UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Music and Language in the Strophic Singing of the Zhuang Minority in Southern China Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4t0423bz Author Widman, John Harvey Publication Date 2019 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Music and Language in the Strophic Singing of the Zhuang Minority in Southern China A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnomusicology by John Widman 2019 © Copyright by John Widman 2019 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Music and Language in the Strophic Singing of the Zhuang Minority in Southern China by John Widman Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnomusicology University of California, Los Angeles, 2019 Professor Helen M. Rees, Chair The Zhuang minority in Guangxi, China, are commonly celebrated for their “sea of songs.” While the epithet of being “good at singing and dancing” is an overused description applied to China’s fifty-five minorities, Zhuang do gather in parks during weekends and holidays and sing strophic songs outside their homes and on mountain tops to each other in annual festivals. Although a given geographic area typically features only one of these tunes, in many areas of Guangxi, these songs are the primary form of music-making. This kind of strophic singing, known throughout China as mountain songs (shan’ge), has a variety of names spread among the dialects of the eighteen million Tai-Kadai speakers who make up the Zhuang. The Zhuang who live along the Youjiang river valley call their traditional singing fien. However, the Zhuang do not typically refer to this kind of music as something that is sung, but rather something that is done. Youjiang Zhuang do (gueg) fun, business, travel, and fien. This linguistic sleight of hand indicates a significant difference in how a traditional Zhuang singer approaches music compared to most singers in Western societies. The primary way Zhuang evaluate fien is through the ii quality of the lyrics. A good song is one that has witty lyrics, or words that reference critical parts of Zhuang culture. These words are often extemporized and must fit a specific rhyme scheme and phrase structure that correspond with major sections of the tune used to gueg fien. These features bring an excellent lens to examine relationships between music and language. While music does not have organizational or meaningful equivalents to verbs, nouns, and adjectives, recent cognitive studies demonstrate that the same areas of the brain processing syntax and semantics are employed for both music and language (Patel 2003, Koelsch et al. 2004). However, many of the models reflecting these relationships have limited themselves to tonal music, especially from the West, and have not accounted for “the interplay of sound structure with the context and cultural assumptions of its creators/listeners” (Feld 1974:207). My dissertation begins to address these issues through positing that a combined analysis of language and music is possible in Zhuang singing. Specifically, I hypothesize that sections of melody and complete clauses of lyrics meet at consistent points in their respective structures, creating the possibility for a joint syntactic analysis of melody and lyrics. I further posit that Zhuang melody in this context has demonstrable semantic significance as an overt marker of a possible Zhuang literary world. iii The dissertation of John Widman is approved. Timothy A. Stowell Roger Savage Münir N. Beken Erica A. Cartmill Helen M. Rees, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2019 iv This dissertation is dedicated to Huang Wenke, who kindly helped me take some of my first steps learning to perform traditional Zhuang songs. Huang passed away in the spring of 2019 during the writing of this dissertation. I hope that, in some small way, my writing can contribute to his memory. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures vii Notes on Zhuang Romanization ix Chinese Geographic Terms xi Supplementary Online Media xii Glossary xiii Acknowledgements xv Vita xix 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. CONTEXTUALIZING FIEN 35 3. YOUJIANG ZHUANG SYNTAX AND THE STRUCTURE OF FIEN 71 4. FIEN AS A FORM OF ORAL LITERATURE 109 5. SPEAKING OF AND LIVING WITH FIEN 141 6. CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARD FIEN 174 7. CONCLUSION 209 APPENDIX A: TRANSCRIPTIONS OF SONGS ANALYZED FOR CHAPTER 3 230 REFERENCES 275 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: A map of the research area for this dissertation 1 Figure 1.2: The maguhu: a common symbol of Zhuang musical identity 8 Figure 2.1: A map of strophic singing genres similar to fien in East and Southeast Asia 38 Figure 2.2: A sample of Zhuang written characters 51 Figure 2.3: A rough map of Chinese cognates of Zhuang terms for traditional singing 54 Figure 2.4: Different interpretations of the geographic extent of the dige liao song tune 56 Figure 2.5: Major tune locations in the Youjiang Zhuang dialect area 59 Figure 2.6: The geographic extent of the Tianzhou tune and its two branches 61 Figure 3.1: An example of line divisions in the dige liao song tune 72 Figure 3.2: A single instance of Tianzhou fien arranged by melodic iteration 82 Figure 3.3: The instance of fien from Figure 3.2 written out by line 83 Figure 3.4: A map of tonal intervals used in fien 84 Figure 3.5: The configuration of lexical and non-lexical syllables with small units of melody 85 Figure 3.6: An example of similarities between melodic units of fien 85 Figure 3.7: Categories of melodic units used in fien 86 Figure 3.8: Points of stability and variation in eighty single-line iterations of fien 87 Figure 3.9: Tones of the Youjiang Zhuang language 88 Figure 3.10: An example of high pitch contour correlation with higher melodic units in fien 89 Figure 3.11: An example of low pitch contour correlation with lower melodic units in fien 89 Figure 3.12: Categories of melodic units used in the middle of iterations 91 Figure 3.13: A transcription of twenty-six ornamental opening iterations 91 Figure 3.14: A transcription of a melody-lyric phrase used to accent iterations 92 Figure 3.15: A transcription of a melody-lyric phrase used to finish final iterations 92 vii Figure 3.16: Vocable-note combinations that mark key sections of fien iterations 93 Figure 3.17: A condensed transcription of the strophe in Figure 3.2 105 Figure 4.1: A list of common titles used to denote kinds of Tianzhou fien 115 Figure 4.2: A transcription of a typical iteration of the dangzvuengz songs 124 Figure 4.3: The first page of a booklet for singing “The Tale of Wenlong” 126 Figure 4.4: An example of the interplay between the spoken lyrics and clapper in kuaiban 128 Figure 6.1: A dance performance at the Buluotuo Cultural Tourism Festival 186 Figure 6.2: The walkway leading up to Ganzhuang Mountain in Tianyang, Baise 186 Figure 6.3: Noodles advertised as intangible cultural heritage sold in the United States 187 Figure 6.4: A dancer mimicking playing the tianqin at a modern performance 194 Figure 6.5: The Anthropology Museum of Guangxi 195 Figure 6.6: A singing contest in Xiangzhou Town in Baise Prefecture 196 Figure 6.7: A more traditional singing performance at the Ganzhuang Mountain song fair 202 Figure 7.1: A model of the syntactic relationship between the melody and lyrics of fien 214 Figure 7.2: Huang Wenke and me singing at the Ganzhuang Mountain song fair 229 viii NOTES ON ZHUANG ROMANIZATION Romanization of Zhuang terms in this dissertation is done in accordance with the Zhuang Pinyin used in the People’s Republic of China. Since there are several dialects of Zhuang, the spelling of these terms is based on a dictionary of Zhuang dialects published in 1998 (Zhuangyu tongyongci yu fangyan daibiaodian cihui duizhao huibian). I have organized the pronunciation of consonants, vowels, and linguistic tones into three tables below for reference. The consonants and vowels are given with their IPA equivalents. Also, it is important to note that markers of linguistic tones always follow the syllables and words they mark. In a similar manner, the use of the consonant-pairs b/p, d/t, and g/k, while each referencing the same respective consonant, denote different tones that are present in the words that take these consonants as a final. Youjiang Zhuang Consonants ix Youjiang Zhuang Vowels Youjiang Zhuang Tones x CHINESE GEOGRAPHIC TERMS Chinese administrative divisions bring two main issues to the fore when considering geographic locations pertinent to this dissertation. First, place names below the prefecture/autonomous region administrative level often denote both a geographic region with further subdivisions and a specific urban center. Most city names in Guangxi represent both prefectural divisions and specific urban centers. With this in mind, when I use the term “Baise Prefecture,” I will be speaking of the larger administrative division; when I use the term “Baise,” I will only be referring to the city itself. A second aspect of Chinese administrative divisions is that units of equivalent size may still fall into different categories. Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is in the same size category as a province, but has a different relationship with the central government than a province. In a similar manner, districts and counties belong to the same size category (for example, Youjiang District is equivalent in terms of size category to Tianyang County). At the next level down, towns and townships are of the same size category but refer to rural (township) and urban (town) subdivisions.