What are the characteristics of Hua Chaoxi singing in Hakka dialect?

In Zijinshan, Guangdong, there is a popular folk opera called "Hua Chaoxi".

Hua Chaoxi is one of the local operas in Guangdong, and it is a folk opera native to Zijinshan area. It originated from the "Shen Chao" sacrificial ceremony in rural areas of Zijin County, and was sung in Hakka dialect, which was popular in Hakka areas in eastern Guangdong.

Its remarkable feature is the organic combination of folk music language and folk literature language. Singing is simple and healthy, popular and easy to sing; Lyrics and Daobai often use humorous puns and allegorical sayings which are vivid and easy to understand. The performance was full of singing and dancing, and the atmosphere was warm, which was deeply loved by the masses.

Hua Chaoxi's performances originated from labor production, and extracted a set of beautiful and lively performances from life, such as uphill, downhill, wading, crossing the bridge, milling rice, grinding cotton, weaving hemp, picking flowers, picking fruits, carrying loads, washing clothes and so on.

Hua Chaoxi's performance skills, catwalk and figure are different from other operas. For example, relatively fixed feet, small steps, hand-wearing flowers, rolling towels, round hands, picking flowers and turning steps all have unique artistic styles, and the movements are simple and rude.

Hua Chaoxi Opera, Ancient Painting Opera, Mountain Opera and Tea Picking Opera are sister operas, and they are all good at performing folk operas. Although performances and musical vocals have their own characteristics, they often communicate and learn from each other.

Flower Drum Opera "Playing Gong", "Filling Pots" and Tea Picking Opera "Taking a Small Charge" were transplanted to Hua Chaoxi, and they were expressed with the music and skills of the Flower Dynasty, which also received good results.

Hua Chaoxi has accumulated hundreds of traditional plays in the course of its development. The representative plays include Autumn Flowers, selling groceries, Three Officials Entering the House, Transition and so on.

His songs are easy to understand, and slang, two-part allegorical sayings and puns are often used. The vocals are mainly Shen Chao and folk tunes, and sometimes Hakka folk songs are used.

Generally speaking, there are only three roles: the niche, Xiao Dan and the clown. There are also unique skills such as fan flowers, handkerchief flowers, hook feet and hand piercing. The performance is simple and fresh with singing and dancing.

The themes of Hua Chaoxi's traditional dramas are mostly taken from folklore, and most of them advocate positive themes such as punishing evil and promoting good, loyalty and patriotism, and freedom of marriage. Confucianism, farming, reading, family heirloom, respect for education and other humanistic ideas advocated by Hakka people have been fully displayed in Hua Chaoxi. Therefore, Hua Chaoxi has high academic research value in folk literature, folk music, folk culture and religious culture.

Hua Chaoxi, who got up early, had only three roles, namely "Sheng", "Dan" and "Ugly", commonly known as "Triangle Play". Later, the artist explored, studied and reformed the art of the Flower Dynasty.

In the aspect of music singing, starting from the needs of drama, we changed the situation of "tofu block" in the past and made bold innovative attempts in "tuning", supplemented by plate changes. It not only retains the tradition and style, but also overcomes the monotonous melody and lame plate.

In terms of performance, we explored and tried respectively. On the basis of developing traditional performance techniques, we absorbed the actions of tea-picking drama, such as "horse stance just look", "broken step", "tea picking", "round hand", "fan flower" and "towel flower", which enriched Hua Chaoxi's performing arts.

The basic structure of Hua Chaoxi belongs to Qupai style, which is a folk opera sung in Zijin Hakka dialect. There are 100 kinds of vocals in Hua Chaoxi, which are mainly composed of Shen Chao and folk tunes.

The lyrics are mostly seven words and four sentences, all of which are sung by actors with their own voices. The characteristics of singing are that one person leads the singing, many people help, singing and reading are combined, and they are flexible and free. The vernacular is colloquial, and allegro is often inserted.

Traditional accompaniment instruments include suona, Hu Di, Er Xian Qin, Coconut Hu, Muyu, Gaobian Gong and single. There are more than 80 traditional plays in Hua Chaoxi, among which the representative plays are Autumn Flowers, selling groceries, Three Officials Entering the House, Transition and so on.

Hua Chaoxi's vocal music works are composed of "Temple Music" and folk tunes, which belong to a multi-section conjoined form. The structure of the first part is from "four tones" to "cock crow", and finally ends with "Lu Nan tone". When singing, men used to use a flat throat and a fake throat. Now both men and women use a flat throat, and the last sentence is often helpful.

Most of the music of Huachao is good at percussion, that is, gongs and drums plus suona. At the climax, "double big flutes" and "double small flutes" are often played with blue drums, hall drums, gongs, cymbals, convex gongs, single flutes and fish drums, which become the characteristics of the music of the Flower Dynasty.