Abstract: Taiwanese folk songs have accompanied generations of people through their youth, through youthful ignorance, through confusion and panic, and finally to indifference and relief. This is probably the charm of folk songs. No matter how time goes by, it will always maintain the power to move people's hearts. Taiwanese folk songs reflect Taiwan’s local customs and customs, and are divided into many types of songs. So, what are Taiwanese folk songs? What are the characteristics of Taiwanese folk songs? Let’s learn about it with the editor below. Introduction to Taiwanese folk songs
Taiwanese folk songs were introduced to Taiwan with immigrants from southern Fujian in the early 16th century. They can be roughly divided into nursery rhymes, love songs, labor songs, life songs, story and legend songs, custom songs, persuasive songs and begging songs, etc.
As for Taiwan’s music culture, in addition to the mountain music that has the characteristics of the original indigenous music, the music of the Han people was transplanted from the mainland. However, due to the local language, customs, geographical environment, Social background, humanistic characteristics, and the emotional influence of the land, through continuous growth, regeneration, and evolution, have given birth to music with a unique local style.
The development of Taiwanese folk songs
Before the Kuomintang moved to Taiwan, the Hoklo people accounted for about 75% of Taiwan's population, and more people could speak Taiwanese. . Since the Hoklo people make up the majority, and the connotation of their folk music is quite rich and colorful, Hoklo folk songs sung in Taiwanese have naturally become the largest mainstream and focus of Taiwanese folk songs. What the folks refer to as "Taiwanese folk songs" generally refers to "Hoklo folk songs".
It is worth mentioning that it was composed around the time of Taiwan's liberation and is still an unforgettable creative folk ballad that has been circulated to this day. Such as "Looking at the Spring Breeze", "Rainy Night Flowers", "Rural Song", "White Peony" before the liberation, "Mending the Broken Net", "Roast Pork Zongzi", "Anping Memorial Song", "The Bottom of the Cup" after the liberation Feeding goldfish" etc. These ancient songs that have stood the test of time are not only rich in traditional folk music, but also reflect Taiwanese compatriots' love for the Chinese nation. They can also express the private feelings of children in an era of conservative folk customs. Never get tired of it. Every time I sing these songs, I feel like I'm drinking wine, every sip is so sweet that I can't stop. These ballads with folk style cannot be included in the so-called "folk forest" because they all have authors. In fact, it is not important whether they can be called folk songs. What is important is their deep-rooted status in the minds of the general public, which may not even be matched by authentic folk songs. This is the reason why these creative ballads with enough taste and quality are often regarded as "Taiwanese folk songs". Let's call them "quasi-folk songs" here.
Three characteristics of Taiwanese folk songs
1. Taiwanese style: it must be accompanied by Taiwan’s local temperament and traditional spirit.
2. Folklore: It must be a collective creation of the people, and it must have the fact that it has been spread among the people for a long time and has been inherited.
3. Ballads: They must be songs that can be sung or recited, excluding music that is only used for performance.
Types of Taiwanese folk songs
1. Labor songs can be divided into narrow and broad senses. In a narrow sense, it specifically refers to chants, which have a strong sound rhythm that matches labor movements and the function of directly promoting labor as its basic characteristics. In a broad sense, it includes songs sung during labor, such as grassland pastoral songs, tea-picking songs, etc. Some of the latter type of songs are also sung in conjunction with labor movements, and generally can play a certain role in inspiring and regulating emotions during labor, but there is no obvious strong sound rhythm that matches the labor movements. Labor songs in a broad sense can sometimes be classified as life songs.
2. Ritual songs are chanted and sung in conjunction with folk festivals such as praying for good luck and disaster relief, worshiping ancestors and mourning, and other customary activities such as welcoming relatives and seeing off friends. There are roughly three categories: tactic songs, ritual songs, and custom songs. Jueshu songs are folk songs and incantations that are considered to have magical effects, such as "Emperor of Heaven, Emperor of Earth, there is a crying night man in my family, and a gentleman passing by chants it three times, and he sleeps until dawn" and so on. Ritual songs are songs sung in conjunction with festival celebrations, other sacrifices and other rituals. The main content is to offer sacrifices to gods to pray for blessings and a good harvest. Such as the songs sung to offer sacrifices to the Kitchen King to pray for blessings and to offer sacrifices to the Dragon King to pray for rain. Custom songs are used for weddings, births, birthdays, funerals, house building and other occasions of weddings and welcoming guests, such as tent-laying songs, wedding-weeping songs, house-building songs, toasting songs, etc. This is the most numerous part of the ceremonial songs, with less superstitious color and higher literary value.
3. Current political songs mainly reflect the people’s understanding and attitude towards certain political events and figures. It has considerable documentary value. Many political ballads in ancient China appeared in the form of nursery rhymes, and their written records are mostly found in the "Five Elements Chronicles", the history books of various dynasties. Current affairs ballads can be roughly divided into three categories: ① ballads that expose and satirize rulers, the largest number of such works; ② ballads that praise honest and patriotic officials; ③ ballads about peasant uprisings in the past dynasties, this type of ballads best reflect the awakening of farmers and political The most intense color.
4. Life songs reflect all aspects of people’s general social and family life and daily working life, especially the lives of farmers and women. Songs about peasant life reflect the inhuman life that the majority of peasants lived in the old society, and expose the cruel exploitation and greedy and stingy nature of landlords. The widely circulated "Song of Long-term Workers in December" reflects the sharp contradiction between long-term workers and landlords in a concentrated way. Most of the women's life songs come from the mouths of folk women.
From childhood, when women are discriminated against at birth, to being bought and sold like goods in marriage; from being abused as a young daughter-in-law, to a life of misery with no happiness after becoming a mother-in-law, all are described in the songs about women's lives. reflected. A large number of bitter love songs often contain the longing for a happy life. In modern songs after the rise of capitalism, strong voices of resistance often burst out.
5. Love songs, according to the opinions of some scholars, were probably first produced in the alternating period between couple marriage and monogamy in which the husband lived together. They are the most numerous and most popular among folk songs. This kind of love plays a very important role in the love life of working people in the past dynasties, especially the ethnic minority people. It can be roughly divided into the following categories: ① Confessing love for each other and expressing the criteria for choosing a lover, such as "A girl dares to cross a bridge held by a silk thread" and "Gold and silver are not a wishful man". ② Expressing the feelings of parting and longing, such as "Draw You on the Eyes" and "He Lai Makes a Person". ③ Expressing steadfast love that will never separate, such as "I would rather be beaten than lose my husband" and "Hand in hand after leaving the Yamen". ④ Resentful songs that warn and criticize, such as: "You must learn from amaranth until you grow old, but don't learn from Sichuan peppercorns, which will make your heart black", "Young girl will make you lose your heart". ⑤ There are a large number of love songs such as "Home flowers are not as fragrant as wild flowers". Although they contain some unhealthy thoughts and emotions, they often express the yearning and pursuit of a happy life by people who are deprived of a normal love life.
What are Taiwanese folk songs?
1. It’s dark: In 1968, Teresa Teng, who was 15 years old, released a Taiwanese folk song "Dudiu Copper". The tracks in the album are all It was covered by Teresa Teng, and "It's Dark" is one of the nursery rhymes included.
2. Niu Li Song: Lyricist: Xu Bingding, composer: Taiwanese natural folk song, singer Feng Feifei, whose real name is Lin Qiuluan, a native of Daxi, Taoyuan, Taiwan, Taiwanese singer and variety show host.
3. "Thoughts Rise": "Thoughts Rises" is one of the folk songs spread in the Hengchun Peninsula in southern Taiwan. Among the five main tunes of Hengchun folk songs, "Thoughts Rise" is the most familiar to all walks of life in Taiwan. It can be said to be the representative ballad of Hengchun and a precious work of local folk literature.
4. Diudiu Tongzi: "Dudiu Tongzi", also known as Diudiu Tong'er, Diiudi Tong or Diiudi Dong. It is a nursery rhyme (folk song) popular in Fujian and Yilan County, Taiwan. The style belongs to Taiwanese Han nursery rhymes, also known as "Yilan Diao". The children's folk song describes an old-fashioned train passing through a tunnel and falling into the water at the top of the track.