Chaozhou xianshi
Encyclopedia
Teochew sring music or Chaozhou xianshi ( also called "string-poem music") is classed as a type of sizhu music (chamber music for strings and woodwind, literally "silk/bamboo") although it typically uses stringed instruments only. It is found in northeastern Guangdong
and parts of Fujian
and also in regions with overseas Teochew populations
, such as Singapore, Thailand, and the United States. The Chaoshan
region of Guangdong, bordering on Fujian and comprising the cities of Chaozhou
, Shantou
and Jieyang
, forms its own cultural sphere. Teahouses often accompany with Chaozhou music.
, ancient melodies and pieces of Buddhist music
, string music falls into two styles: Rujia yue（儒家乐） is music of the Confucian school that can be performed as an independent instrumental music genre or at weddings and other ceremonies and that aims at elegance and nobility, while Pengding yue（棚顶乐） is principally the music of the theatre, though it may be played independently: it cultivates a sober, rustic style.
（二弦） or touxian (头弦) the lead instrument in the Hakka
style, shorter and higher-pitched than the erxian), the tihu
(of lower pitch than the zixian, adapted from the Cantonese gaohu
) and the big and small yehu
(coconut shell body), as well as several types of plucked lutes: the pipa
, large and small sanxian
(a fretless bass instrument like the shamisen
), qinqin
(four-stringed with short, fretted neck and round body), ruan (four-stringed with long, fretted neck and round body) and meihuaqin. Other than this, the zheng (zither) and yangqin
(a hammered dulcimer thought to derive from the Iranian santur
) are played as well as percussion instruments: a hand-held wooden clapper (muban), a pair of "temple" blocks (daban and fuban) that mark the beat, and a small drum (zhegu). Cello
is sometimes also used, particularly in the style performed in the area of Shantou
.
The form of each of these pieces resembles a suite (taoqu) of variations
upon a stock melody (qupai
or "noted tune"). These are called ban or "beat" variations and follow an ordered sequence with changes of tempo and measure (most pieces have six or eight beat measures). Augmentation
and diminution
of the melody is used, so that it may repeatedly double in speed through the variations. The technique of cui introduces a division-like
filling in of the melody with figures
such as repeated notes and neighbouring or passing notes. Perfect-fourth transposition of the melody (fan) also occurs, though the tonal centre remains constant.
Four or five main modes
(diao) are traditionally identified. However, while elsewhere in China such modes are mainly defined by absolute pitch and by the degree of the pentatonic scale that is taken as the key
-note (thus setting the intervals
of the scale), the xianshi conception of mode, rather like the Indian raga
system, includes motif
, ornament
and intonation. Pitch is not absolute but the scale is usually constructed on a key-note approximating to western concert F - F#. Modes are pentatonic but all derive from a seven-note scale: no notice is taken of the starting and finishing tones of the melody in determining the mode and the key-note remains the same in every mode. Tunes may be adapted to a new mode, but the mode remains constant throughout any performance of the suite.
Apart from the major pentatonic scale two further tones, corresponding to a (sharp) perfect fourth and a (flat) major seventh, are employed. The "missing" steps of the scale in each mode may be used in ornament but are not part of main mode structure. The mode qingsan qingliu ("Light III Light VI") is the standard major pentatonic. But qingsan zhongliu ("Light III Heavy VI") calls for a heavy string-pressure upon the sixth degree, raising it to the seventh. Zhongsan zhongliu ("Heavy III Heavy VI"), similarly, applies this upward string-bend to the third degree as well, raising it to the fourth. The fourth common scale, called Huowu ("Live V"), resembles this last but avoids the plain third degree and instead uses a heavy vibrato on the second degree. This is said to be the most characteristic mode of the region.
Chaozhou drum music includes the big drum and gong, the small drum and gong, the dizi set drum and dong and su drum and gong ensembles. The current Chaozhou drum music is said to be similar to the form of the Drum and Wind Music of the Han and Tang Dynasties.
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
and parts of Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
and also in regions with overseas Teochew populations
Teochew people
The Chaozhou people are Han people, native to the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province of China who speak the Teochew dialect. Today, most Teochew people live outside China in Southeast Asia especially in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. They can also be found almost anywhere in the...
, such as Singapore, Thailand, and the United States. The Chaoshan
Chaoshan
Cháoshàn refers to the linguistic and cultural region in the east of Guangdong, a southeastern province of China. This region is the origin of the Min Nan dialect Teochew. The area is known as Teochew for most people overseas, although it also consists of the cities of Shantou and Jieyang...
region of Guangdong, bordering on Fujian and comprising the cities of Chaozhou
Chaozhou
Chaozhou is a city in eastern Guangdong province of the People's Republic of China. It borders Shantou to the south, Jieyang to the southwest, Meizhou to the northwest, the province of Fujian to the east, and the South China Sea to the southeast...
, Shantou
Shantou
Shantou , historically known as Swatow or Suátao, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern coast of Guangdong province, People's Republic of China, with a total population of 5,391,028 as of 2010 and an administrative area of...
and Jieyang
Jieyang
Jieyang is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province, People's Republic of China. It borders Shantou to the east, Chaozhou to the northeast, Meizhou to the north, Shanwei to the west, and looks out to the South China Sea to the south.-Administration:...
, forms its own cultural sphere. Teahouses often accompany with Chaozhou music.
History
Developed from a fusion of elements, popular song, arias of Chinese operaChinese opera
Chinese opera is a popular form of drama and musical theatre in China with roots going back as far as the third century CE...
, ancient melodies and pieces of Buddhist music
Buddhist music
Buddhist music is music created for or inspired by Buddhism and part of Buddhist art.-Honkyoku:Honkyoku are the pieces of shakuhachi or hocchiku music played by wandering Japanese Zen monks called Komuso. Komuso played honkyoku for enlightenment and alms as early as the 13th century...
, string music falls into two styles: Rujia yue（儒家乐） is music of the Confucian school that can be performed as an independent instrumental music genre or at weddings and other ceremonies and that aims at elegance and nobility, while Pengding yue（棚顶乐） is principally the music of the theatre, though it may be played independently: it cultivates a sober, rustic style.
Instruments
The instruments most commonly employed include several varieties of two-stringed bowed lutes; the zixian (字弦) erxianErxian
The erxian is a Chinese bowed string instrument in the huqin family of instruments. It has two strings and is used primarily in Cantonese music, most often in "hard string" chamber ensembles...
（二弦） or touxian (头弦) the lead instrument in the Hakka
Hakka
The Hakka , sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and have links to the provincial areas of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Fujian in China....
style, shorter and higher-pitched than the erxian), the tihu
Tihu (instrument)
The tihu is a two-stringed bowed vertical fiddle in the huqin family, used in Chaozhou xianshi music of the Chaozhou people. It is an adaptation of the gaohu used in Cantonese music. It has a tubular hardwood body that is covered on the playing end with python skin...
(of lower pitch than the zixian, adapted from the Cantonese gaohu
Gaohu
The gaohu is a Chinese bowed string instrument developed from the erhu in the 1920s by the musician and composer Lü Wencheng and used in Cantonese music and Cantonese opera...
) and the big and small yehu
Yehu
The instrument comes in various sizes. In Chaozhou music it is a leading instrument, and is tuned quite high. In Cantonese music it can be quite large and is often tuned to a relatively low pitch, lower than the erhu...
(coconut shell body), as well as several types of plucked lutes: the pipa
Pipa
The pipa is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments . Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12–26...
, large and small sanxian
Sanxian
The sanxian is a Chinese lute — a three-stringed fretless plucked musical instrument. It has a long fingerboard, and the body is traditionally made from snakeskin stretched over a rounded rectangular resonator. It is made in several sizes for different purposes and in the late 20th century a...
(a fretless bass instrument like the shamisen
Shamisen
The , also called is a three-stringed, Japanese musical instrument played with a plectrum called a bachi. The Japanese pronunciation is usually "shamisen" but sometimes "jamisen" when used as a suffix . -Construction:The shamisen is a plucked stringed instrument...
), qinqin
Qinqin
The qinqin is a plucked Chinese lute. It was originally manufactured with a wooden body, a slender fretted neck, and three strings. Its body can be either round, hexagonal , or octagonal. Often, only two strings were used, as in certain regional silk-and-bamboo ensembles...
(four-stringed with short, fretted neck and round body), ruan (four-stringed with long, fretted neck and round body) and meihuaqin. Other than this, the zheng (zither) and yangqin
Yangqin
The trapezoidal yangqin is a Chinese hammered dulcimer, originally from Middle East and Persia . It used to be written with the characters 洋琴 , but over time the first character changed to 揚 , which means "acclaimed". It is also spelled yang quin or yang ch'in...
(a hammered dulcimer thought to derive from the Iranian santur
Santur
The santur is a Persian hammered dulcimerIt is a trapezoid-shaped box often made of walnut or different exotic woods. The Persian classical santur has 72 strings. The name santur was first referenced in ancient Persian poetry...
) are played as well as percussion instruments: a hand-held wooden clapper (muban), a pair of "temple" blocks (daban and fuban) that mark the beat, and a small drum (zhegu). Cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
is sometimes also used, particularly in the style performed in the area of Shantou
Shantou
Shantou , historically known as Swatow or Suátao, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern coast of Guangdong province, People's Republic of China, with a total population of 5,391,028 as of 2010 and an administrative area of...
.
Characteristics
The ten characteristic compositions of xianshi yue are- Zhaojun Yuan (昭君怨, Grief of Wang Zhaojun)
- Xiaotaohong (小桃红)
- Hanya Xishui (寒鸦溪水, Jackdaws Play in the Water)
- Huangli Ci (黄鹂词, The Oriole's Cry)
- Yue'er Gao (月儿高, High Moon)
- Dababan (大八板, Great Eight Beats)
- Pingsha Luoyan (平沙落雁, Flock of Geese on the Shore)
- Fengqiuhuang (凤求凰, The Male Phoenix Seeks the Female)
- Wulianhuan (Five Knots of the Chain)
- Jinshang Tianhua (锦上添花, Adding Flowers upon Brocade)
The form of each of these pieces resembles a suite (taoqu) of variations
Variation (music)
In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...
upon a stock melody (qupai
Qupai
A qupai is the generic term for a fixed melody used in traditional Chinese music. The literal meaning is "named tune," "labeled melody," "titled tune," or "titled song". Qupai are relatively brief, most comprising between 20 and 70 measures in 2/4 meter...
or "noted tune"). These are called ban or "beat" variations and follow an ordered sequence with changes of tempo and measure (most pieces have six or eight beat measures). Augmentation
Augmentation (music)
In Western music and music theory, the word augmentation has three distinct meanings. Augmentation is a compositional device where a melody, theme or motif is presented in longer note-values than were previously used...
and diminution
Diminution
In Western music and music theory, diminution has four distinct meanings. Diminution may be a form of embellishment in which a long note is divided into a series of shorter, usually melodic, values...
of the melody is used, so that it may repeatedly double in speed through the variations. The technique of cui introduces a division-like
Division (music)
Division in music refers to a type of ornamentation or variation common in 16th and 17th century music in which each note of a melodic line is "divided" into several shorter, faster-moving notes, often by a rhythmic repetition of a simple musical device such as the trill, turn or cambiata on each...
filling in of the melody with figures
Figure (music)
A musical figure is the shortest idea in music, a short succession of notes, often recurring. It may have melodic pitch, harmonic progression and rhythmic . The 1964 Grove's Dictionary defines the figure as "the exact counterpart of the German 'motiv' and the French 'motif'": it produces a "single...
such as repeated notes and neighbouring or passing notes. Perfect-fourth transposition of the melody (fan) also occurs, though the tonal centre remains constant.
Four or five main modes
Musical mode
In the theory of Western music since the ninth century, mode generally refers to a type of scale. This usage, still the most common in recent years, reflects a tradition dating to the middle ages, itself inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music.The word encompasses several additional...
(diao) are traditionally identified. However, while elsewhere in China such modes are mainly defined by absolute pitch and by the degree of the pentatonic scale that is taken as the key
Key (music)
In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...
-note (thus setting the intervals
Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...
of the scale), the xianshi conception of mode, rather like the Indian raga
Raga
A raga is one of the melodic modes used in Indian classical music.It is a series of five or more musical notes upon which a melody is made...
system, includes motif
Motif (music)
In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....
, ornament
Ornament (music)
In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody , but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note...
and intonation. Pitch is not absolute but the scale is usually constructed on a key-note approximating to western concert F - F#. Modes are pentatonic but all derive from a seven-note scale: no notice is taken of the starting and finishing tones of the melody in determining the mode and the key-note remains the same in every mode. Tunes may be adapted to a new mode, but the mode remains constant throughout any performance of the suite.
Apart from the major pentatonic scale two further tones, corresponding to a (sharp) perfect fourth and a (flat) major seventh, are employed. The "missing" steps of the scale in each mode may be used in ornament but are not part of main mode structure. The mode qingsan qingliu ("Light III Light VI") is the standard major pentatonic. But qingsan zhongliu ("Light III Heavy VI") calls for a heavy string-pressure upon the sixth degree, raising it to the seventh. Zhongsan zhongliu ("Heavy III Heavy VI"), similarly, applies this upward string-bend to the third degree as well, raising it to the fourth. The fourth common scale, called Huowu ("Live V"), resembles this last but avoids the plain third degree and instead uses a heavy vibrato on the second degree. This is said to be the most characteristic mode of the region.
Chaozhou drum music includes the big drum and gong, the small drum and gong, the dizi set drum and dong and su drum and gong ensembles. The current Chaozhou drum music is said to be similar to the form of the Drum and Wind Music of the Han and Tang Dynasties.