Zhou Family Class's Blowing and Playing Music

The repertoire of the Zhou Family Class can be divided into three major series according to its origin: 1. Innovative series of classic repertoire, such as "Hundred Birds Toward the Phoenix", "One Flower", "Worshiping the Flower Hall", "Jixianbin" and other traditional classic repertoire, which the Zhou Family Class has developed uniquely under the premise of not altering the basic melody of the repertoire; 2. Traditional folk repertoire, such as "Suwu Shepherds the Sheep", "Han Boat Tune", "Liu Jinzi" and other folk repertoire that has been handed down for hundreds of years or more; 3. The traditional folk repertoire series, such as "Su Wu Shepherds Goat", "Han Boat Tune", "Liu Jin Zi" and other folk repertoire that has been passed down for hundreds of years; 3. Self-created and self-edited Zhou repertoire series, such as "Laughter", "In the Field", "West out of the Yangguan" and other repertoire, as well as clicking, muffled, clutched, simulated theater vocals, folk magic stunt performances. According to the application occasions, the Zhou family class repertoire series is divided into wedding and birthday celebrations and other blessings, rituals and temples, production life, funerals, important ceremonies, improvisational performances in response to the scene and other categories. In total, there are three series, four categories, and more than 1,000 pieces of repertoire. Among them, more than 200 pieces have been organized and used for daily performance.

The Zhou Family Class, through the tireless efforts of several generations of clansmen, has traveled all over East China and South China, and is especially famous in Suzhou, Lu, Anhui and Zhejiang, especially in Anhui Lingbi and Shandong Taierzhuang areas, where many old people can still talk about the anecdotes and stories of the Zhou Family Class. After the founding of the country, the Zhou Family Class showed a new face, from the fourth generation of the master Zhou Zhengyu was hired by Anhui Province Huangmei Opera College to teach classes, to the fifth generation of Zhou Zhonghua, Zhou Benming, etc. went to the Golden Hall in Vienna, Austria, on behalf of the Chinese New Year's Eve party, and to the sixth generation of the seventh generation, Zhou Jiyong, Zhou Jinsong, Zhou Qiang, Zhou Hui, Zhou Hongbo and other more than ten people to get into the Anhui Provincial School of Fine Arts, Anhui Huangmei Opera School, Yantai School of Arts in Shandong Province, etc., the Zhou Family Class has always kept pace with the times.

The Zhou Family Class has always followed the development of the times, advancing with the times, tapping the essence of folk art, sucking in the nourishment of the college art, so that blowing and playing music, a long-established folk art in the new era to show its youthful vigor, not only to try to retain the traditional essence of Chinese folk music, but also to constantly innovate new forms of artistic performances, for the activation of the culture of China's rural areas, the inheritance of Chinese folk traditions have made a great contribution.

The Zhou Family Drum Circle has also traveled to Europe and Southeast Asia, making new contributions to the development of Chinese folk music and international cultural exchanges. Blow music or drum and blow music, is a form of music performed in an ensemble, and its geographical distribution is, to some extent, closely related to the music registration system of the court in feudal times in China. In folklore, the locations of the imperial capitals of the past dynasties were generally the very areas where the densest folk music genres are circulated, the most concentrated folk music societies, and the most widely distributed folk musicians are found today.

As a traditional music, blowing music or drum blowing music specifically refers to since the Han and Wei Dynasties, the court, military and official government related to ceremonies, military, banquets and entertainments, and is commonly found in the Music Office or the Taishang and other institutions. By the Ming Dynasty, a professional drumming line had been formed. After the Song and Yuan, due to historical and socio-economic changes in life, the ensemble form of music began to develop in the folk. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, although there were still official settings, the instrumentation and application of drums and drums has evolved repeatedly, forming a distinctive regional characteristics of folk music.

The Zhou family class of Lingbi County, Anhui Province, the rise of blowing and playing music, with the middle and late Ming Zhu Yuanzhang's ninth grandson Zhu Zaiyu. Zhu Zaiyu was indifferent to palace life, but loved folk art, and spent a long time in the area of Huaiqingfu (present-day Qinyang, Henan Province). He had penetrated into the folk suona classes along the Yellow River to study folk music, carry out excavation and collation and research work, and successively collated and preserved dozens of suona tunes widely circulated in the Central Plains, such as Calling the Sentence, Van Zi Tune, Hundred Birds Towards the Phoenix, Carrying the Sedan Chair, and The Great Open Door, and so on.

The Yellow River broke twice in 1622 and 1629, and the victims of the Yellow River and Huaihe River areas were displaced and migrated, some of them settled in Lingbi, and some of them went out to learn the art. Because of the festivals, welcome the gods and goddesses, men's and women's marriages, funerals and sacrifices, and other ceremonial occasions all need suona drumming, gongs and drums, so suona blowing gradually from the daily recreation to become a means of livelihood for the disaster victims. It was during this period that the Zhou family class originated. The first generation The second generation The third generation The fourth generation The fifth generation The sixth generation The seventh generation Zhou Jingzhi Zhou Culture Zhou Huaibang Zhou Zhengyu Zhou Benxiang Zhou Jiyong Zhou Wei Zhou Wenshi Zhou Huairong Zhou Zhengmei Zhou Benling Zhou Qiaoyun Zhou Quan Zhou Wenquan Zhou Zhenmin Zhou Benming Zhou Li Zhou Xiaofeng Zhou Wenkuan Zhou Liang Zhou Zhonghua Zhou Jing Zhou Xiaokei Zhou Zhengjun Zhou Benyin Zhou Hui Zhou Zhenghai Zhou Benjin Zhou Jun Zhou Zhenqun Zhou Benhua Zhou Jinsong Zhou Zhenfeng Zhou Xiangcaow Zhou Qiang Zhou Zhenwu Zhou Benfai Zhou Lei Zhou Zhenling Zhou Benyu Zhou Yang Zhou Zhengyun Zhou Benzai Zhou Jiayi Cheng Zhongji Zhou Haibo Zhou Dapeng Wang Sishan Zhou Haiying Zhou Jie Zhou Haitao Zhou Danning Zhou Haiyan Xuan Guangzhou Zhou Haiqin Xuan Guangxi Zhou Haijian Zhou He Zhou Zhiguo Zhou Qing Zhou Su Mei Zhou Lei Zhou Xue Zhou Jiang Zhou Yu Zhou Proudly Zhou Xue Zhou Ice Yin Qiangwei