FOLK MUSIC OF CHINA, VOL. 16: FOLK SONGS OF THE DONG, GELAO & YAO PEOPLES DONG 19 Song of Offering Tea 敬茶歌 - 1:13 1 The Song of Cicadas in May 五月禅歌 - 3:13 20 A Love Song about Rice Fields 辰时调 - 1:36 2 The World is Full of Love 天地人间充满爱 - 3:02 21 Song of Time 有歌不唱留干啥 - 5:21 3 Settlement of Ancestors 祖公落寨歌 - 2:20 22 Weeding First 薅草排头号 - 4:08 4 Think of My Beau 想情郎 - 2:03 23 Chinese Hwamei Tweeting Happily 5 I Miss You Song 思念歌 - 0:49 on the Mountain 高山画眉叫得乖 - 1:12 6 Cleverer Mind and Nimble Hands 24 A Boy Walks into a Garden 小哥进花园 - 0:49 心灵手巧赛过人 - 1:58 25 Visit My Girl 双探妹 - 1:40 7 In Praise of New Life 歌唱新生活 - 7:02 26 Shuo Fu Si 说伏似 - 1:41 8 The Song of Cicadas in March 三月禅歌 - 3:32 27 A Cowboy Song 放牛调 - 3:59 9 Vine and Tree 滕树情 - 3:06 28 A Mountain-Climbing Tiger 上山虎 10 Duet at the Drum-Tower Excerpts - 1:00 鼓楼对唱选段 - 5:51 YAO 11 A Duo 二人大歌 - 1:15 29 Multipart Folk Song 1 大歌(一) - 0:51 12 Good Days 美好时光 - 1:31 30 Multipart Folk Song 2 大歌(二) - 0:55 13 Frog Song 青蛙歌 - 1:47 31 Multipart Folk Song 3 大歌(三) - 0:56 14 Yellow Withered Leaf 黄叶已枯 - 2:07 32 Multipart Folk Song 4 大歌(四) - 0:52 15 Play Folk Song 玩山歌 - 1:03 33 Multipart Folk Song 5 大歌(五) - 0:45 GELAO 34 Folk Tune 1 小调歌(一) - 0:46 35 Folk Tune 2 小调歌(二) - 0:47 16 Love Song 1 情歌(一) - 0:58 36 Folk Tune 3 小调歌(三) - 0:40 17 Love Song 2 情歌 (二) - 0:59 37 Folk Tune 4 小调歌(四) 18 Red Plum Blossom (work song) - 0:44 桃花溜溜红 (劳动号子) - 3:03 TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 76:59 min. FOLK MUSIC OF THE DONG, GELAO AND YAO PEOPLES The Dong people call themselves Gan or Jin, and more than half of the minority live in Guizhou province in Southwest China. The songs of the Dong in this album were recorded in Qian Autonomous County, located on Guizhou’s southeastern border, neighboring both Hunan and Guangxi provinces. The landscape includes many mountains, waterfalls and rivers. Drum towers are also a prominent feature throughout the county. This is where the Dong come to learn and perform their folk songs. The drum towers are made of wood and are built in the shape of a cedar tree. Each village has a specified number of towers based on how many clans live there, as they each build their own as a monument to their family. In smaller villages, with only one clan, there is just one tower and all of the villagers share the same family name. The location and layout of the villages are based on geomancy; the Dong people mainly believe in the worship of nature, ancestors and spirits. The Dong language, including both northern and southern dialects, is known as a musical language as it has various vocabularies and tones. The written language of the Dong was created using the Latin alphabet in 1958. The majority of the Gelao people live on the Yun-Gui plateau, which is formed of mountainous farming areas, depressions, flatlands, rivers and paddy fields. Most of their work is agricultural based and the women are specialists in textile making and cloth dyeing. The term Gelao first appeared in Chinese medieval books. However, various other self-designations such as Ha ge and Bu Gao are used throughout the different branches, of which there are more than ten. The Gelao write in Chinese; however, they speak a language that has no determined categorization. They mainly worship ancestors and nature, and often practice divination in various ways. The Yao population are dispersed over six different Chinese provinces, among which Guangxi accommodates more than half. The Yao songs on this album were recorded in Libo County of Guizhou, which borders Guangxi province. The minorities, including the Yao, dominate the population of Libo; they mainly live in karst terrain. There are as many as twenty-eight different self-designations of Yao, and other ethnic groups have more than a dozen other names for them too. The Yao language includes three dialects. Their written language, which uses the Latin alphabet, was created in the 1980s. The Yao follow elements of both Daoism and Taoism; their traditional folk beliefs include the worship of nature, sorcery, ancestors and spirits. THE FOLK SONGS OF THE DONG PEOPLE Hundreds of years ago, the musical culture of the Dong was described by the Han as ‘well-developed and delicate’. Due to the various collective choral occasions still held today, singing continues to be an essential social skill, taught by the elders. They use the well-known idiom ‘rice nourishes the body and songs cultivate the heart’. Musical Categories and Features Folk songs, instrumental music, dance music and operas all form the music of the Dong. In addition, the musical styles from the southern and northern dialect areas contain their own features. The southern style tends to maintain more characters of the Dong music, while the northern style entails elements of both Dong and Han influence. The three counties where the Dong songs in this album were recorded mostly belong to the southern dialect area. The folk songs in this area include grand songs, small songs, ballads and costume songs. Grand songs are unaccompanied multi-part choruses sung by either all men, all women or all children, to ensure an equal tone. These songs have a history going back more than two thousand years. The heterophonic grand songs usually employ drones, which play the tonic or mediant note. According to their contents, grand songs are classified into drum tower, sound, children or narrative categories. The drum tower songs are sung for guests in front of the tower, where the Dong villagers hold their public affairs. The lyrics under this sub-category are often about love, as heard on track 10. Narrative grand songs are usually titled after family names and describe the history of the Dong. Track 3 falls into this sub-category. The grand songs of the sound category highlight the beauty of certain sounds and tunes, with melodies often imitating natural sounds such as water and the chirping of cicadas. For example, tracks 1 and 8 both imitate the chirping of cicadas with a series of repeated short notes. Tracks 6 and 13 feature the last sub-category – the grand songs sung by children, which are themed around games or lessons for the children. The small songs of the Dong are monophonic and can be both unaccompanied or accompanied. For example, track 4 uses a Dong lute as an accompaniment and track 9 uses a bowed lute. Track 15 features Wanshan songs, meaning ‘playing at the mountain’, a typical genre of love songs from the northern dialect area. The young people of Dong sing Wanshan songs when they join for a gathering in the mountain. There is a fixed procedure at Wanshan gatherings, according to which the songs are divided into more than ten types. Instruments The Dong people play more than twenty types of instrument, among which the plucked lute, bowed lute and mouth organ are the most popular. The plucked lute is made in three sizes and has either three or four strings. The lutes accompany different genres of folk songs according to their size. The wooden bowed lute, which is shaped similar to an ox leg, is also an accompaniment instrument. Mouth organs play a significant role in celebrations. Here, more than ten organs of different ranges are placed in an ensemble. The sympathetic pipes of the Dong mouth organ create a harmonious effect. THE FOLK SONGS OF THE GELAO PEOPLE Musical Categories and Features Gelao folk music, adopting the Chinese musical system, includes folk songs and instrumental music. The Gelao folk songs are often syllabic and include mountain songs, working songs, wine songs and ritual songs. Love songs are considered a type of mountain song. This is because during the first month of the Chinese lunar year, Gelao girls gather in a cave to learn embroidery while the older women teach them to sing love songs. Tracks 16, 17, 20 and 25 are all love songs. Chants that are sung while working, or songs that describe various working scenes, are called ‘working songs.’ Tracks 18 and 22 are both rhythmic labour chants. Track 19 is an excerpt from San Yaotai, which is a custom of banqueting guests with three steps – tea, alcohol and a meal. Song of Offering Tea is sung while offering friends Gelao tea and various vegetarian snacks. Instruments Like other southwestern minorities, the Gelao people also blow leaves and mouth organs. The most characteristic mouth organs are made of Paulownia. Young people often use them to blow the tunes of folk songs. THE FOLK SONGS OF THE YAO PEOPLE The Yao people have adored singing for hundreds of years, developing various collections of different tunes for numerous ethnic branches. These traditional tunes can be divided into two-voice and monophonic songs. The Yao folk songs on this album come from Libo County in Guizhou, where three branches of the Yao people live. They are all two-voice songs. The harmonic intervals between the two voices are usually a major third, a minor third or a perfect fourth. The Yao people mainly play blown and percussive instruments. Blown instruments are used for both solo pieces and ensembles, and the percussion instruments accompany various dances.