Chinese Folk Songs

Chinese Folk Songs

In the field of music culture, Chinese folk songs are an important basis for singing, dancing, Quyi (曲艺), and opera art. As early as in the pre-Qin period, the ancient Han people created folk songs, musical instruments, and music. In the Han Dynasty, a national musical institution called Yuefu (乐府) was set up by the government, which was responsible for collecting folk songs and compiling them into Yuefu poems. Folk songs in the Han Dynasty were classified into “Tuge 徒歌” (solo singing without music), “Dange 但歌” (duet), and “Xianghege 相和歌” (responsive singing). From Northern Wei to Sui and Tang dynasties, folk Han music in southern and northern China was collectively called “Qingshangyue 清商乐” or “Qingyue,” including folks songs and dancing music, forming part of the Yanyue “banquet music.” In the Tang Dynasty, folk songs were called “Quzi 曲子.”

In the relics unearthed from the Cangjing Cave at Dunhuang, as many as 590 “Quzici 曲子词” songs were discovered, involving more than 80 kinds of melodies, such as “Pusaman 菩萨蛮,” and “Jianqici 剑器词.” In the Song and Yuan dynasties, the Zaju杂居 (variety play) music and southern opera music became the main form of music, and they also absorbed a lot of musical elements of folk songs. Zaju music was formed by absorbing Gewudaqu 歌舞大曲 (singing and dancing performance), northern narrative-singing music, and folk ditties, and southern opera music mainly included the ditties and songs that were popular among the folks in the south, created by absorbing the popular Cidiao词调 (tonal patterns) and the music of Gewudaqu.

The reason why Han folk songs became a treasure of folk culture for centuries and millenniums is that they originated from the life of the working people, expressing their true feelings. The working people were the creators of folk songs. They loved folk songs and pass them down by mouth and heart, generation by generation. Any interesting passage of folk songs survives the continuous erosion of time and is jointly selected and processed by the people, gradually developing and becoming rich and perfect in spreading and passing down.

Han folk songs have short structures, flexible rhythms, concise and simple melodies, sincere feelings in the lyrics, and vivid musical images. These folk song features bring about strong artistic effects. Widely loved by the people, these folk songs were passed down generation by generation simply through mouth and heart, and always kept its unique freshness.

China’s vast territory, complicated topography and climate, and different Chinese folk customs created a rich variety of folk songs with local color and taste. The folk songs of the Han Chinese can be classified into three basic types - Haozi 号子, folk songs, and ditties by social function and artistic feature.

Haozi Generated together with Labor

Haozi (号子, hào zǐ ) was created with labor. It is the shouts naturally uttered to while exerting force in labor. It has the functions of commanding movements, adjusting energy, encouraging laboring emotions, and so on. It uses the most easily understandable “one singing responded by many,” reflecting the toughness and strength of physical labor using affirmative, heroic, free melodies and rhythm. The more strenuous the labor is, the shorter the rhythm, and the simpler the melody.

There is a large variety of traditional Haozi, usually classified into porting Haozi, engineering Haozi, agricultural Haozi, workshop Haozi, fishing boat Haozi, and so on, by the type of labor. “Porters don’t mind bending Biandan (a carrying pole)” is a porting Haozi popular in northern Jiangsu Province. When porting cargo with carrying poles on the shoulder, the porters sing this Haozi to the short and even rhythm on the go to keep energized. Da Hang Ge 打夯歌(Rammering Song) is an engineering Haozi sung while building dams and roads. “Hang” is a stone rammer comprised of a heavy and bulky stone or round log hung under two parallel wooden rods or four rods in the shape of a number or pound sign, lifted up by two or four people then pushed down with strength. Different places had different Da Hang Ge with different melodies, but they shared a common feature, that is clearly strong and weak rhythm full of strength.

Fishing boat Haozi was sung when boating and fishing in rivers, lakes, and seas. Because of its complex laboring conditions and the intensity of labor, the music of fishing boat Haozi is the richest and abundant. Most quintessential is Boating Haozi on the Chuanjiang River. The natural conditions of the Chuanjiang River are complex, as the river winds along many sandbanks, and the water sometimes flows quickly and other times slowly. The Haozi sung by the boatmen when floating on the Chuanjiang River varies with the factors of labor conditions and intensity, carrying a typical local flavor. It is comprised of eight different passages of Haozi, including Pingshui Haozi (flat water Haozi), Jiantan Haozi (shoal-seeing Haozi), Shang tan Haozi (going up the sandbank Haozi), Xia tan Haozi (going down the sandbank Haozi), and so on. Pingshui Haozi was sung when the water was still and the boat has just started the voyage. It is melodious, and its rhythm stable and free. Jiantan Haozi is sung by the lead singer when passing by a dangerous sandbank to warn his fellow boatmen. Therefore its rhythm is tight and compact, using very short sentences, reflecting the tense atmosphere. The whole song of Boating Haozi on the Chuanjiang River is rich in changes, fully reflecting the scene when the boatmen go along the river.

Free and Lyrical Mountain Songs

Mountain songs (山歌, shān ɡē) belong to the mountains and wilderness. Inspired by nature under the sky, seeing the beautiful scenery of the mountain and rivers, the singers sing impromptu of what they see, freely expressing their feelings. The rhythms of mountain songs are free, the tunes sonorous, loud and clear, and the lyrics are often associated with the natural scenery, often beginning with “The sun rises…,” “The moon rises…,” “The river floods…,” “On the high mountain…” and so forth, sounding authentic and touching.

Mountain songs have a rich variety of local colors due to different living habits and dialects in different places. With the Yangtze River as the border, the mountain songs in the north have special names. The mountain songs in northern Shaanxi are called “Xin Tian You 信天游” in the region of Qinghai, Ningxia, and Gansu they are “huaer,” in Inner Mongolia “Pashan Diao 爬山调”, and in Shanxi they are called “Shan qu 山曲”. In south China, the mountain songs are named after places, such as Jiangzhe mountain songs, Kejia mountain songs, Xiang E mountain songs, Southwest mountain songs, and Tianyang mountain songs.

The contents expressed by the mountain songs are diverse, involving different aspects of life. “Xin Tian You” talks about the natural landscape of the Loess Plateau in the northwest and the bold unrestrained spirits of northwestern people, while “Fishing Songs” reflects the laboring life in the region with abundant water to the south of the Yangtze River. The artistic images of mountain songs are vivid, for example, “Huaer - Going down to Sichuan” is about the “Jiaohuge 脚户哥” (literally meaning “footing brothers,” the peasants relying on mules in the poor mountainous regions in northwest China), driving their livestock, living in their hometowns to seek a living in Sichuan, carrying a melancholy yearning heart. The melody is soft, gloomy and undulating, and the rhythm is stretching, sad and touching, full of homesickness.

The plain mountain songs are loved and spread by people. In the northwest of Shanxi, north of Shaanxi and west part of Inner Mongolia, every person - man, woman, elder, and children - can sing mountain songs. Whatever they do, they sing; whatever they think, they sing. Their tunes are sonorous, loud and clear, wild and imaginative, their vocal range broad, their rhythm free. A short piece of mountain song often varies with the different backgrounds and experiences of the singers and moods and speeds in singing. Singers also sing about different content to reflect different moods in life. In Shanxi Province, the most famous place for mountain songs is in Hequ. This small place, with the large winding Yellow River passing the northwest part of Shanxi has given birth to a most popular Shanxi folk song named Zou Xikou 走西口 (Walking through the West Port). At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China period, in the region along Hequ and Baode, the land was barren when disaster and famine happened one after another; the peasants were forced to migrant through the port of the ancient Great Wall on the border of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia (Xikou) to avoid famine and eke out a living, which was called Zou Xikou. The folk song Zou Xikou pertinently reflects the pain of leaving your lover at that time.

Beautiful and Melodious Ditty - 茉莉花 mò lì huā (Jasmine Flower)

“What a beautiful jasmine flow…” This beautiful and melodious song called Jasmine Flower (茉莉花 mò lì huā) is familiar to the world. According to Qian Renkang, an expert on Chinese music, Jasmine Flower is the first Chinese folk song that spreading abroad. In the summer of 2008, each time when the melody of Jasmine Flower was played at an awarding ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, people would think of the beautiful jasmine flower described in the lyrics and the girl who wants to pick the flower but is afraid of the criticism of the flower guard.

Jasmine Flower is a quintessential folk ditty of the Han Chinese. A ditty is another form of a folk song of the Han; all small folk songs sung in daily life are ditties. The melody of ditties is beautiful and smooth, its rhythm regular, structure strict, seldom impromptu. The content is expressed in an indirect way, often hiding the purpose in telling a story, placing feelings into the landscape, or expressing minds through legends. Sometimes string accompaniments are added, making the music of ditties more beautiful and touching.

There is a rich variety of ditties. They can be classified into three types by their historical origin, occasion for singing them and music character: type one is the ditties from folk songs in the Ming and Qing dynasties, such as Nao Wujing, Shu a Haier, Yin Niusi, and Die Duanqiao; and Jian Dinghua, Yu E Lang, Xianhua Diao, Huguang Diao (Xiu Hebao), in the Qing Dynasty. Some have still retained their original little, some have kept almost the same melody but the name has been changed. For example, the melody of Jian Dinghua is used in many pieces across the country such as Fang Fengzheng, Diu Jiezhi, Siji Ge, and Xiu Wujingf in total 10 variations. Type two are local ditties sung impromptu. The melody has regional characteristics, pure, simple and plain, like “Cai Diao” of Yunnan Province is a responsive song sung by children playing games, its lyrics are vivid, its form active, and its melody has thick local characteristics of Yunnan Province. Type three are ditties for singing and dancing at folk festivals in different places with distinct jumping rhythms and smooth melodies, mainly including Huagu Diao, Deng Diao, Huadeng Diao, Caicha Diao in south China and Yang Ge Diao in north China, as well as Pao Hanchuan that were popular nationwide, and so on. The most famous are Fengyang Huagu, a Huagu Diao of Anhui, Shi Dajie, a Caicha Diao of Yunnan, and Pao Hanchuan of the northern part of Shaanxi, with beautiful lyrical melodies and lively rhythms.

The music and language of ditties are closely combined, and the featured dialects of the different places are fully reflected in the melodies. During the dissemination and passing-down process, an increasing number of people sung them, after professional artists and semi-professional folk artists processed them. In this process, the music and the lyrics were completed continuously, so that many ditties have variants in different places. For example, after Jasmine Flower spread to different places, many variations appeared, in both the north and south of the Yangtze River. In 1804, a British man named John Barrow wrote in his Trip to Chinn that Jasmine Flower seems to be one of the most popular songs in China.

Moreover, Jasmine Flower also spread abroad through the exchange of Sino-foreign culture. Well-known musicians of different countries performed it through different forms. For example, Italian composer Giacomo Puccini used the melody of J as mi tie Flower in his opera Turandot; Kenny G, a well- known American saxophone player adapted and performed Jasmine Flower with a lyrical and overflowing fragrance. In 1982, UNESCO recommended excellent songs to people worldwide, which included Jasmine Flower, this well-known Chinese folk song.

For thousands of years, Han Chinese folk songs absorbed different nutrition in the soil of different places, emitting different fragrances. The different landforms and ecological environments of China create folk songs of different styles. The mountain songs in the western mountains and plateau region are resounding and passionate, while the ditties in eastern plains are fresh, smooth, and delicate. With the change of time, the cultural connotations included in folk songs have gone far beyond the songs themselves. It reflects the ancient oral culture of China and has become the common cultural wealth shared by the world.

茉莉花 - Mo Li Hua (Jasmine Flower)

Lyrics in English:

What a beautiful jasmine flower!

What a beautiful jasmine flower!

A spray of fragrant and lovely petals

Everyone loves your snow-white buds

Let me pick a jasmine flower

And give it to my beau

Jasmine flower, oh jasmine flower.

Lyrics in Chinese:

好一朵美丽的茉莉花 (hǎo yì duǒ měi lì de mò lì huā)

好一朵美丽的茉莉花 (hǎo yì duǒ měi lì de mò lì huā)

芬芳美丽满枝桠 (fēn fānɡ měi lì mǎn zhī yā)

又香又白人人夸 (yòu xiānɡ yòu bái rén rén kuā)

让我来将你摘下 (rànɡ wǒ lái jiānɡ nǐ zhāi xià)

送给情郎家 (sònɡ ɡěi qínɡ lánɡ jia)

茉莉花呀茉莉花 (mò lì huā yɑ mò lì huā)

Lyrics in French:

Quelle belle fleur de jasmin!

Quelle belle fleur de jasmin!

Odorante, belle, à la tige pleine de bourgeons.

Parfumée et blanche, tout le monde en fait l'éloge.

Permettez-moi de vous cueillir.

Pour t'offrir à mes chers.

Fleur de Jasmin, oh fleur de jasmin.