Folk songs of northern Shaanxi
Folk songs of northern Shaanxi are rich and colorful. Its rich local flavor and simple style are deeply loved by people across the country and also enjoy a high reputation internationally. Among them, "Xintianyou" has won praise for its unique style. "Xintianyou" is the most representative genre of folk songs in northern Shaanxi and richest in local characteristics of northern Shaanxi. Its content and tunes are extremely rich, its rhythm is generally free and stretched, the sound is high-pitched and loud, the range is wide, and the melody is There are great ups and downs, some are smooth and tactful, some are bold and straightforward, and some are soft and lyrical, showing various thoughts, feelings and artistic conceptions. In terms of singing characteristics, one is expressed in a folk song style with a straight and high-pitched voice, while the other is expressed in a minor-key style with delicate emotions and euphemistic voice.
The theme of folk songs in northern Shaanxi
Folk songs are closely related to people's lives. Singing about the party, singing about the socialist motherland, singing about labor, and singing about happy life have become the themes of northern Shaanxi folk songs. Let’s talk about several important aspects of the theme of northern Shaanxi folk songs.
(1) Labor creates wealth and human culture. Therefore, singing about labor is the common feature of all folk songs and the prominent theme of all folk songs. Generally speaking, labor songs include two contents. The first is labor songs that take labor life as the theme and express labor emotions. In the old society, this kind of song often featured workers lamenting the hardships of life and their anger at their situation after heavy labor, reflecting the antagonistic relationship between workers and exploiters. The second is a labor song that sings about labor itself and reveals a simple and healthy rhythm. This kind of song is a song composed of laborers working in time with the rhythm of labor, with the sound of labor mixed in or entirely with the sound of labor. Of these two types of songs, the former has richer content, while the latter has simpler content.
(2) Political songs are a barometer of the political attitudes of the people. There are war songs and hymns, war songs for the enemy and hymns for me. The second prominent theme reflected in the folk songs of northern Shaanxi is the working people's accusations and resistance against the feudal system of exploitation and the armed landlords, and their enthusiastic praise of the party, the leaders, and the revolution. The lines of the folk songs are filled with the people’s sincere love and deep friendship for the revolutionary leaders.
(3) Life songs are extremely abundant among traditional people in northern Shaanxi, and their themes are also wide-ranging. There are songs that reflect family life, local customs, and songs that teach about natural knowledge and production experience. Although these songs are bits and pieces, and even some knowledge and experience are not introduced correctly, these songs about family life and customs express the cheerful character and optimistic mood of the people in northern Shaanxi; these scattered knowledge For farmers living in remote areas, experience has added something to their knowledge. Folk literature is the "textbook of life" and the "textbook of oral history".
(4) Love songs are a gorgeous flower in traditional folk songs and one of the oldest themes in folk songs. The most numerous and widely circulated traditional folk songs in northern Shaanxi should be said to be love songs. Love songs, like other types of folk songs, are a true reflection of the working people's love and lifestyle. Among them are songs about young men and women's love and pursuit of each other, songs expressing the correct understanding and desire for love life, and songs that express strong resistance to the interference of the ruling class in marriage. Especially the new love songs produced after the revolution, the meaning of "love song" has been developed and supplemented. Although it relies on traditional forms, the new morals, new ideas, and new emotions expressed in it are more valuable and moving. Many works are permeated with a strong flavor of the times. The themes expressed in love songs can be summarized as follows:
1. Describe the love between young men and women. The sentiment of nostalgia expresses the innocent thoughts of young men and women. The emergence and development of love generally have a process, so love songs give a subtle description of the psychology and mood of young men and women in the love process.
2. Praise the unswerving love that lasts until death, and express the noble ideological and moral character of the working people. The pure love of the working people is different from the hypocritical love hoped for by the feudal class. It is sincere and resolute.
3. Express parting sorrow and endless lovesickness.
In the long-term feudal society, the majority of the people were brutally exploited and squeezed by feudal rule. Farmers had no land or cattle and could not survive. They were forced to leave their homes and make a living in other places; or were forced to serve in the army, which set off unusual changes in love life Waves of love - saying goodbye with tears, remembering each other affectionately after farewell. In order to seek spiritual sustenance, dispel the sorrow and hatred of separation, and express endless longing, many sad and lingering ditties were produced. Among traditional folk songs in northern Shaanxi, this kind of little flirtation is true and can touch people's heartstrings the most.
4. Show women’s strong resistance to the sinful feudal marriage system. The feudal system of ethics and ethics that maintained feudal resistance to rule enslaved women, stifled love, destroyed generations of young men and women, and caused various tragedies. But after all, the soul of the injured person is still trembling in the boiling chest. In the passion full of blood and tears, there are not only sad sighs, but also stubborn and angry shouts. This is when the love of young men and women is blocked, destroyed or suffering from the pain of feudal marriage, they dare to Use the greatest courage to oppose all evil forces and creeds that persecute love in feudal society.
5. Express the new mental outlook and lofty ideological realm of new women. Because northern Shaanxi has experienced the baptism of the fierce Agrarian Labor Revolution, the proletarian ideology has become increasingly popular among the people, and the ideological consciousness of young men and women has increased unprecedentedly. Therefore, they have integrated their love into the vigorous revolutionary movement, giving birth to Many new love songs with new flavor, new content, and new style have educated the masses and promoted the forward development of the revolutionary movement. Some folk songs also sung touching scenes of women resolutely leaving the family, couples making revolution and taking over the world.
In short, the content of love songs in traditional folk songs in northern Shaanxi is extremely rich. These beautiful and timeless traditional folk songs were composed yesterday and the day before yesterday by the children of the northern Shaanxi Plateau with their fiery hearts, dipped in honey and bitter juice. The theme of its strong anti-feudal oppression and demand for freedom and liberation not only had a distinct popular character under the historical conditions at that time, but also still has a realistic influence today when the residual ideological influence of feudal ideas and the feudal marriage system has not yet been eliminated. educational significance. There are many lovely legends and evocative stories, showing many brave and beautiful souls. They are still widely circulated today, cultivating the sentiments and customs of women in northern Shaanxi.
The genres of folk songs in northern Shaanxi
Folk songs in northern Shaanxi, like folk songs from all over the world, also have diverse genres and complex tunes.
Northern Shaanxi folk songs are divided into three categories: labor chants, Xintianyou and minor tunes. Labor chants include banging songs, banging songs, quarrying songs, cow-calling songs, and playing field songs. Xintianyou is divided into high-pitched and flat-pitched tunes. Minor tunes are divided into popular minor tunes (lyrical songs, narrative songs, humorous songs); social fire songs (yangko, boat songs, lamp songs); custom songs (welcome songs, wine songs, rain-praying tunes, and priest tunes); silk-string minor tunes (Yulin minor tunes) , Duoqing, Daoqing, Wanwanqiang); large-scale suites (Luochuan suites, review),
These folk songs with their own genres and unique characteristics all reflect social life from all aspects. The joys, sorrows, likes and dislikes of the people in northern Shaanxi were revealed, and when the social system fundamentally changed, the content and form of folk songs also changed accordingly. This change is reflected in the new social life and new characters in the content, and also gives new meaning to various genres. The following introduces the classification of northern Shaanxi folk songs and the characteristics of various genres.
(1) Labor chants
1. The emergence of labor chants
Labor chants are folk songs sung by workers to accompany the rhythm of labor. The intense labor movements and heavy physical load give its singing the characteristics of a labor call - shouting and shouting. Therefore, among the people, labor chants are not called "drink", but are called "haozi" in the north, "calling chants" in the south, and "whistle" in Sichuan. Labor chants were the first form of poetry in human society and one of the sources of all subsequent poetry.
(2) Xintianyou
Xintianyou belongs to the folk song style of folk songs and is a song of the mountains and fields. Therefore, it is also called "mountain song" in the Shenfu area. It is one of the most distinctive types of folk songs in northern Shaanxi. It has the largest number, the most tunes, the widest content, and is the most popular among the masses.
Therefore, there has been a saying among the people that "if you believe in the sky and travel without cutting off your head, the poor will not be able to relieve their sorrows if you cut off your head."
1. The spread of Xintianyou
Xintianyou is the most representative one in Suide and Mizhi. * Xintianyou in neighboring areas such as Hequ in Shanxi, Yike Zhaomeng in Inner Mongolia, and Yanchi in Ningxia has a unique flavor due to the influence of Shanqu, crawling tunes and flowers. At the same time, some songs are jointly owned by several places.
Traditional Xintianyou mostly expresses women's pain in marriage, love and family life and their resistance to the constraints of feudal ethics; it also expresses the porters expressing the anguish of a difficult life and their feelings for their hometown during the long and lonely journey. It reflects the nostalgia of loved ones and reflects the working people’s yearning for a better life in the future. In order to express these rich thoughts and feelings, singers often evoke scenes, describe their aspirations, improvise, and write poems; then the beautiful and melodious songs travel to the sky, all over the mountains and countryside, so the people call this form "Xintianyou" or "Shuntianyou". As the revolutionary situation unfolds, Xintianyou not only expresses the individual joys, sorrows, and joys of the working people, but is also closely linked to the revolutionary struggle, resulting in countless Xintianyou praising the party, praising the leader, praising the revolution, and praising the new life. Today, Xintianyou has become an indispensable art form in the lives of people in northern Shaanxi, which is the most direct, simple and beautiful art form to express expressions.
2. Characteristics of Xintianyou
①The lyrics of Xintianyou are characterized by a two-sentence structure with upper and lower sentences. Because its words are based on sound and are strictly restricted by musical phrases, it forms a stable form of two sentences and one sentence. It uses Bixing as a means of image thinking to choose life and refine a unified artistic image that is harmonious in content and form. This is "asking for things to express feelings" or "touching the scene with emotion". These two traditional expression methods have become their own fine traditions in the long-term development of Xintianyou. They generally use the rising and making comparisons in the first sentence and the final sentence in the next sentence. The use of Bixing is naturally clever, appropriate and precise. The sentence patterns are diverse, the rhythm is clear, the rhyme pattern is flexible and free. It is catchy to read and melodious to sing. The length can be long or short, two lines can be used as an independent poem, and multiple lines and paragraphs can be organically combined to turn a short chapter into a continuous long song, expressing richer and more complete content.
②Xintianyou is a kind of lyrical ditty. As mentioned above, because it is an outdoor song in the mountains and fields, the environment is open and it is not restricted by labor movements, so its melody is characterized by rough and unrestrained, It is melodious and high-pitched, fully reflecting the bold character of northern Shaanxi people. As Xintianyou sang, "There is no music to be heard in an empty kiln." Of course, Xintianyou also has lingering, tactful, delicate and honest tunes, such as the tunes used by women to miss their lovers.
③Xintianyou’s singing is not limited by the tune. According to the content of the lyrics and the mood of the singer, the same song can sing different emotions, which can be long or short, fast or slow. At the same time, each song can be long or short, fast or slow. The lyrics can be sung with any tune, which shows that Xintianyou's tunes are not fixed.
3. Xintianyou is basically classified into two categories: high-pitched and flat-tuned.
Those with free rhythm, wider vocal range, greater ups and downs of melody, and unrestrained emotions are as follows:
(1) A river flows in the ditch opposite (price), and some guerrillas descend from the mountains.
(2) When your mother beats you, you tell your brother why you drink foreign cigarettes.
(3) Flowers bloom on the cliffside and red on the cliffside, a scene of good times (oh) that the suffering people look forward to.
(4) Why are you wearing red shoes in the dewy ground if you are not a talented person?
When singing the first type, (Examples 1 and 2), it is better to use a high tune; when singing the second type, (Examples 3, 4), it is better to use a flat tune. Most high-pitched voices use falsetto, the so-called "sheep's voice echoes the voice of a cow". Because the tunes are unrestrained, melodious and high-pitched, coupled with wide range, large beats, free and varied rhythms, many songs use infinite extensions and mixed time signatures, so they are sung It rises freely and stretches, the emotions are unrestrained, the flat tune has a compact structure, a neat rhythm, and a relatively smooth melody progression.
Xintianyou, Shanxi's "Mountain Song" and Inner Mongolia's "Mountain Climbing Song" all belong to the Shange song style. The three are not only basically the same in style, technique, flexibility of tunes, singing style and other characteristics In addition, there are also very similarities in language techniques.
For example, Xintianyou sings: "My father-in-law is a man on death row with a knife, and the mother-in-law stands at the door of the buffalo horn." The mountain-climbing song sings: "The ghost father-in-law is shot and killed by a horse, and the mother-in-law stands at the door." Another example is Xintianyou's song "The morning glory is red. All in all, the dew and his wife are in vain." The mountain-climbing song goes: "Snowflakes beat the wall and the ice builds the house, and the dew-shui couple will not grow up soon." The mountain song sings: "The snowflakes (here) build the house with the snow and the wall, it won't take long for the next daughter. "Long." Another example is Xintianyou's song "The morning glory blooms slowly, and the morning glory blooms all day long." These sentences are so similar to each other! In fact, this situation is an inevitable phenomenon due to the oral transmission of folk literature and the mutual influence between regions. Although they have similarities or similarities in form, significant differences between them can still be discerned from a careful analysis of the content, language, and use of tunes reflected in folk songs. As far as mountain climbing songs are concerned, although it has a wide range of themes, it is not as rich and complete in content as Xintianyou, especially the revolutionary folk songs. In terms of expressing emotions, Xintianyou is delicate, with tactful and colorful lyrics, while the mountain climbing song has profound meaning and rough style. In terms of language use, each has its own spoken dialect that is commonly used by the people in the region. For example, "La La Liu", "Diaoxiao", "Lone Whistle", "Taipao", "Shuuchangtrance Scraping", "Qiangqiangqi" etc. are commonly used in mountain climbing songs. Sometimes in order to rhyme or express strong emotions, function words such as "le", "ah" and "la" are used at the end of the sentence. These are things that have never been found in Xintianyou. In addition, both of them use refrains, and mountain climbing songs use more of them. In terms of tunes, both have distinct local colors and local sentiments, but the tune names of mountain climbing songs are all named after places in the region. , this is one of the significant differences in tune between it and Xintianyou.
(3) Minor tunes
Minor tunes refer to various folk songs that are popular in people’s lives for rest, entertainment, celebrations and other occasions. If Xintianyou is a "song of the mountains", then the minor tune is a "song of the alley". The so-called "Songs of the Mountains" means that Xintianyou, which belongs to the folk song genre, is a folk song genre that is spread and developed in rural areas. The so-called "music in the lane" means that the spread and development of minor tunes are more closely related to towns. Most minor tunes are spread from towns to rural areas.
1. Characteristics of minor tunes
① Rich content, fine and rough. Due to the wide exposure of minor tunes to different classes and strata in urban and rural areas, coupled with the spread of professional artists and the printing of singing books, minor tunes have been promoted in more artistic processing, and at the same time, the ideological content of minor tunes has been brought to complexity. The main reason is that it not only reflects the life of farmers, but also reflects the life and consciousness of small handicraftsmen, other workers, businessmen, and citizens. Therefore, the content of minor tunes is complex, sophisticated and rough, with both simple and healthy tunes. The singing is full of folk-slick and vulgar tunes, lacking the strong local flavor and fresh sentiment that Xintianyou has. But it expresses content and emotions tactfully and delicately, and is good at expressing emotions through narrative methods.
② Diverse themes and a wide range of life. Minor tunes reflect a wide range of aspects of life. It not only expresses the history of revolutionary struggles and sings about real life; it also narrates historical events, legends or life stories; it not only reflects various major political and social events; it also reflects games and customs in daily life. Especially in the revolutionary years, literary and artistic workers and the masses created many new revolutionary tunes, which played a combat role in uniting the people, educating the people, attacking the enemy, and destroying the enemy.
③The lyrics are mostly in the form of sections. There are various sentence patterns, ranging from five words to seven words. Each paragraph has four, six, and odd-numbered sentences of three or five. Some lyrics are shorter, and some are as long as twenty or thirty paragraphs. Generally speaking, the lyrics and music are relatively fixed and do not have the characteristics of improvisation and singing. Singing forms include solo singing, duet singing, and singing in unison or in chorus.
④ Due to the mutual influence of minor tunes on song and dance, folk art, and opera, it has received more artistic processing. Generally speaking, the rhythm and beat of minor keys are more neat, the melodies are winding and flowing, rich, diverse and standardized, the structure is clear, complete and independent, and it widely uses lining words and tunes, commonly used musical instrument accompaniment, and has introductions, transitions and other formulas.
2. Classification of minor tunes
According to the ideological content, singing methods and uses of minor tunes, we divide them into general minor tunes, Shehuo songs, custom songs, silk string minor tunes, and large-scale suites Five categories. There are also narrative songs, lyric songs, and humorous songs in the popular minor tunes.
Popular minor tune
①Narrative tune
Ballade songs, like narrative poems, are mainly about writing human narratives. There are relatively complete stories and distinctive characters, but no detailed descriptions are given.
The narrative method of narrative songs is usually based on narrative. The so-called narrative means that the singers use the third person to sing about people and events. Sometimes narration and endorsement are combined, and the first person is used instead of the singing of the characters in the work. Comrade He Qifang once said in "Talking about Writing Poems": "Narrative poetry is not telling a story, but singing a story." The so-called storytelling means that narrative songs should not only be narrative, but also lyrical. But this "emotion" must be combined with the character's personality and the progress of the story. Lyrical in the narrative, narrative in the lyrical, so that narrative and lyrical are well combined. Xie Yuan said: "Narrative is the mother of emotion, but emotion is the untamed child of things." This sentence has two meanings. One is that lyricism cannot be empty, and the other is that narration should be simple and lyricism should be complex. This means that lyricism must be based on narrative, and the emotions expressed must be vivid and refreshing, and the words blurt out without any artificiality to enhance the characteristics of the narrative.
Balgetic songs usually use a melody repeated many times to sing multiple lyrics. Most of the narrative songs created by professional authors adopt the form of comprehensive songs, and rarely use the form of stanza songs.
②Lyric Songs
Although there are many ballads in minor keys, most of them are short ballads. It is a variety of emotions caused by objective things in poets and singers, such as love for the motherland, leaders, hometown, relatives and all beautiful things, hatred of enemies and all kinds of ugly things, as well as the love between men and women, It is a true expression of emotions such as friendship between friends, such as joy, pain, sadness, nostalgia, expectations, etc. It is not like a narrative poem that details the process of life events, does not describe the characters in detail, and generally has no plot. Instead, it expresses one's feelings directly, or uses scenes to express emotions. .
③A humorous song
A humorous song is a song that uses humorous writing to make people laugh. They generally have vivid plot descriptions, are humorous, lively and cheerful, and can give people unlimited fun and interest. It can praise advanced and beautiful things, express the optimistic spirit of the working people's witty and humorous character, and can also satirize and ridicule ugly and decadent things.
In addition, some works in minor tunes have basically the same theme and content, but have several different tunes, or the same tune has several lyrics with different themes and content. This kind of mutation is one of the important characteristics of oral creation.
One of the reasons for this abnormal phenomenon is that folk songs are circulated orally among the working people and have no material form to fix them, or the singers modify them intentionally or unintentionally according to their own tastes and hobbies. Therefore, a song often changes its appearance at different times and different spaces. The second reason for this variation is the interaction between regions.