Tujia folk songs

Hunan
🎧  Listen to Introduction

Tujia music is a kind of folk music with distinctive style and characteristics, which is closely related to lyrics and singing. Its melody, rhythm, mode, singing, lyrics, and backing words are determined by factors such as geographical environment, social production, folk customs, and religious beliefs, and reflect the unique musical style of the Tujia people. Therefore, the author believes that Tujia folk songs, as the intangible cultural heritage of Tujia folk culture, need to be collected, preserved and further studied. Tujia music art style refers to the rough, bold, magnificent, solemn, generous, tragic, simple and rigorous, cheerful and jumping, humorous, lyrical and beautiful musical personality reflected in the melody, rhythm, singing, and performance of Tujia music art from various types of music, and the common and relatively stable artistic characteristics shown in the high degree of unity in content and form. It is a manifestation of Tujia customs, etiquette, folk customs, and national style, and is the life of Tujia music art. Style, as an aesthetic category reflected in the music art of the Tujia people, is perceived by people from the representative characteristics presented in the whole music art. It is the artistic characteristics that are difficult to explain but can be felt, formed by the unity of the subjective mentality characteristics of the Tujia people in singing their folk songs and the characteristics of the material shell that expresses the content and form of their music. As a national music art, its characteristics are gradually formed in the social group of Tujia people in the development of history. In Tujia folk songs, the sound of certain characteristics of the tone is closely related to the local voice tone, but the ability to truly reflect the music style in the aesthetic sense is beyond the reach of language. For example, in the comparison between Hunan and Hubei in the Tujia area, the accent of Lichuan in western Hubei is similar to that of Sichuan, but it is very different from that of western Hunan. There are also similarities and differences in music. The commonality is that they all use the pentatonic scale, while the difference is the difference in the interval in the melody. The lyrics of Tujia folk songs mostly use seven-character sentences, such as: "The evening breeze gently shakes the treetops, the moon quietly rises to the corner of the building, the youngest sister walks out gently, and meets her brother in the golden bamboo forest." Five-character songs are also a unique folk song of the Tujia people, such as: "The man looks out from a high place, the girl washes clothes in the river, the man waves his hand to the girl, the girl looks up in the river, and the mallet hits the stone." The rich and colorful social life determines the diversity of Tujia folk songs. Diverse themes not only become a feature of the style itself, but are also inevitably reflected in the melody as the main body of the musical form, thus playing a vital role in the formation of the Tujia music art style. The supporting words also play an important role in Tujia folk songs. The use of supporting words is relatively extensive and unique, such as "Aiyazuo", "Heyehe", "Aiyoye", "Weiyiyo", "Luo", "Na", "Ma", "Oh", "Ah", "Wow", "Ai", "Luojieer", "Lilandang", etc. These supporting words are limited in meaning as language components, but they have a strong expression effect when combined with the melody. It is also one of the important factors that can affect the style of Tujia folk songs. In this group of Tujia people, the singing of folk songs has its own unique characteristics. It reflects the special connotation of Tujia folk songs with subtle changes in pitch, timbre, strength and duration, and the different use of techniques such as "slip", "lean", "tremble" and "false voice" in singing. It is an artistic means with style marks in singing; at the same time, Tujia folk songs also focus on using long breath to sing a wide range and a large jump and undulating melody. These special singing methods are more controlled by traditional mentality because they do not affect the exchange of information, so they have maintained their original state for a longer time. In the original state of inheritance of Tujia folk songs, not only the lyrics are inherited, but also the unique singing method is inherited as an important component. Therefore, the unique style of Tujia music art is more clearly shown through the singing method of folk songs.

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