What is Dongcang Drumming?

A representative band of Xi'an Drum Music

Go to understand Xi'an Drum Music, you will have an understanding of the Dongcang Drum Music, which is the difference between the root and the branch

Xi'an Drum Music inherited from the long river of history is the large-scale folk instrumental music found and preserved the most complete in our country, a few days ago, Xi'an Drum Music declared the world's intangible cultural heritage, but Xi'an Drum Music's current status can be described as down and out: Folk art masters with great skills are old, there is no successor, to protect this Shaanxi local folk culture, has come to the point of no delay.

The status quo is difficult to find young people to learn

Xi'an drum music has three schools: monks, Taoist, secular. At present, these three schools in Xi'an, the main representative of the band for the East Cang, Dajichang, City God Temple, South Jixian East Village, South Jixian West Village and Hejiaying six drumming society. Since Xi'an drum music declared the world's intangible cultural heritage, more people are concerned about drumming, however, the problem can not be solved overnight.

Sinisters' School: No One, No Place

Representative: Dongcang Drumming Society

Advantage: Xi'an's drumming is special mainly because it is passed on by word of mouth. At present, this school has the oldest 88-year-old performer in the Xi'an drum music circle, Zhao Gengchen, who is also the only old performer who has mastered the complete set of Xi'an drum music. In the words of his peers, his stomach is full of treasures.

Crisis: The Dongcang Drum Music Society has no fixed place to perform and no income from performances. Currently rely on Zhao Gengchen's great disciple Fan Bingnan (living in the United States of America painter and calligrapher) to provide financial support. Fan Bingnan rented a small two-story building in Chang'an District, from all over the world to recruit more than 20 teenage children, and the master's direct disciples together to teach drumming, has been a year. In addition to being responsible for the disciples' food, clothing, housing and transportation, he also has to take charge of the children's education. "Children in the city do not want to learn this skill, and children in the countryside are not highly educated, plus the temptations of the outside world are also big, many children change." Fan Bingnan said several children have now left.

Daoist: landed and unmanned

Representative: Du Chenghuang Temple Drumming Society

Advantage: Although the Chenghuang Temple shopping mall has been demolished, the drumming of the temple is still a major feature, and the temple's fixed stage also provides a performance venue for the drumming society.

Crisis: Although there are venues to perform, there are two problems as well. One is that there are no old artists like Zhao Gengchen, and the other is that there are no young disciples. Nowadays, some of the old people in the society are mostly the heirs of the great disciples of An Laixu, a representative figure of the school, who, in addition to possessing the essence of the skills passed on by the older artists, have preserved the tapes and scores left behind by the old artists. However, since the sheet music (Gongshi sheet music) of drum music is very special, the general public not only can't sing it, but also can't read it, and it is difficult to ensure the original flavor of playing without the teaching of the old artists.

Cao Fuyuan, vice president of the society, said: "Most of our generation are retirees, and we don't care about pay, as long as we can perform. But it's hard to recruit disciples. It's hard to find students who are supposed to learn drumming, and it's even harder to find students with a higher level of education."

Mundane faction: there are people

Representative: Hejiaying Drumming Society

Advantage: Changan District, Hejiaying to the village as a unit of this school of prosperity, the drumming society are all the village's "family members," the community currently has more than 40 members in Hejiaying elementary school there are still one to two hundred students learning drumming. At present, there are more than 40 members in the club, and one or two hundred students in Hejiaying Primary School are learning drum music. In addition, the village has its own recital club.

Crisis: Just because the people in the society are all from the village, in the words of President He Zhongxin, "They are all farmers, and they have to work, so there is no one to specialize in this stuff. The old artists have all passed away." On top of that, the drumming society has no financial resources.

Future competition to help each other

Once upon a time, the competition between Xi'an Drumming Society's genres was so fierce that, in the words of the old masters, "When the masters were teaching, they had to worry about ears on the walls!" But now, for the sake of the inheritance and development of Xi'an drum music, all schools are open doors, but still struggling.

Dongcang Drum Society, although there is overseas financial support, but to have been afforded a dozen children's learning and education and unrealistic, there is no entry into the status quo is difficult to sustain; for the City God Temple Drum Society, it is understood that they now intend to recruit a number of members from the community with a high school level of education and above, to learn the way at the same time you can learn to learn drums; and Hejiaying Drum Society is still no source of funding.

It is reported that the relevant departments are actively preparing for the Xi'an schools of drumming society to merge, the establishment of the "Xi'an Drumming Association". In this regard, Cao Fuyuan, vice president of the City God Temple Drum Society, said: "This is a major event in the Xi'an drumming community, in the future, we will be able to learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses, each other, *** with the progress of the merger of the biggest advantage is to ensure that Xi'an drums in their original flavor and inheritance."

It is reported that in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list has been announced in the list of recommended projects, Xi'an drum music and other 24 intangible cultural heritage projects have been on the list, but how to establish a scientific protection system of Xi'an drum music, so that it is well inherited and developed, and eventually become able to declare to UNESCO the world's intangible cultural heritage, behind the road is still long. Chinese Business News reporter Liu Hui

Related information

Xi'an drum music

This is one of the most well-preserved large-scale folk instrumental music found in China so far. It was born in the Tang Dynasty as Yan music, then integrated into the court music, and then flowed into the folk music with the exile of the court musicians during the Anshi Rebellion, and reached its peak in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It still circulates in Xi'an and Chang'an District, Zhouzhi County, Lantian County and other counties at the northern foot of Zhongnan Mountain, preserving the style of Tang and Song dynasty court music in its entirety, and the sheet music is still in the Song dynasty's common character score (Gongshi Sheet Music). It is known as "the living fossil of ancient Chinese music" and "the ancient symphony of Xi'an".

Intangible Cultural Heritage

The intangible cultural heritage refers to all kinds of traditional cultural expressions and cultural spaces that have been inherited by the people of various ethnic groups from generation to generation and are closely related to the lives of the masses. The scope of intangible cultural heritage includes: oral traditions, as well as language as a carrier of culture; traditional performing arts (including opera, music, dance, song and acrobatics, etc.); folklore activities, rites and festivals; traditional folk knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; traditional handicraft skills; and cultural spaces related to the above manifestations.

Strong rivals of Xi'an drum music

It is reported that the strong rivals that Xi'an drum music has encountered in its bid for inscription are mainly three projects --- Naxi ancient music in Yunnan, Liangzhu culture in Ningbo, and Yunjin brocade in Nanjing.

Naxi ancient music: widely circulated in the Naxi folk classical music, known as "the living fossil of Chinese music". The famous Dayan Naxi ancient music will be the representative of the preservation and promotion of Dongjing music. In the Naxi ancient music performance, the Central Plains has long been lost plectrum instrument "Sugudu", big pipa and bamboo wind instrument "Bo Bo", etc., by the Naxi intellectuals from generation to generation, preserved to this day, can not be said to be a miracle.

Liang Zhu culture: Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai is the most familiar love story in China, which has a history of more than a thousand years, and is called "the oriental version of Romeo and Juliet". Liang Zhu culture with literature, stories, music, movies, television, opera, music and art, paper-cutting, folklore and other rich forms of expression, in the folk widely spread, and has a wide range of mass participation, has a huge folk influence.

Nanjing brocade: is the first of the three treasures of Nanjing crafts, "brocade, paper-cutting, antique carving". As the traditional jacquard silk crafts in Nanjing, with the Song brocade in Suzhou, Sichuan Shu brocade, known as the "three brocades". Nanjing brocade, especially its gold and makeup two of the highest achievements, the extremely complex process can not be operated by electric looms. Because of its rich cultural and technological connotations, it is also a milestone in the history of ancient Chinese brocade craft.