Naxi folk songs are short folk songs, including traditional ancient songs and improvised songs that are composed and sung. According to the content, they can be divided into production songs, folk songs, custom songs and love songs. , happy songs, bitter songs, wedding songs, elegy, hunting songs, pastoral songs, children's songs, etc. Follow my steps to learn more about Naxi folk songs!

Overview of Naxi folk songs

The folk music forms of the Naxi mainly include Naxi ancient music, Eastern music Ba sacrificial music, folk songs and other instrumental music, etc. Folk songs are the carrier of vocal music that precedes all forms of music. It plays a very important role in the development of other folk music and professional music. A large part of China's many folk instrumental music are directly transplanted or adapted from folk songs. In Naxi culture, folk songs also play a very important role, especially the Dongba sacrificial music of the Naxi people, of which a considerable number of tunes are derived from Naxi folk songs. Therefore, it can be said that Naxi folk songs are one of the music forms closest to the lives and emotions of the Naxi people.

The Naxi people mainly live in Lijiang Naxi Autonomous County, Yunnan Province, and the rest are distributed in Weixi, Zhongdian, Ninglang, Deqin, Yanbian, Yanyuan, Muli and Zhikang in Sichuan and other counties. The Naxi people were originally a branch of the ancient Qiang people in northwest China. They migrated to Lijiang and settled in the Lijiang area around the third century AD. As early as more than a thousand years ago, the Naxi created this nation's precious cultural heritage-Dongba hieroglyphics and the Dongba Sutra written in this script. The Dongba hieroglyphs are called "Senqiuluqiu" in Naxi language and are praised by Chinese and foreign scholars as "the ancient encyclopedia of the Naxi people". In 1957, the text in the form of Latin letters was designed

Song classification of Naxi folk songs

Naxi folk songs are mainly divided into two categories: traditional tunes and improvised tunes. .

The traditional tune is also called major tune, and in Naxi it is called "Benji" or "Benzi". Naxi folk long poems are all in traditional tune. Improvisational tunes are also called minor tunes. They have no fixed lyrics, are inspired by things, are flexible and diverse, and reflect the vast social life of the Naxi people from different angles. The Naxi people have been accustomed to expressing their emotions and expressing their good wishes with folk songs for generations. The tunes are generally low and plaintive, weeping and complaining. However, due to the influence of Tibetan folk songs in the eastern region, the tunes are more unrestrained and rough. During the revolutionary war years, impassioned folk songs such as "Song of Complaints" and "Anti-Three Marches", which reflected the people's resistance struggle, and "He Long Knocked on the Stone Drum", which praised the revolutionary army, appeared. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, new folk songs that sang high-pitched and cheerful songs praising China's new communist and socialist life appeared.

Artistic Analysis of Naxi Folk Songs

Traditional Naxi folk songs are like a national "audio history book", which records the production, life and culture of the Naxi people in different historical periods. Social features such as customs reflect the personality of the creator. The Naxi people not only continue to create music culture with their own national characteristics in different social development processes, but also introduce, store and develop the music culture of other ethnic groups and places. Some people praise Lijiang as a "living music museum". The cultural character and rich aesthetic capacity contained in the heartfelt singing of the Naxi ancestors is no less than the human emotions covered by the brilliant orchestral big band and the great symphony that embody the crystallization of the industrial revolution.

With the continuous evolution of historical processes, the social development of the Naxi people has experienced three major social development forms: slavery, feudal lordship, and feudal landlordism, and has moved towards socialist modernization. After the 1990s, tourism developed rapidly in the Naxi area of ??Lijiang and became an important bridge for the Naxi people to move towards modernization. Tourism and modernization have brought economic development, information flow, and cultural exchanges to the Naxi people... turning this once "forgotten corner" into a world-famous tourist attraction and "paradise on earth." Any culture is in the process of constant change. Today, the economic and social foundations on which Naxi traditional culture relies have changed. Depending on the degree of social change, the degree of cultural change will also be different. The inheritance of traditional folk songs in the ancient city of Lijiang, Guifeng Sanyuan Village on the edge of the ancient city, and Xiapai Village in Tacheng Township, Yulong County, which has not yet experienced tourism development, illustrates this point.

Through the comparison in the above table, we can easily see that the cultural function and inheritance model of Naxi traditional folk songs have the following characteristics under the influence of social and cultural changes: First, the higher the degree of modernization, the more traditional folk songs The fewer cultural functions, the more prominent the entertainment and aesthetic functions; the narrower the scope of inheritance, which is almost limited to professional practitioners; the simpler the inheritance model, the trend is toward specialization and standardization. Secondly, the cultural function of traditional folk songs directly affects and determines the inheritance model of traditional folk songs. Such as life rituals, religious functions, communication expressions, etc. are all prerequisites for natural inheritance. If a certain traditional folk song no longer has these functions in a community, then naturally it will no longer appear in these specific life situations, and it will be impossible for local people to learn it through simple listening and imitation. Because these cultural functions emphasize the participation of the parties more than the entertainment and aesthetic functions, participation has certain cultural significance for the parties. The aesthetic function of entertainment is relatively easy to achieve through appreciation and does not require the parties to participate. For example: watching Naxi folk singers perform in Dongba Palace, even if the audience in the audience does not sing, they can still enjoy the beauty; another example is watching the "beating dance" of local Naxi people in Sifang Street. First of all, the people in Lijiang Ancient Town "Datiao" *** including Sanyuan Village *** has changed from singing and dancing in the past to dancing with accompaniment. Even if tourists join in, they are just imitating the dance steps, and traditional folk songs cannot be passed down naturally. Thirdly, the cultural functions of traditional folk songs affect the objects and scope of inheritance, especially the functions of life rituals, religious functions, communication and expression, etc., which are all prerequisites for natural inheritance, and therefore also greatly affect the objects and scope of inheritance. The deeper the role of cultural functions in a community, the more basic and extensive the inheritance objects are; the more cultural functions there are, the more inheritance opportunities and the wider the scope of inheritance. ?