Meixian Bamboo Clapper Song

Guangdong
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Bamboo clapper song is a unique flower of Hakka folk art. It is named because it is said that in the old days, storytellers begged on the streets and accompanied by bamboo clappers. At first, it appeared in the form of performing arts from village to village, and later developed into singing in halls and fixed-point rap in cultural parks. After liberation, the cultural department organized artists to process and create art, forming a Hakka cultural art variety. Bamboo clapper song is also called "five-sentence falling board", "five-sentence board", "Jia Sai song", and also called "begging song" and "beggar song". It was renamed "five-sentence board" and "bamboo clapper song" after the founding of the People's Republic of China. The storytellers hold four bamboo boards made of bamboo shoots, each of which is two fingers wide and six inches long, and one of them has saw teeth. It is the main accompaniment tool for five-sentence board rap. Later, Hu Xuan and Qin Qin were added. Each song has five lyrics as a paragraph, and each sentence basically consists of seven words. The singing style is relatively fixed and simple. It has the characteristics of being easy to understand and vivid, with lively and diverse singing forms, wide content, and simple performance. It has always been popular with the masses. Bamboo clapper song is a well-known folk art form in Meixian area. It has a broad mass base, high artistic value and appreciation value. It is a Hakka art that can be entertaining and educational. Bamboo clapper song can be performed by one person or two people, or by multiple people. It can be performed impromptu with four bamboo clappers in hand, without accompaniment, and without venue and time restrictions. It is a very flexible folk art form. It can also be composed into a new song and performed on a big stage, performed by one person or multiple people. The main well-known artists at present are: Tang Mingzhe, Xiao Jianlan, Luo Xiaohong, etc. Among them, Tang Mingzhe is the most representative figure. He is the representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage Meizhou Hakka folk song. He has characteristics and innovations in the singing of "bamboo clapper song" and has become a genre. He has published 8 monographs on bamboo clapper song and dozens of bamboo clapper song audio-visual products. In 2002, the Chinese Qu Association awarded Tang Mingzhe the title of "Special Contribution Quyi Artist". In 2004, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Culture named him an outstanding folk artist in Guangdong Province. Bamboo clapper song rap has a long history in the Hakka area of Meixian County. Before liberation, there were representative works such as the five-sentence clapper song "The Butterfly Lovers", "Liang Sizhen and Zhao Yulin", and "Blood Palm Print"; in the early days of liberation, there were "There is a Big Girl in the City" and "Eternal Fragrance"; in the 1960s and 1970s, there was the five-sentence clapper rap "New Style in the Mountain Village" which was performed in Beijing; in the 1990s, there was "The Banquet Hosted by the Mountain Wife" which won the National Star Award for Outstanding Program.

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