, the lining word and cavity enter the main word and sentence at the same time, and two different melody lines penetrate, imitate and echo each other. Fourthly, insert lining words and cavities in the middle of the phrase, and distort the melody line of the main sentence, so that the multi-voice effect appears and disappears. Due to the diversity of multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan, the original single-voice music thinking has been broken, and a new, three-dimensional and multi-voice Miao song aesthetic consciousness has emerged.

(C) the basic characteristics of Xiangxi multi-voice Miao songs

Due to historical reasons and economic conditions, the multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan play an educational role in the process of inheritance and are the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Miao people. After investigation, Miao multi-voice songs are gradually formed and developed through long-term oral creation and oral singing by the masses. Miao people in Xiangxi preserved and spread their excellent music culture in singing, and described their life experience, love between men and women, having children, people's living habits and folk customs with songs. This multi-voice Miao song goes far beyond the music itself, making it an epic. In Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture and Songtao Miao Autonomous County of Guizhou Province, there is a multi-voice Miao song called Shashasha, in which all the voices are orderly, with seven words and four sentences. The whole song is a quartet or above, all about the origin of Miao nationality, offering sacrifices to ghosts and gods, production and life, which is very similar to the general characteristics of Han folk songs. For example, this multi-voice "Sha Ping" Miao song "Love Song":

Looking forward to Jiao E's twenty-eight years, bamboo shoots will sprout in the forest.

People are young and energetic, and they just lust after wild flowers. [6]

The melody of the two parts of this song is intertwined, and the upper and lower parts move two or three times. The typical method of "harmony and rhyme" in Miao songs is adopted between phrases, and the two parts are skillfully connected by means of rhyme variation, rhyme and harmonic rhyme, so that harmonic progression is regular. Xiangxi multi-voice Miao songs are the natural product of Xiangxi Miao folk songs. They belong to simple primitive folk songs that have not been carved and professionally processed, and are the best blueprint for our study of multi-voice folk songs. Lu Qun, a Miao scholar, said when studying Miao songs: "Miao songs are Miao people's perceptual descriptions of nature. These songs are all based on the mountains and rivers in western Hunan, so it is the best expression of nature. " (See Lu Qun's Religious Perspective of Miao Witch Culture, published by Guizhou Ethnic Publishing House)

The basic characteristics of Xiangxi Miao multi-voice folk songs are also reflected in the formation of Xiangxi Miao multi-voice songs and multi-voice thinking in multi-voice Miao songs, which usually starts with the lowest melody and ends with the lowest melody; Or start with the highest note in the melody and end with the lowest note; Because of this low or high melody flow, two kinds of melody lines, curve and mountain, are formed, which create good external conditions for the formation of multi-voice songs of Miao nationality in western Hunan. In the initial thinking process of Miao multi-voice songs, the melody lines, appreciation habits and the singer's singing treatment of Miao songs make this multi-voice three-dimensional thinking form change from unconscious to conscious, forming the harmonious characteristics of conscious and unconscious.

Xiangxi Miao multi-voice songs, like other ethnic multi-voice songs, do not need professional processing and deliberate modification. They are the product of natural balance, and sometimes the improvisation of singers will take up a lot of time and position.

Studying the basic characteristics of multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan requires us to proceed from reality and master its basic laws and procedures, which is a key technical problem.

Secondly, the morphological characteristics of multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan.

The study of multi-voice folk songs abroad began very early. In China, the discussion and research of multi-voice folk songs originated in the early 1950s, and it has been confirmed that there are Han, Zhuang, Buyi, Dong, Maonan, Mulao, Yi, Hani, Lisu, Naxi, Lahu, Jingpo, Qiang, Tibetan and Miao. [7] Xiangxi Miao multi-voice songs have their own unique artistic characteristics.

(A) the form and method of singing

The multi-voice Miao songs in Xiangxi usually have an introduction, an interlude and an ending. The rhythm is free and complicated, and a song often has many pauses. Due to the different regional and vocal characteristics, the singing forms of multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan have a fixed organizational form, which, like Miao folk songs, are divided into two categories. The first category is Shao Wu, a multi-voice Miao song popular in Huayuan, Jishou, Guzhang, Baojing and other places in western Hunan. Because it is a high-pitched genre, the tune is expressive, the rhythm is free and the lyrics are beautiful. This form of multi-voice Miao song is suitable for singing in the field, with large interval jump and high-pitched agitation. During the investigation, we found that Shao Wu's multi-voice Miao songs are mainly male chorus, because this kind of songs are sung in the wild, which is labor-intensive and only undertaken by men. For example, this song "Spinning Bull Dance" (female guest):

The bull drum stands in the middle hall, bumping against the young people and shaking the hills.

Invite guests to dance, inspire and add color to our spinal sacrifice.

The big drum of the vertebral ox is placed in Daping, and the teenager hits the edge and shakes the mountain.

When everyone is eager to try, there will be a bumper harvest in a year.

In addition to this multi-voice song of male chorus and female chorus, some folk songs are played by female chorus, which is also a kind of youth like male chorus.

The second category is Shaosa, which is popular in counties and cities of Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture. According to the different forms of singing, it can be divided into the following categories.

1. Love Song: This multi-voice Miao song is the most popular in Jishou, Huayuan and Baojing. When singing, the treble appears as the introduction, followed by the cavity, and there are some titles, such as "Hi-Oh" or "Nai-Oh", which sound gentle and smooth, like a mountain spring flowing water.

2. Ancient songs: This is a rough and primitive song with little rhythm and irregular structure. This kind of song generally has only two parts, consisting of three sentences, four sentences, five sentences and seven sentences.

3. Singing fairy songs: This kind of multi-voice Miao songs is weak, with about three or four singers. Its characteristic is that before singing, the singer yawns first, and then sings with a bleak vibrato. This kind of song has only two parts. Some sing the lyrics with vibrato, and some sing the lyrics with vibrato. The atmosphere is serious and the mood is miserable.

4. Weeping marriage: This multi-voice song is a multi-voice Miao song sung by the bride, bridesmaid, parents (female only) and the bride's mother. The multi-voice Miao songs in the crying wedding class are very artistic and have certain decorative sounds. The drawl and vibrato run through the music. When singing in multiple voices, there are often some characteristics: one voice cries first, another voice starts from the second phrase of the first voice, and the third voice imitates the second voice, and so on.

5. Tiaoxiang: This polyphonic Miao song is popular in Jishou, Luxi, Guzhang and other counties and cities. Like other Miao songs, it often adopts the method of dragging cavity and falling tone, and there are many interlinings. When singing, people dance to celebrate the harvest; The leader of the dance held a scarf in his left hand and a sword or horn in his right hand, followed by four young people, who danced with the rhythm of the dance. The atmosphere is pleasant and harmonious.

When singing multi-voice Miao songs, the singer adopted the singing methods of sliding voice and falsetto. Sliding is the basic method of Miao singing, that is, singing from one tone up or down to another, and then straightening the true voice. In the singing of multi-voice Miao songs, both the beginning and the end of a sentence can slide.

False voice singing is also a common singing method of multi-voice Miao songs. Because some Miao songs have a wide range and a large fluctuation in melody, if you want to have enough breath and sing correctly without Tik Tok, you can only use falsetto instead of real voice, so that the long sound is relaxed and the voice is sharp and rooted.

What I want to mention here is that when singing declarative multi-voice Miao songs, true voice singing is still the most basic method, because it needs a rough tune similar to recitation.

(B) Beat and rhythm

The rhythm of multi-voice Miao songs in Xiangxi is relatively free, similar to scattered boards, scattered but not chaotic. When studying the multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan, we seem to think that its beat is very free, and we can't find any rules from it. It seems that they are all scattered and can't tell the bar. However, careful observation shows that there are certain and fixed beats in multi-voice Miao songs, but in some phrases, due to the needs of the song itself, the singer improvises to shorten, extend and stop, which makes the beats and rhythms in a song appear diversified. It is not difficult to find a regular beat and rhythm. As long as we understand the living habits and multi-voice thinking mode of Miao people in western Hunan, the mystery of this multi-voice Miao song will be unveiled.

After mastering the natural law of Miao songs' beat and rhythm formation, the typical characteristics of multi-voice Miao songs' beat in western Hunan will appear. Their first beat is strong, the second beat is weak and the third beat is strong, which is obviously different from the law of beat strength in European music theory. In the western traditional rhythm law, the law of the strength of 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 beats is strong, weak or strong, weak or strong, weak, sub-strong and weak, but the second half beat or the second half beat of 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 in Xiangxi Miao multi-voice songs is stronger than its previous beat. This treatment is a unique phenomenon in Xiangxi Miao songs and multi-voice Miao songs.

(3) Voice composition and harmony characteristics

Multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan are mostly two-voice, and three-voice and four-voice Miao songs sometimes appear under the action of lining cavity (lining cavity is internal voice and sometimes melody voice). When we study the Miao two-part songs in Xiangxi, we find that the Miao two-part songs are mostly branches, that is, the two parts sing the same melody at the same time, which is the most common type of voice structure in Xiangxi Miao multi-part songs. Shao Wu mainly uses the method of adding flowers to the voice, and the application of adding flowers and imitating flowers is mutually variant, resulting in the contrast between smooth melody and intensive rhythm. Shaosa mainly adopts the method of separating parts and crossing parts. When singing this type of two-part Miao song, both parts sing the same lyrics, with the same melody as the variant, at the same speed and rhythm.

The singing of three-part and four-part Miao songs is rare, and sometimes the charm of this multi-part folk song can only be heard in Miao festivals, such as "April 8" and "Catch Autumn". The number of people who sing three-part and four-part Miao songs is generally more than a dozen, sometimes in two or three rows according to age and gender. The alternate combination of contrast and words constitutes the rotation of three or four parts, which makes the multi-part Miao songs in Xiangxi break through the original style of multi-part folk songs.

The harmony feature of multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan is a five-tone harmony interval, which, like multi-voice folk songs of other nationalities, is dominated by a five-tone natural interval, with a dense interval within four or five degrees, and the most commonly used is a sophomore, pure four or five degrees.

(4) Texture formation

Multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan are mostly composed of two or three voices (less four voices), and their textures are diverse.

Our usual texture form is a voice structure developed by combining the main melody with the background sound or bass (the second melody). For example, the lyrics of this three-part "story song" are as follows:

Strike iron in Leigong furnace and make four or five fast arrows.

Pangu, with arrows in his hand, stuck them at the entrance of the sea.

One arrow shoots out of the sea, and the other arrow shoots out of the mountain village. ...

When singing, one part sings melody, another part accompanies or supplements, and the third part sings in continuous and fixed tones. These two parts set off, contrast and supplement the melody parts respectively. Among the texture forms of multi-voice Miao songs in Xiangxi, we find that there are many accompanying and setting-off (imitation and setting-off) texture forms in singing, and sometimes there are a few paired textures, so it is very close to the contrasting polyphonic texture of Han nationality. The author thinks that this texture form of Xiangxi multi-voice Miao songs reflects the maturity of Xiangxi multi-voice Miao songs in multi-voice thinking form.

Xiangxi multi-voice Miao songs are very rich in singing methods, performance contents and singing styles. In addition to the common supporting voice, there are many kinds of texture forms, such as response type and theme type.

(e) mode and tonality

Xiangxi Miao multi-voice songs have many modes, including gong, Shang, Jiao, Zheng, Yu or similar major and minor tones. In terms of mode composition, Gong (Do) mode is the most common mode, followed by Yu (La) mode, Zheng (SoL) mode and Shang (Re) mode, and the angle (Mi) mode sometimes appears occasionally, but there is no angle mode phenomenon in other ethnic multi-voice folk songs. For example, the Miao people's cry tune "Catch the Young Men" which is now circulating in Huayuan area of western Hunan is a kind of angular mode, and the lyrics are to the effect that:

Recalling the past, I hate the night and burst into tears.

Draw lots for my youngest son, who was killed while trying to escape.

Mother cried and fell to the ground, vomiting blood and died.

Its melody is free and sad. The first paragraph of the melody part of the song is an E-corner sound, and the contrast sound is also an E-corner sound at first, and then it turns into a D-quotient sound in the middle, forming a mode alternation phenomenon. Why don't other ethnic multi-voice folk songs have horn modes? Professor Fan Zuyin explained: "This may be related to the order in which the five tones are generated in the trisection, and the angle is the final unity." [8] The author believes that it is not surprising that the composition of each music in the mode also has its own national preference due to the different geographical and harmonious thinking modes.

Multi-voice songs of Miao nationality in western Hunan mostly adopt pentatonic scale. In the case of definite tonic, other tones may be regarded as overtones, showing diversity in the form of organizing scales. In all kinds of modes, there are tone sandhi. Due to the tone sandhi phenomenon of multi-tone Miao songs (such as * 1, b7), this will make the other voice take the way of "clearing the angle for the palace" at the end of the duet and transfer to the next mode of the five-degree Gongdiao system. [9] This tone sandhi phenomenon is the characteristic of Miao multi-voice songs, and it is also the best and most convenient means of its natural tone sandhi.

(6) Music structure

Compared with the multi-voice folk songs of other nationalities, the musical structure of the multi-voice songs of Miao nationality in Xiangxi is the most special. It takes phrases as the core in music structure, and divides the forms and paragraphs of songs into before, during and after phrases. The beginning of the multi-voice Miao song is often called the introduction, which is the beginning of the whole multi-voice song. Because there are many interludes and cavities in Miao multi-voice songs, they are often regarded as the presentation part of the song in the middle or middle phrase, and also called interlude (cavity addition) by the singer. At the end of the song, there is a special lining cavity to set off the end, which is the end of Miao songs. This is the expression of the musical structure of Miao songs for many years, and it is the unique musical structure of multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan. The musical forms of multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan mainly include one paragraph, two paragraphs, three paragraphs, four paragraphs and many paragraphs. Often divided into even songs and odd songs. Most songs are composed of two sentences, and more than two sentences are one sentence. Multi-voice Miao songs or multi-voice Miao songs generally consist of one or two phrases, including introduction, interlude and tail cavity. In singing, every phrase may be repeated and changed by one or several different cavities.

The musical structure of Xiangxi Miao multi-voice songs is the concentrated expression of its multi-voice songs, which has many similarities with Xiangxi single-voice Miao songs. In the investigation, we also found that although the musical structure of Xiangxi multi-voice Miao songs has its particularity, it still has many similarities with other multi-voice folk songs, which is a universal reflection of multi-voice folk songs.

Three. Concluding remarks

Our research on the multi-voice Miao songs in Xiangxi is another exploration and inheritance of the multi-voice Miao songs in Xiangxi. Multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan are the treasures of national music art, but it is a pity that man-made disasters have not escaped for many years, and most of them have been lost.

At present, governments at all levels in Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture attach great importance to the excavation and rescue of multi-voice Miao songs in Xiangxi. In order to carry forward the national traditional culture, the local government and Party committee actively trained specialized personnel, collected and sorted out folk materials and oral music materials, and formulated effective measures for collection and sorting out. I am deeply comforted and encouraged by this. After writing this essay, I was amazed at the profoundness of the multi-voice Miao songs in western Hunan. I always felt that this article was a crude opinion, in order to try my best to correct it for everyone and my peers.