Historical Traceability and Melodic Characteristics of Xinyang Folk Songs

Folk songs are the crystallization of the wisdom and life of the working people. In many places there are folk songs with a long history. Xinyang is known as the hometown of song and dance in Henan Province, and Xinyang folk songs also have a long history. There are many kinds of Xinyang folk songs, and there are unique distinctions in its tunes.

The following Henan culture brings you the historical origin and melodic characteristics of Xinyang folk songs, and I'll take a look.

History

As a rare treasure in the culture of Henan, Xinyang folk song is a blend of "Yu rhyme and Chu wind", and it is impossible to prove when it originated. Just like the entire history of human singing, its origin has Darwin's libido requirements said, imitation said, labor rhythm said, feelings said, shouting said more than a dozen hypotheses. According to legend, in the ancient times, the Huaihe River valley was inhabited by the Dongyi group with Shao Hao as the leader, who took the bird as a totem and believed that the bird was the incarnation of God and the messenger of communication between man and God, and they paid attention to listen to the singing of the bird, which they believed to be the voice of God. They listened to the singing of the birds, which they believed to be the voice of God. Subsequently, the ancestors of Huai Di also developed the consciousness of "witch" (dance) in the flight of the birds.

Later, a man named Cheng Tang, who was born in the Eastern Barbarians group, established the Shang Dynasty, and his fun became a national cultural identity, and the merchants were "fond of songs and dances, and honored the ghosts and gods", and after the Shang Dynasty, from the Zhou Dynasty to the Chu Dynasty, the ancestors of the Huai Di Dynasty believed in the gods and ghosts, and the style of witchcraft was extremely prevalent, which objectively developed the primitive songs and dances. In the Warring States period of Xinyang area music has been used close to the twelve equal-tempered twelve-tone scale, for Xinyang folk songs laid the foundation. This is unearthed in 1953 in Xinyang Changtaiguan one of the Warring States Chu tomb in the Warring States chimes a glimpse of the body.

It can be envisioned that among the ancestors of the Huai Di, there was that one person who first imitated the singing of birds, and then occasionally sang a few notes by himself, and thought it was good, so he sang it again at the top of his voice, and the rock wall responded to his song, which made him very excited. So he sang the few lines he had just sung again in succession, and controlled his song according to his will, singing the tune he wanted to sing, which meant that he had been able to create melody, letting the tones combine with the purpose to take place, and the form became complex, completely beyond a bird's crowing at the same pitch or the same set of pitches, fully embodying the most basic and typical characteristic of human singing, i.e., the transformative nature of music. This man is the first singer of Xinyang, and his song echoing among the rock walls is the first folk song of Xinyang.

Artistic Characteristics

Xinyang folk songs can be roughly divided into revolutionary and historical love songs, folk songs, new folk songs, trumpets, mountain songs, field songs, water songs, lamp songs, hawking, ditties, children's songs, songs on current affairs, ceremonial songs, narrative songs, and so on more than ten kinds of songs. They profoundly and vividly expressed the life of the people of Xinyang, thoughts, feelings, will and aspirations, reflecting the social practice of different areas and different times in Xinyang, is the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the people of Xinyang, although after thousands of refinement is still in the process of innovation.

Xinyang folk dance in the eighties census, *** there are more than 80 types of dance, more than 120 forms of performance, more than 400 traditional programs, more than 3,350 performances of the class, accounting for more than 1/3 of the dance performances of the class in Henan Province. 1984, May, Henan Television to Xinyang folk songs as the main body of the music feature film "song country line" (on the next episode), the same year, November in the In November of the same year, it was broadcasted on CCTV and then again in the international syndicated program of the same station. The Chinese Folk Songs Collection - Henan Volume contains 224 folk songs of Xinyang. The famous Xinyang folk songs include "August Osmanthus flowers bloom all over the place", "Send a man to be the Red Army", "Sedan chair to the door", "car water song" and so on.

In 1989, Henan Television filmed a TV art movie "Full of Love in Dabie Mountain" with Xinyang folk songs and dances and broadcasted it on CCTV many times. The famous Xinyang folk dances include flower picking, flower fan, flower umbrella, fire damask, lion dance, spring bull dance, bamboo horse dance, dry boat, dragon lantern and so on.

Melodic characteristics

Xinyang City is located in the southern edge of Central China. It also borders with Hubei and Anhui. This has formed the Xinyang area language both Hubei flavor, but also in the Central State language component of this unique language characteristics. Thus, the music of Xinyang area folk songs has the style of both rigid and soft. From the melodic line, popular in the southern mountainous area of the folk songs, with homophonic repetition and four, five, seven, eight or even ten degrees of the big jump more, wider range, the mood of unrestrained impassioned, fresh and bright, you can feel that kind of rugged, robust characteristics. At the same time, it shapes the heroic image of the mountain people who are hard-working and brave, who are not afraid of difficulties and dangers, and who dare to struggle. For example, "December Dot Dot Dot", "Stone Raccoon Horn", "Playing Chess Tune" and so on. The melody of the folk songs in the Huaihe River valley and the central hilly area is characterized by a smooth rhythm and a smooth tone. It is characterized by smooth rhythm, smooth tone, slow speed, beautiful and touching, and exudes a strong local flavor. Sometimes with interesting liner notes, exaggerated rendering. Make these life ditties seem more simple, witty and interesting. For example, "Song of the Six Immortals", "The Sedan Chair Comes to the Door", and "The Embroidered Mountains and Rivers are as Beautiful as a Painting". There are also some folk songs that are performed in broken chords, showing joyful emotions. For example, "Grab the eight sentences", "Slowly drive the ox", "Mr. Zhang to ask for money for school", etc.

The tone of the song is the same as the tone of the song.

Scale Characteristics

The pentatonic scale dominates the folk songs of Xinyang. The complete seven-tone scale has not yet been found. In a few folk songs, such as "through the heart", "sell firewood", etc., although there is a clear corner of the palace tone, these pentatonic external tone duration is short, most of them appear in the weak beat, or for the use of the sound, to a large extent, just pray for decorative and accompanying role, the basic melodic The basic skeleton of the melody does not lose the essence and characteristics of the pentatonic scale.

The significance of heritage

It is understood that many valuable traditional songs have gradually disappeared because they have not been sung for a long time or there is no one to sing them. Even a quite folk song origin of the township, the town about half of the villagers have gone out to work, to stay at home in the county most of the buy a house to do a small business, their children in the county school, the children do not even know what folk songs, not to mention singing folk songs. This is the traditional culture encountered modern civilization of embarrassment, but also social progress and uphold the tradition of the new subject.

It is undeniable that some traditional songs need to be sung on certain occasions and activities. For example, in the case of love songs, young people nowadays no longer have the mood and environment to express their love with songs as their predecessors did, and it is better to make phone calls, surf the Internet, or simply go on a date to get to the subject of love, so love songs have gradually disappeared. Another example is the car water song, the development of the times to today, not to mention singing the car water song, even once for the car water song attached to the waterwheel for thousands of years, probably only in the museum to be able to find. At the same time, due to the growing richness of cultural and recreational activities, singing folk songs is no longer the main way of leisure, folk songs by the cold is inevitable.