Seeking details on Taiwanese musician Wei Chen!

From the folk singer Chen Da, on rap in Taiwan

Preface

In my folk music field diary, there is an entry (note 1) on July 28, 2007, in the Republic of China (R.O.C.), which reads as follows:

"In the other corner of the Daguangli there is another old man, called 'Red-eyed Dazai', who is sixty-two years old, Chen Da. He has no family or relatives. He lives alone in a block house that does not look like a human house. His house was made of earth blocks stacked up on all sides, with no windows, only one entrance and exit, and he could barely get in by stooping down, and the roof was made of thatched roofing with several large bamboo tubes as beams. At four o'clock in the afternoon in the summer, as soon as we bound the door, we felt dark and stifling on all sides, like being in a hot pot. Inside the house, I slowly saw that there was a bed on the floor, and some old cooking utensils, and finally I recognized a moon lute hanging on the wall, which was all the possessions of the "Red Eye Tat Tsai". In this darkness, poverty and loneliness accompanied him, and he lived with a moon lute. This environment is already y saddening! However, when he picked up the moon lute and sang along with its mournful cries, he could see from the songs he sang, such as "Thoughts Rise", "Cow's Tail Swings", "Four Seasons Spring", and "Taitung Tune", that the moon lute was the most popular song in the world. From the tunes he sang, such as "Thinking", "Cow's Tail Swing", "Four Seasons Spring", and "Taitung Tune", I felt that this world, which has been forgotten by people in modern cities, is so real, pure, and sentimental. It made me realize that I have finally found the roots of folk music!

Chapter One: Chen Da's Singing Career

Section One: Growth to Maturity (1905~1945)

According to the record of the Civil Affairs Division of the Hengchun Township Office, Pingtung County, in the year of the Republic of China (R.O.C.) 1956: "Chen Da, a native of Hengchun, 62 years old, no wife and no children, a first-class pauper."

Chen Da had no fixed occupation and was a first-class pauper. A first-class pauper is the object of our local government's relief, and if we call him by the words of the past, he is a beggar.

Chen Da has never been to school and is illiterate. His experiences were working, farming, herding ...... cattle and semi-professional singing. Chenda is of Fulao descent, but has one-quarter hillbilly blood. He says, "When I was a young boy, the hillbillies sometimes came down to kill people. I was able to live in peace with them because my grandfather married their daughter," he said. He also sings two mountain songs, which he says "were taught to me by my grandmother and then by my mother". But he sings them in a completely Sinicized, or "Chendaized," style.

Chen Da had been to Taitung several times since he was 14 years old. In those days, Taitung was developed by the Hengchun people. He said, "The ship he took was called the Fushun Maru, and every time it sailed, it sailed at night, starting from Nanwan (near what is now Pleading Park) and sailing along the coast, reaching Taitung in one night." Remembering the torment of those shocking waves, Chen Da said, "There were high winds and waves, seasickness, and no guarantee of life-saving." Therefore, it was natural for him to compose songs about the risks of traveling by boat. Chen's purpose in reaching Taitung was to work as a temporary laborer, and the "tragic story of Ah-Yuan and Ah-Fa," which he later made up, took place between Hengchun and Eastern Taiwan, and seems to be discreetly related to his own life.

Chen Da formally sang in front of people at the age of twenty, and his singing life began from then on, but Chen Da's music, there is no "teacher". He could not read or write, could not read music, all by word of mouth, all by ear, what he heard and memorized, and then expressed himself in the way he thought was most agreeable. The process that Chen Da learned and sang is the natural and necessary path for the transmission of folk music.

Seventy years ago, in southern Taiwan, there were few people and a lot of land, and the life of a farming family, though hard, was not intruded by urban civilization as it is today. At that time, the only folk music activity in the countryside around Hengchun was the singing of folk songs, except for the wild Taiwanese invited from Pingtung or Chaozhou on New Year's festivals. In the evening, those who could sing became the center of the village for men, women and children. Everyone sang around them, played the moon zither, the huqin, and the flute. It was in this environment that Chen Da received his first lessons in music.

Chen Da has four brothers and three sisters, of whom he is the oldest. Among them, according to Chenda, the eldest brother and the fourth brother were both good singers in the village. The best song of the elder brother is "Cow Tail Swing", Chen Da's "Cow Tail Swing" is learned from his elder brother's singing. As for the moon lute, which he played to mesmerize people, he learned it before he sang. Chen Da said, "When my brother took a nap, I secretly took down my brother's yueqin from the wall and found a deserted place to practice.

Before the restoration of Taiwan, Chen Da's singing voice gradually came to prominence around Hengchun, and the women of the village were his most loyal listeners. According to the elders of Hengchun, "With Chen Da around, no other singers dared to perform, and as a result, they were often left to compete with the three Chen brothers.

Section 2: Maturity and Aging (1945-1967)

After the restoration of Taiwan, although Chen Da suffered from an eye disease in one eye, which led Hengchun people to call him "Red-eyed Da Zai", and his teeth had begun to fall out, so he could no longer sing as well as he did in those days, he was still often asked to sing. However, he was still often invited to sing. And every time he sang in a different place, he received money from the audience. The late Shi Weiliang once told a story about Chen Da:

"Once, the Japanese police arrested him and locked him up in the police station, saying that he was engaged in unauthorized professional singing, but the result of the investigation was that the people in the village appreciated his singing and raised money as a token of their appreciation for him, not as a ticket seller. Although the Japanese did not like the Chinese to keep the "national music" activity, they had no choice but to let him go". I think it's only natural that after the restoration of the People's Republic of China, listeners liked his singing and continued to give him gifts.

But Chenda never dreamed of becoming a professional artist, preferring instead to work as a cement worker, a stone-pounder, a charcoal maker, a cowherd, or to do odd jobs harvesting ganja and rice husks.

Chen Da sang Taiwanese rap-type folk songs for forty years, from the age of twenty to sixty, in other words, from the Japanese colonial era to after Taiwan's restoration. He traveled all over the countryside around Gao and Ping. He has endured a life of hunger and begging, but he has not never had a good time. Chen Da said, "Sometimes he earned a few hundred dollars from a party, while the price of rice at that time was only three yuan and fifty cents per bucket. Unfortunately, Chen Da was not a good money manager, and he lived a lonely but free life as a bachelor, living from day to day, without understanding or valuing the value of money.

However, a happier memory for Chen Da was the breathless appreciation and enthusiastic applause of the village people for his singing. Even though he sang without prior planning or publicity, he was never bothered by the small audience.

The third section of the disease and poverty to death (1967-1981)

Republic of China fifty-six years, I and Shi Weiliang *** with the initiation of the "folk song collection movement". On July 21st, we set out from Taipei with a team of folk song collectors and did fieldwork for a month. I led the western team, which consisted of Lu Jinming, Tsai Wenyu, Xu Songrong, and Chiu Yanliang. Seven days later, on July 28, we met Chen Da at Daguangli in Hengchun Township. Chen Da was already sixty-two years old at the time, and the years had not spared him. He seemed to be blind in one eye, and his teeth had already fallen out, making him look like a decrepit old man.

However, when he realized that we had come, he picked up the moon zither and sang the Hengchun tune to the accompaniment of the zither, and at this time his voice was still moving. Although his words were a bit unclear due to the lack of incisors, and a bit heavy and hoarse due to old age, his pure tone and distant pitch immediately made me feel the real ancient traditional music. Chen Da's singing voice, which sounded like it had gone through the vicissitudes of life, was so sad that the five of us could not help but shed tears.

From the late 1950s to the early 1960s in Taiwan, modern civilization not only changed urban life, but also invaded the most remote countryside of Hengchun in Southern Taiwan. In terms of music, the proliferation of pop songs made the new generation of young people detached from traditional folk songs, and young people were not only uninterested in, but also unable to understand the rapping and singing of Chen Da. The radical social and economic changes have altered people's lifestyles and the way they enjoy entertainment and music. Radio and television, records and cassette tapes, concert halls, nightclubs and concerts have rapidly replaced the folk songs, raps and theatrical performances of the pampered countryside.

By this time, Chanda was indeed pardoned. It was impossible for him to get younger and change the way he sang. He was forgotten by the world in a corner of Hengchun, unable to understand and certainly unable to adapt to all this change. He is in his sixties, and his aging body makes it impossible for him to go back to his laboring job.

Chen Da's later years, if he had been able to properly maintain his music and take care of his health, at least he could have become a subject of study for local minority music scholars and systematically preserved his valuable folklore music. Unfortunately, he was poor and sick, and could not be properly taken care of, and was finally blinded, deafened, and schizophrenic. On April 11, 1981, he was run over by a public ****car on Maple Harbor Street during the day, ending his 76-year life.

The most important events in Chen Da's later years were as follows:

1. In the 1960s, Shih Wei-liang invited Chen Da to come to Taipei to record his music, and published a record entitled "Chen Da and His Songs" with a booklet of instructions.

In 2007, I invited Chen Da to come to Taipei to sing in the First Folk Musicians' Concert. In 1968, I invited him again to come to Taipei to record his voice, and published a record called "Chen Da and the Hengchun Rap". (Note 3)

Besides the intention of preserving Chen Da's music, the above two items were mainly to give Chen Da money to relieve his hardship.

Three, from the year 66 to 70, Chen Da was invited by businessmen to appear on TV or in coffee houses on several occasions. Those invitations were made by people who felt sorry for Chen Da, or who were curious about Chen Da, but who did not really know him, appreciate his music, or want to solve his problems. Those few encounters with the outside world, on the contrary, caused his psychological burden.

Four years later, Chen Da was finally unable to adapt to reality and suffered from delusions of grandeur and schizophrenia, and was twice admitted to a mental hospital. During this period, I visited him several times to comfort him. In fact, what he needed most was: (1) A place for him to sing. (2) Someone to take care of his life. But I had more than enough.

Excerpt ~~ Folk Music Exposition Draft (I) by Xu Changhui Leyun Publishing House

Chen Da

Hengchun Peninsula's Greatest Hits - Chen Da's Songs

Instead of discovering Chen Da, we discover ourselves, we discover the roots of our own culture.

(Council for Cultural Affairs, Executive Yuan, Chairman Qiu Kun-liang)

The songs sung by Chen Da are precisely the ballads with the most local characteristics of Taiwan, as well as the songs and legendary stories that have been passed down from generation to generation by our ancestors.

(Director of the National Center for Traditional Arts Lin Defu)

An old man with a moon zither shouts along the street, walking in a manner that I'm told is from another planet.

(Professor Chang Chiu-tang, Institute of Audiovisual Research, National Tainan National University of the Arts)

For more than 20 years after Chen Da's passing, there has been a great regret in my heart, that is, it seems that no experts or scholars have yet to properly organize his relics, materials, and music after he passed away.

(Hengchun Township, the seventh and eighth mayor Gong Xintong)

In 1973, Mr. Shi Weiliang became the director of the provincial symphony orchestra, and I followed him to the provincial symphony orchestra as the director of the research department. At the same time, Mr. Shi introduced me to the Tunghai University Ethnic Music Research Center part-time difference, the main work is the folk song collection recorded nearly two thousand mountain, Hakka and Fukao folk songs, transcription copy, fill in the card file. How fortunate that I spent two years listening carefully to this precious countryside sound, which feels the most profound is Chen Da's thoughts.

(National Taipei University of the Arts, Department of Music, Professor/Composer Lai Teh-Ho)

Chen Da's way of performing and the content of his lyrics belonged to the land of Taiwan, exuding the fragrance of the land. At a time when foreigners were revered, Chen Da's moon music and songs let us know and understand that Taiwan has its own songs, and that these local songs are our own music, our own culture!

(National Hsinchu University of Education President Tseng Hsien-cheng)

Engaged in the process of traditional music research and study, on whether Chen Da belongs to the outstanding folk singer, in addition to hearing some of the sayings, I have also been from various aspects to test, and contact with the folk song singers, did not see the voice, the performance of the person who is better than Chen Da.

(Professor and Director of the Institute of Ethnomusicology, National Taiwan Normal University, Lu Hammon-Kuan)

Chen Da's vitality of voice, combined with the Yunmen Dance Theatre's "Salary Transmission," moved many people to come to Taiwan to care for the country at that time. Chen Da's contribution to the continuation of Taiwan's local music scene has been invaluable.

(Folk music scholar/Chen Da's longtime friend Jane Shangren)

When he picked up the moon lute and sang his mournful cries, from the tunes he sang, such as "Thoughts Rise," "Cow's Tail Pendulum," "Four Seasons Spring," and "Taitung Tune," I felt how real, simple, and sentimental the world was, a world that has been forgotten by the people of the modern city. I realized that I had finally found the roots of folk music.

(Wu Rongshun, Professor, Graduate Institute of Musicology, National Taipei University of the Arts, and Head of the Department of Traditional Music)

There are a lot of Taiwanese ballads that I like, but the one that I like the most, and which impresses me the most, is the one by the old man, Chen Da, who is thinking of starting up in Hengchun.

(Cloud Gate Dance Theatre founder Lin Hwai-min)

Chen Da's related website introduction

Another Day for Teacher Dora

Under a Banyan Tree by the Roadside

Folk Song Station

Fengchao Records

Wikipedia

Online listening

Recorded by Hsu Chang-huei, July 28th, 1967 Chen Da sings and plays: Five-hole Minor to Thought (7.5 minutes long, link to Tainan Hsu Sang's Wistful Yin Yin)

July 28, 1967 Hsu Chang-Huei recording, Chen Da plays and sings: Thought (4.5 minutes long, link to Tainan Hsu Sang's Wistful Yin Yin)

In 1977, Chen Da was invited to sing at the Scarecrow Coffee House in Taipei for a second residency (29 minutes long, link to Underground Nostalgia Blues)

Chen Da's second residency was at the Straw Man Cafe in Taipei (29 minutes long, link to Underground Nostalgia Blues).

Folk Musician: Chen Da and His Songs

In May of 1966 (Chen Da passed away in 1970), the book "Folk Musician: Chen Da and His Songs" (cover design: Liu Zongming) was published by the Hung Chien Chuan Foundation, edited by Prof. Shih Wei-liang, with a booklet of lyrics and a description, and was priced at NT$80 at the time.

The description of the booklet is reproduced below to share with musicians.

The Preface

Chen Da is an old man who loves to sing, and his songs contain the pure and simple beauty and essence of our ancient culture.

Chen Da is old, his voice has gradually mute, no longer the old deep, and more sad is that he is down and out, the spirit of trance life, we have a responsibility to let his singing art long stay, but also to make him can calmly through his old age.

The Ethnic Musician: Chen Da and His Songs is an album and a booklet of Chen Da's songs in the vernacular tradition, as well as his writings on vernacular folk songs. The Foundation was entrusted by Prof. Shi Weiliang to reprint this album, not only to continue the roots of our folk music, but also to make a modest contribution to the stabilization of the life of such a lifelong singer of the countryside, and to set up an account with all the proceeds from the reprint of the album in Chen Da's honor, so that he can have a carefree old age.

We share the same concern and love for Chinese music, and we hope that this dual significance can be made known to more people through your power, and we call on the community to support this cause, so that Chinese music can continue to be nourished and enriched.

Jane Jing-Huei, June, '66

Self-Preface

The study of folk music has just begun, and it has already tested many truthful and false human qualities, and has weathered the storms of heartlessness, indifference, ridicule, and slander. Yet folk music simply says: 'I am a jewel', 'I will always be a jewel'.

The fact that folk music is a jewel does not depend on who owns it. It can shine brightly in the world, or it can be buried forever in the mountains, and in both cases, it is not itself that gains or loses.

'Folk Musician: Chen Da and His Songs' may not be enough to turn back the short-sighted and join in the work of honing a jewel, but at least it's comforting to say, 'We've scraped away some of the dirt of folk music and shown the Chinese people its true colors'.

Shi Wei-liang September, 1960

The Musical Life of Chen Da

Daguangli is a small village outside Hengchun Township, where dozens of farms and three or two small stores make up this quiet countryside. In May, the sun of southern Taiwan is so hot that the earth smells like fertile soil. It is only a five-minute taxi ride from Hengchun Township to Daguangli. Modern civilization has shortened the distance between human beings in time and space, but it also destroys the order of the old agrarian society like a typhoon, and Daguangli maintains the tranquility of the countryside today, not because civilization is incapable of destroying it, but only because the "center of civilization" has not yet made landfall here!

In a number of similar areas, we "civilized people" from Taipei, on the one hand, could not adapt to its backward living conditions, but fortunately could find the roots of the Chinese musical tradition here, facing the country's backward civilization, and at the same time, facing the nation's lost musical culture, we are a group of Chinese people who are thirsty for the truth, but wearing a false mask to be helpless and uncertain. Chen Da, the first-class poor man in Daguangli, is a mirror to test our musical truthfulness.

Chen Da, who is 72 years old, has never been to school, is illiterate, and has spent his life as a laborer, farmer, cattle rancher and semi-professional singer. When he was young, the "fannies" from the mountains came down to kill people, and he says he was able to live in peace with them because his grandfather married a "fannie" and he is a quarter mountain man. He still sings two mountain songs that his grandmother taught his mother and she taught him, but when he sings them to us, they are completely Chinese.

The countryside, the New Year's Eve opera, always with a makeshift stage, attracted a crowd, if the opera in Hengchun, the village men, women and children, walk to listen to, and each village paid a share of the money, **** enjoy a night of pleasing to the eye. Chen Da insisted that the two songs, "Grass Borer Getting Chicken Gong" and "Hengchun Folk Song", were both sinicized mountain songs, which he said he learned when he was a child herding cows with the mountain children in Taitung. His words may not be 100% proof, but he put a question mark on the "traditions" that we are already so sure of.

Fifty years ago, in southern Taiwan, there were few people and a lot of land, and the life of a farming family, though hard, was not as partly infested by urban civilization as it is today. In the evening, those who could sing became the center of attention for all the men, women and children in the village, and everyone surrounded them to listen to them sing, play the moon zither, flute, and erhu, and it was in such an environment that Chen Da took his first lesson in music.

He has four brothers and three sisters, and he is the oldest. His eldest brother is 28 years older than him, and his fourth brother is a good singer in the village. The eldest brother's best song is the "Ox Tail Companion", a song without musical accompaniment, which is an opportunity to sing for a girl's marriage, a full-moon feast, and a celebration of career development. Chen Da learned to sing "Ox Tail Companion" from his brother's singing.

As for the moon lute, the often mesmerizing instrument he played, he learned it before he ever sang. Chen Da recalls a fun time when his brother was taking a nap and he secretly took down his brother's yueqin from the wall and found a deserted place to practice.

He began to play the yueqin at the age of 17, and formally sang in front of people at the age of 20, and Chen Da's musical life began; he did not have a teacher, nor did he know any music scores, but everything was passed down by word of mouth, and everything was memorized by ear, and the process of Chen Da's learning and singing was exactly the natural way that folk music must go through in order to be passed down, and if we don't tend to favor one's own way, Chen Da can be added to the name of a national musician, and the songs he sings are "national music". The songs he sings are "national music", a thousand percent "national music", and "national music" that is still alive today and has not been disguised by civilized people.

Fifty years ago in Taiwan, men and women did not socialize as openly as they do today, and when two people were in love but could not marry, they often had to elope. Chen Da has sung many lyrical songs in three different tunes (Five Empties, Four Seasons Spring, and Thoughts Rising), depicting the conflicting loves of young men and women, with his own lyrics, colloquial and rhythmic, and full of the characteristics of a folk artist. He was a composer (he was free to modify an existing tune to suit the lyrics), a poet (he was able to create living lyrics to describe emotions, tell stories or reason) and a singer (he played and sang himself).

"Civilized people" admire today's Beatles because they can write lyrics, compose music and play and sing, and they call the Beatles a modern-day 'troubadours', a miracle, but they don't notice that in our countryside there are still pure, unadulterated 'troubadours' left. The songs of these people may not satisfy the modern senses, but they are the basis for the creation of the spirit of modern music. Chen Da is a typical example of the troubadours of the last period of Chinese music, and who will have the good fortune to honor this legacy? Let's see who is lucky enough to honor this legacy, and who will pass on the spiritual mantle of the Chinese troubadours and 'modernize' it!

Chen Da has been to Taitung several times since he was fourteen years old. The boat he took was called the Fushun Maru, and every time it sailed, it departed in the evening from Nanwan (near Kenting Park) and traveled along the coast, reaching there overnight. The sea is very windy, seasick, and life is not guaranteed, Chanda remembered the torture of the waves, and naturally created the song of the boat ride.

Japanese colonial era, the village are sent inside the Japanese police stationed, beating, fierce, the people of course, dare not say anything, only behind the back of the quiet mockery, this kind of mood, also reflected in the Chen Da's singing, although he did not dare to sing in public.

Before the restoration of Taiwan, Chen Da's songs, in the Hengchun area gradually emerged, the village women are Chen Da's most loyal audience, Chen Da in, other singers will be afraid to retreat from the show, the result is often left to the Chen family of three brothers competing with each other. Every time he sang in a different place, he received money from the audience, but he never dreamed of being a professional entertainer, preferring to work as a cement worker, a stone breaker, a charcoal worker, a cow watcher, or a sugar cane harvester. Once, the Japanese police arrested him and locked him up in the police station, saying that he was engaged in professional singing without permission, but the result of the investigation was that the people in the village appreciated his singing and collected money as a token of their appreciation, instead of charging admission fees to sell their songs. The Japanese did not like the idea of the Chinese keeping 'folk music' alive, but there was nothing they could do about it.

Chen Da has long suffered from eye problems, and it seems that one eye has gone blind. He likes to chew betel nut and enjoys it even though he has lost all his teeth. Because of the missing teeth, the effect of his singing is no longer as sensational as it was back then, but from time to time he is still asked to sing for a day, sing the whole set of persuasive songs, or listen to his vast improvisation. Starting from the days before Taiwan's restoration, when he did not have enough to eat, Chen Da traveled all over the countryside around Gao and Ping, and it was not that he never had days of complacency, sometimes earning several hundred dollars a night, while the price of rice at that time was only three and a half dollars for a bucket of rice. Happier memories are of the breathless appreciation and enthusiastic applause of the people in the villages, even though he sang without prior planned publicity, and he was never bothered by the small audience.

Chen Da seems to have been born to preserve the lifeblood of folk music. Though he never married, never had a good career; though his life was nothing but poverty and toil, he never left his yueqin, never stopped singing, and it is only for this reason that we can say today that he is the only remaining national musician, a rare and inspiring radiance in the transitional period of our national music, and that he has made us see our true selves. Listening to him sing, we seem to have discovered the preciousness we have been searching for years. Listening to him sing, modern people with "musical blood" will be touched like electricity, and will be moved, causing a burst of ecstasy like the Beatles' music brought to the lovers. Although today not many people want to go deeper to discover the share of wealth that Chen Da possesses, no one values him, and he does not value this share of musical wealth that he possesses, however, the phenomenon that is beyond doubt is: when we want to explore our own traditions, when young people and even middle-aged people in their fifties today are unable to sing a full-length old song, and when opera halls, nightclubs, and television stations, in the beautiful name of 'folk song style' When opera halls, nightclubs and TV stations insult our musical traditions under the name of 'folk song style', and when we Chinese deceive ourselves and others by letting tourists enjoy our man-made 'folk music', the few songs preserved by Chen Da are like Zhang Cui-feng's big drums, which have the essence of shining forever, and that's the inexhaustible energy source of China's new music.

Chen Da's place is "modern"; his thatched roof has been destroyed many times by typhoons, but when we visited him again this year, he had a new brick home built with donations from his neighbors. Behind the house is a vegetable garden that earns Chenda about 1,000 Taiwan dollars a year, which, along with relief from the township office and the people's service station, continues to support Chenda in the later years of his life.

There is nothing new to tell about Chen Da's story, and he never had a climactic golden age in his personal life, nor will he ever have one. But his importance lies in the preservation of the real part of Chinese music in Taiwan, what we call 'tradition'. Anyone who has respect for tradition and listens to Chen Da's songs will feel the mixed emotions of a traveler returning home, and any degree of true "modern man" will be inspired by Chen Da's songs.

The Tunes Chen Da Sings

Chen Da doesn't know music theory; he sings as he pleases, alone. Because he was so free and uninhibited, and because he played and sang alone, his tunes are very complex and very difficult to capture their authenticity. To notate such a score, our principles are:

I. The phrasing is based on the structure of the lyrics.

Two, the tempo is based on the rhythm of the lyrics.

Three, preserve its authenticity as much as possible, without making a fool of ourselves.

Fourth, seek the key (e.g. fixed glissandi, long duration or special intervals) and make it 脗脗聶for the characteristics of Chinese folk music.

5. Instead of using bar lines, each phrase is a unit.

Fifth, the notation of the accompanying instruments is omitted, and only the introductory, interludes or endings are indicated.

Chen Da uses five tunes in this collection***:

I. Thought Rising.

II. Five-hollow minor.

Three, Four Seasons of Spring.

Four, Cow-Mother Companion.

Fifth, the Hengchun tune (commonly known as the 'Hengchun ballad', which should still have an original name) and a mixture of the grass borer and the cockerel.

Thinking about it, the Cow Mother's Companion, the Hengchun Ballad, and the Grass Borer's Chicken Gong, all of which took place in the southern part of Taiwan, and the other two tunes, the Wukong Minor Ditty and the Four Seasons Spring, which are closer to the fun of the opera Gezaiju (Song Zai Opera), make it clear that the southern part of Taiwan is not exactly a blessing for the folk music of the Fukao family!

Thinking has long been known to women and children as a folk song, and has long been memorized, but Chen Da's singing of Thinking has a charm that others cannot match. First of all, he breaks the rhythmic form of the song, and even the fixed sequence of the song (i.e., the first line of each stanza) becomes a variable introductory line. What we have heard in Thought Beginnings is that each stanza has its own distinctive character, and if there are five stanzas, then there are five variations, and the stanzas maintain their ****similarity only in their backbones. This phenomenon exists in all of Chanda's songs, and is not unique to Thought Beginnings.

Secondly, Chen Da's 'Thoughts on the Rise' is rich in colorful and decorative sounds, and we have done our best to preserve this part of the song in our notation, but if we sing it without listening to Chen Da's songs, I am afraid that it will be difficult to grasp the original charm of the song. From this point of view, the result of a folk song being notated by a musician and then sung by a musician according to the score will be very far from the 'original', and both the vocalist singing a folk song and the composer writing a folk song will be faced with another new question: how much of the truth have you preserved? Or how much of its core essence have you carried forward? Otherwise, singing from a score, or arranging a 'pure music' accompaniment or the like, will have nothing to do with folk songs.

The five-verse minor is a four-sentence structure, which, in form, shows that the third and fourth lines are variations and reproductions of the first and second lines. (Note their ****similarity in tune pattern and in the ending of each phrase!) And lines one and two, in turn, show a 'five degree answer' feature, in the same sense as the theme and answer of the Bach fugue.

But the value of the Five Hollow Minor lies not in its stylistic accomplishments, but in the part of its divinity that cannot be replaced or tampered with; its tunes collapse if they are divorced from those semi-improvised lyrics, and if they are attached to the lyrics, they instantly make a resounding, consummate, and seamless effect 。。。。