Folk songs in ancient China literature

China's folk songs have a long tradition. In primitive society, our ancestors began to sing in hunting, carrying, offering sacrifices, entertaining gods, offering sacrifices, courtship and other activities. Because folk songs are the songs of working people, working people were looked down upon in feudal society and semi-feudal and semi-colonial old China, and their songs suffered the same fate. Even in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was repeatedly forbidden by the emperor. There are few written records about its history. From the unearthed cultural relics, there are many ancient musical instruments, but there are few singing activities. The singing and dancing pottery pots unearthed in Datong County, Qinghai Province are really precious. It shows the totem worship song and dance activities in matriarchal society 6000 years ago. In primitive times, song and dance were combined. To this day, many ethnic minority areas still maintain the ancient tradition of singing and dancing. In the book Huainanzi recorded in ancient times, it is mentioned that the ancients sang labor trumpets when lifting wood, which shows that early folk songs are closely related to labor. From the perspective of the two brothers, such as the song and dance images in Yinshan rock paintings, Yao's songs, Miao's ancient songs and Manchu's shaman tune, we can see that primitive folk songs are related to primitive religious activities such as witches.

It is impossible to reproduce the actual voice of ancient folk songs, and we can only see its lyrics from ancient literary works. As for music score, there is no music score, because folk songs have always been sung orally, even after notation, working people do not need it. Fortunately, it was not until the end of 19 that folklorists recorded several folk songs with Gongchi notation. Collecting, arranging, recording and publishing folk songs in a comprehensive and planned way can only become a reality in New China. Historically, folk songs have many different names, such as minor, slang, poetry, folk songs, time words and Ming and Qing folk songs.

The Book of Songs is the earliest collection of people's lyric poems in China. It is a collection of folk songs of 15 vassal countries that were popular in the northern part of the Yellow River basin for 500 years from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period (1 1 century-6th century BC). Its remarkable feature is that it truly reflects many aspects of social life, class contradictions and working people's lives at that time with realistic artistic techniques. In the unity of form and language, it is not difficult to see that it has been selected and processed. In the 4th century BC, another collection of folk songs, Chu Ci, appeared in the Yangtze River valley, which was a collection of lyrics compiled and processed by the great poet Qu Yuan on the basis of ancient witch songs in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Its outstanding feature is that it is full of ancient myths and legends, full of imagination, and begins to use romantic expression techniques to develop the four-character folk songs in The Book of Songs into "Sao" style songs with free sentence patterns and changeable phonology, with strong local color. By the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties (206 BC-420 AD), most folk songs were kept in Yuefu. In fact, Yuefu folk songs in Han Dynasty are the confluence of folk songs in Huaihe River basin, the lower reaches of Yangtze River and the middle and lower reaches of Yellow River. At this time, there have been stories and songs such as Peacock Flying Southeast and Mulan Joining the Army, which mostly reflect the sufferings and family tragedies brought by the war under feudal ethics. This story has been circulating since the beginning of the advertisement, and it is almost a household name. Not only is it sung in the form of folk songs, but it has also become a famous repertoire of China traditional operas, which shows its far-reaching influence. The outstanding feature of Yuefu folk songs is that not only the lyrics are sorted out, but also the music is processed by Li Yannian, a famous musician in the Han Dynasty at that time, accompanied by silk and bamboo instruments, which is called Song Xianghe.

From the folk songs in The Book of Songs to the folk songs in Han Yuefu, it can be said that China folk songs are in the early ancient times, and their rich content and powerful expressive force have been quite perfect. It is conceivable that before this, folk songs still had a long primitive era. There was no major in music and culture in primitive times. In slave society, slave owners have happy slaves to enjoy for them, and then they begin to divide. It is actually divided into two categories: professional music and folk music. In feudal society, there were people who played and sang for the emperor, people who sacrificed to nobles, people who had ceremonies, people who had banquets, people who had entertainment, especially those who had notation and professional composers, and gradually formed obvious literary boundaries. In China, since the Han Dynasty, professional music and folk music have gradually become different. After the Han Dynasty, there were few folk songs compiled by official organizations. It's hard to confirm whether the tones of early folk songs still exist today, but the tones of dragon boat songs (including Paddling, River Swimming and Race Crossing) and ancient boat songs (including Odin and Pulling the Fiber) circulating in Zigui County, Hubei Province are probably more than a thousand years old! Maybe this is an eternal legacy.

From the Han Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, there was a period of Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589 AD), which was a period of great ethnic integration in China. Folk songs are clearly divided into two parts: southern folk songs (southern folk songs) and northern folk songs (northern folk songs). The distinctive feature of folk songs in this period is the exchange and integration of multi-ethnic music culture. Regardless of the roughness and boldness of northern folk songs; Or the freshness and liveliness of southern folk songs are not a single national style. This different style of north-south folk songs can still distinguish its far-reaching influence among the existing north-south folk songs.

The Tang Dynasty (6 15-967) and the Song Dynasty (960- 1279) were the heyday of China's feudal culture. Especially in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the song and dance art of frontier nationalities was introduced into the Central Plains in large quantities, which had a great influence on the music of the Central Plains. Obviously, cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries have promoted the development of music, and professional music in the Tang Dynasty has made great achievements. Rap and opera in the folk music of Tang, Song and Song dynasties gradually took shape. Regarding the folk songs of the Tang Dynasty, we can find some songs in Dunhuang, such as Wu Gengyue. In addition, we can learn a thing or two from the Song of Zhi Zhu, which was circulated at that time. Zhi Zhu Song is a kind of free-singing lyrical folk song that rises in Bayu area in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Liu Yuxi and Bai Juyi, famous poets in the Tang Dynasty, both absorbed this folk song factor and created Zhi Zhu Songs created by some literati. Today, the musical structure of Zhi Zhu songs is still found in western Hubei, Tian Ge and eastern Sichuan. "Quci" was very popular in the Song Dynasty, when it was a new form of singing from the people. The Yuan Dynasty (A.D.1221-1368) was famous for its "Xiao Ling", which is a kind of folk songs. Today, there are still folk songs named after "Ling" in northwest China. Poems in the Yuan Dynasty rarely spread to later generations, and the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty regarded folk songs that were dissatisfied with and satirized current affairs as a scourge and prohibited them from being sung.

Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1368- 1684) and Qing Dynasty (A.D.1-1911) were the end of feudal society, and the emerging capitalist economy began to sprout. In the late Qing Dynasty (after 1848), China entered a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society. Anti-feudalism and resistance to foreign aggression have become the characteristics of modern folk songs. During this period, there appeared a collection of folk songs collected and edited by many writers, such as Hakka Folk Songs by Huang Zunxian, Wu Ge by Feng Menglong, Yuefu by Li Diaoyuan and Snow Heritage by Hua Guangsheng. Due to personal preference, most of these folk songs are folk lyric folk songs. Many of these folk songs are still sung among people today. What's more worth mentioning is that "Liaozhai Folk Songs" written by Pu Songling, a famous folk writer in the Qing Dynasty, featured more than 50 popular folk songs in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Some of them are still sung by folk artists, so that we can hear folk songs that have lasted for three or four hundred years, which is very precious.

Since the 20th century, folk songs have entered a new stage, and anti-imperialist and anti-feudal folk songs reached their climax after the 19 1 Xinhai Revolution and the19/954 New Culture Movement. 192 1 China * * * after the establishment of the production party, folk songs have been revitalized with the awakening of farmers and herdsmen. The remarkable sign of folk songs in this period is that a large number of mainland new folk songs spread to the eastern coastal areas, and some frontier brothers' folk songs also spread to the Central Plains, reflecting the theme of people's revolution and unity against Japan, and new folk songs flourished unprecedentedly. In addition, there are many folk songs such as fighting for freedom of marriage, equality between men and women, and opposing drug abuse. Around the May 4th Movement, the Collection of Beiping Folk Songs compiled by Li Jiarui came out, and there were already records of folk songs. What's more worth mentioning is that the movement of learning from folk music, which rose in Yan 'an after 1942, played an epoch-making significance and turned a new page in the history of modern music.

1949 after the founding of new China, the working people got real respect, and China folk songs entered a new period. A large number of folk songs reflecting people's new life have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, which are not only novel in theme, but also more lively, enthusiastic, cheerful and lively in music style, full of upward passion and optimistic spirit. Due to the unbalanced social, economic and cultural development of various ethnic groups in the past, many ethnic groups even have no writing, and folk songs still exist. In contrast, due to the rapid development of traditional operas and rap in China, the singing activities of Han people are not as active as those of their brothers, and there are not as many folk songs sung in coastal areas as in the mainland. This is also a remarkable feature of folk songs in the new historical period.