Shaanxi folk songs are rich and colorful, its rich local smell and simple style, loved by the people of the whole country, but also enjoys a great reputation in the international arena. Among them, "Journey to Heaven" has won praise for its unique style. The "Journey to the Heaven of Letters" is one of the most representative and rich in local characteristics of northern Shaanxi folk songs. Its contents and tunes are exceptionally rich, its rhythm is generally free and stretching, its voice is high, loud and clear, with a wide range of tones, and its melody has great ups and downs, while others are smooth and euphemistic, and some are bold and straightforward, while others are soft and lyrical, showing a variety of different ideological and emotional feelings and moods. In terms of singing characteristics, one is expressed in the style of mountain songs with straight and high-pitched voices, while the other is expressed in the style of ditties with delicate feelings and euphemistic voices.
Themes of Northern Shaanxi Folk Songs
The folk songs are closely connected with the people's lives, and singing about the Party, the socialist motherland, labor, and a happy life have become the themes of Northern Shaanxi folk songs. Here are some important aspects of the themes of folk songs in northern Shaanxi Province.
(a) labor, created wealth, also created human culture. Therefore, singing about labor is the *** same feature of all folk songs and the prominent theme of all folk songs. Generally speaking, labor songs include two contents. One is the labor song which takes labor life as its theme and expresses labor sentiment. In the old society, this kind of song is often a worker in the heavy labor, sighing the hardship of life and resentment of their own situation, reflecting the antagonistic relationship between the workers and the exploiters. The second is labor songs that sing about labor itself, revealing a simple and healthy rhythm. This kind of song is made up of laborers singing to the beat of labor, with labor calls or all labor sounds. Of these two kinds of songs, the former is richer in content, while the latter is more simple.
(2) Political songs are a barometer of the political attitude of the people. There are war songs and hymns, war songs against the enemy and hymns against me. The second prominent theme reflected in the folk songs of northern Shaanxi is the working people's accusation and resistance against the feudal exploitation system and the landlords' armies, as well as their enthusiastic praises of the Party, the leaders and the revolution. The words of the folk songs are full of the people's sincere love and deep affection for the revolutionary leader.
(3) life songs in northern Shaanxi traditional folk is extremely rich, the subject matter is also broader. There are songs reflecting family life, customs, and songs teaching natural knowledge and production experience. Although these songs are little by little, piece by piece, and even some knowledge, experience is not introduced correctly, but these family life, customs and habits of the song, showing the cheerful character of the people of northern Shaanxi and optimistic mood; these sporadic knowledge, experience for the peasants living in the poor countryside, in the realm of their knowledge or to add something. Folklore is a "textbook of life" and an "oral history textbook".
(4) Love songs are a colorful flower in traditional folk songs and one of the oldest themes in folk songs. The largest number of traditional folk songs in northern Shaanxi Province is said to be the most widely circulated love songs. Love songs, like other kinds of folk songs, are the true reflection of the working people's way of life in love. Among them, there are songs of young men and women's mutual adoration and pursuit, songs that express the correct understanding and desire for love life, and songs of strong resistance to the interference of the ruling class in marriage. Especially the new love songs produced after the revolution, the meaning of "love song" has been newly developed and supplemented. Though it draws on traditional forms, the new morals, new ideas and new feelings expressed in it are more valuable and moving, and many of its works are full of the flavor of the times. The themes expressed in love songs are summarized in the following aspects:
1. Depicting young men and women in love with each other. The mood of attachment, showing the innocent thoughts of young men and women. The emergence and development of love, there is generally a process, so the love songs for the love process of young men and women in the psychological, emotional state of a subtle depiction.
2. They glorify the unswerving and unshakeable love and express the noble ideology and virtue of the laboring people. The pure love of the working people is different from the hypocritical love desired by the feudal class, it is sincere and resolute.
3. It expresses parting sorrow and endless lovesickness. In the long-term feudal society, the vast number of people under the cruel exploitation and oppression of the feudal rule, the peasants without land, farming cattle, life can not go on, forced to leave their homes, foreign places to make a living; or forced to serve in the military service, which set off an unusual wave in the life of love - tearful parting, parting each other fondly in remembrance of each other. In order to seek spiritual support, to dispel this kind of parting sorrow, to express endless longing, they have produced many sorrowful, lingering and mournful ditties. In the traditional folk songs of northern Shaanxi Province, these ditties are true to their meaning, and are most capable of plucking people's heartstrings.
4, showing women's strong resistance to the evil feudal marriage system. Maintaining the feudal system against the rule of feudal rites, are slavery women, stifle love, destroyed generations of young men and women, resulting in a variety of tragedies. But the hearts of the wounded are still trembling in the boiling chest after all. In full of blood and tears in the lust, not only is not all the lamentation, there are stubborn angry cry, that is, when young men and women's love is blocked, destroyed or bear the pain of feudal marriage, he or she dares to use the greatest vigor against the feudal society in all the persecution of love of the evil forces and creed.
5. To show the new type of women's new spiritual outlook and lofty state of mind. Shaanbei due to the stormy land and labor revolution of the baptism of battle, the proletariat ideology is increasingly deep, young men and women's ideological awareness has never been higher, so he (she) love is also integrated into the vigorous revolutionary movement, produced a lot of new breath, new content, new style of the new love songs, education of the masses, and promote the forward development of the revolutionary movement. Some folk songs also sing the moving scene of women resolutely out of the family, the husband and wife of the revolution, to break into the world.
In short, the love songs in the traditional folk songs of northern Shaanxi, the content is extremely rich. These beautiful and timeless traditional folk songs are yesterday, the day before yesterday, the sons and daughters of the northern Shaanxi plateau with a heart of hot, dipped in honey and bitter juice made. It expressed a strong anti-feudal oppression, the theme of freedom and liberation, not only in the historical conditions of the time has a distinct people, is in the feudal thinking, the remnants of the feudal marriage system has not yet been purged of the influence of thought, today, still has a realistic educational significance. Many lovely sagas and stories, revealing a lot of brave, beautiful souls, is still widely circulated, cultivating the children of northern Shaanxi Province, women's sentiments and style.
The genre of northern Shaanxi folk songs
Northern Shaanxi folk songs and folk songs around the same, is also a variety of genres, tunes.
The folk songs of northern Shaanxi are divided into three categories, namely, the labor horn, the letter of the day, and the ditty. Labor songs include rammer songs, ram-raping songs, quarrying songs, yelling cow songs, playing field songs. Albatross is divided into high and flat. The ditties are divided into passable ditties (lyrical songs, narrative songs, witty songs); social fire songs (rice-planting songs, boat songs, lamp songs); customary songs (welcoming songs, wine songs, praying for rain, the magistrate's tune); silk and string ditties (Yulin ditties, two-people Taiwan, Daoxiang, bowls cavity); large-scale suites (Luochuan suites, the trial record),
These self-contained genres and their own characteristics of the folk songs, are reflected in all aspects of social life, singing the people of Northern Shaanxi, and the people of Shaanxi. Singing the bitterness and joy of the people of northern Shaanxi, love and hate, and when the social system fundamentally changed, the content and form of folk songs also changed. This change is reflected in the content of the performance of new social life and new characters, but also make the various genres have a new meaning. The following is an introduction to the classification of Shaanxi folk songs and the characteristics of various genres.
(I) Labor Horns
1. The Generation of Labor Horns
Labor Horns are folk songs sung by laborers along with labor rhythms. The intense labor movements and heavy physical loads give its singing the characteristics of labor calls - yells and shouts. Therefore, the folk call the labor horn is not called "drink", the north is called "yell horn", the south is called "shouting horn", Sichuan is called "whistle "The labor call is the first of its kind in human society. The labor trumpet is the first form of poetry in human society, and one of the sources of all subsequent poetry.
(2) Xintianyou
Xintianyou belongs to the folk song of the mountain song, is the song of the mountains, therefore, the area of Shenfu also called it "mountain song". It is one of the most distinctive types of folk songs in northern Shaanxi. The largest number, the most tunes, the widest range of content, the most popular with the masses. Therefore, the folk had "believe in the sky tour, not head, broken head of the poor can not solve the sorrow" said.
I. The Circulation of Xintiayou
Xintiayou is most representative of Suide and Mizhi area. * Shanxi Hequ, Inner Mongolia Ikezhaomeng, Ningxia Yanchi and other neighboring areas of the albatross, due to the influence of the mountain song, climbed the ground tone, as well as flowers, a unique flavor. Meanwhile some songs are owned by several local ****s together.
Traditionally, the traditional Xin Tian You mostly expresses women's pain in marriage, love and family life, and their resistance to the bondage of feudalism; it also expresses the bitterness of the long and lonely journey in which the footmen express their hard life and their longing for their loved ones in their hometowns; and it also reflects the working people's yearning for a better life in the future. In order to express these rich thoughts and feelings, the singers often touch the feelings, the object to express their aspirations, improvisation, poetry; so beautiful and melodious songs on the letter of the sky and travel throughout the mountains and villages, so the people called this form of "letter of the sky tour" or "Shun Tianyou Therefore, the people called this form "Xingtianyou" or "Shuntianyou". With the development of the revolutionary situation, Albatross not only expressed the personal joys and sorrows of the laboring people, but also tightly linked with the revolutionary struggle, resulting in countless Albatrosses that glorified the Party, the leaders, the revolution, and the new life. Today, the albatross has become an indispensable form of art for the people of northern Shaanxi to express their feelings in the most direct, simple and beautiful way.
The characteristics of Albatross
①The lyrics of Albatross are characterized by a two-sentence structure. Since its words are words of sound and subject to the strict limitations of musical phrases, it has formed a stable form of two sentences and one stanza. It uses pi xing as a means of image thinking to select life and refine artistic images that harmonize and unify content and form. This is the "soliciting objects and supporting feelings" or "touching feelings". These two traditional methods of expression in the long-term development of albatross, has become its own fine tradition, it is generally the first sentence of the rise, than, the next sentence point. The use of comparison is natural, skillful and appropriate. The sentences are diversified, the rhythm is distinctive, and the rhyme scheme is flexible and free. It is catchy to read and pleasant to sing. Length can be long or short, two lines can be used as an independent poem, multi-line and multi-paragraph organic combination, can make the short chapter into a continuous long song, performance more rich and complete content.
②Albatross is a lyrical song, as mentioned above, because it is an outdoor song of the mountains, the environment is open, and is not subject to the limitations of the labor movement, so it is characterized by the tune is rugged and unrestrained, melodious and high-pitched, fully embodies the Shaanbei people's bold character. As sung by Albatross, "singing in the empty kiln does not show the sound". Of course, Albatross also has a lingering, gentle, delicate, simple tunes, such as women who miss their lover's tune is mostly so.
③The singing of Albatross is not limited by the tunes. According to the content of the lyrics and the singer's mood, the same song can be sung with different feelings, long or short, fast or slow, and at the same time, each section of the lyrics can be sung with any tune, which means that the tunes of Albatross are not fixed.
Three, Albatross is basically categorized into two types: high cadence and flat cadence.
Free rhythm, wide range, melodic ups and downs, and exuberant feelings, such as:
(1) The river flows in the ditch across the street, and some guerrillas come down from the mountains.
(2) Your mother beat you, you give your brother to say, why you put the foreign cigarettes to drink.
(3) The blossoms on the cliffs are red on the cliffs, and the sufferers are looking forward to a good time.
(4) You're not a genius, why do you wear red shoes in the dewy ground?
Singing the first type, (examples 1 and 2) should use a high voice; singing the second type, (examples 3 and 4) should use a flat voice. Most of the high voice with falsetto, the so-called "sheep's voice back to the sound of the cattle" singing, because the tune is unrestrained, melodious high, coupled with a wide range, jumping big, free rhythm and rich in change, many tunes with unlimited extended tone and mixed beat, thus singing free stretching, emotional exuberance, the flat cavity structure is compact, the rhythm of the more neatly, melodic and relatively smooth.
Xintianyou and Shanxi's "mountain song", Inner Mongolia's "climbing mountain song", all belong to the mountain brother song body, the three are not only in the style, approach and flexibility of tunes, singing style and other characteristics of basically the same outside, in the language approach is also very similar to the place. The three are not only basically the same in terms of style and flexibility of tunes, but also very similar in terms of language techniques. For example, the Song of Faithfulness says, "Fend off the knife of the death-row inmate, and stand on the door of the water-horn mother-in-law." The song of the mountain climbers sings, "The Eunuch of the Ghosts of the Guns and the Ghosts of the Horses, and the Grandmother of the Hanged Ghosts, standing on the door." Another example is the Song of Faithfulness, which says, "The flowers of the cows and oxen are red, and the dewy husband and wife are in vain." And the mountain song says, "Snowflakes hit the wall and ice covers the house, the dewy couple will not last long." The mountain song says, "The ice and snow hit the wall of the house, for the next big girl will not last long." Another example is the song "The blossoming of the petunia cow is slowly reddening, and the blossoming of the petunia cow is not planned for the morning." These sentences are very similar to each other! In fact, this is the inevitable phenomenon of folklore being passed on by word of mouth and the interaction between regions. Although they have the same points or similarities in form, from a careful analysis of the content, language, and use of tunes reflected in the folk songs, it is still possible to identify the significant differences between them. In the case of the Mountain Climbing Song, although it has a wide range of subjects, it is not as rich and complete as the Albatross, especially in the revolutionary folk songs. In the expression of feelings, Albatross is delicate, with gentle and colorful lyrics, while Climbing Mountain Song has far-reaching meanings and a rugged style. In the use of language, each of them has its own customary dialect spoken in the mass areas. For example, in the climbing songs, "Lala Slip", "Drift Whistle", "Lone Whistle", "Hitching Stack" are commonly used, "Trance Scrape", "Strong Strong Price" and so on. Sometimes in order to rhyme or express strong feelings, the end of the sentence using "le", "ah", "la" and other imaginary words. These are not found in Xin Tian You. In addition, both of them use superimposed words, which are more often used in the climbing song, and both of them have distinctive colors and local flavor of their respective places in their tunes, but the names of the tunes of the climbing song are named after the places in the region, which is one of the significant differences between it and Xintiyou in terms of tunes.
(3) Minor Tunes
Minor tunes refer to all kinds of folk songs that are popular in the occasions of rest, recreation and festivals of mass life. If Albatross is the "song of the mountains", then the ditty is the "song of the alleys". The so-called "Songs of the Mountains" means that Albatross, which belongs to the mountain song genre, is a folk song genre that has been passed down and developed in the countryside. The so-called "Songs of the Lane" means that the circulation and development of ditties are more connected with towns and cities, and most of the ditties are transmitted from towns to the countryside.
1. Characteristics of the ditties
1) Rich in content and mixed in essence and coarseness. Due to its wide exposure to different classes and strata in urban and rural areas, coupled with the dissemination of professional artists and the printing of singing books, the ditty promoted more artistic processing, and at the same time brought complexity to the ideological content of the ditty. The main performance is that it not only reflects the life of the peasant class, but also reflects the small craftsmen and other laborers and merchants, the life and consciousness of the public, therefore, the content of the ditty is varied, the essence of the coarse and coarse, both pure and simple and healthy singing, but also with the public greasy, vulgar tunes, lack of the kind of strong local flavor and freshness as the albatross with the tone of the quality. However, it expresses the content and feelings delicately, and is good at expressing feelings through the method of narration.
②The subject matter is varied, wide range of life. The life reflected in the ditty is very wide. It expresses the history of revolutionary struggle and sings about real life; it also recounts historical events, legends or life stories; it reflects various major political and social events; it also reflects games and customs in daily life. Especially in the revolutionary era, literary workers and the masses created many new revolutionary ditties, which played a fighting role in uniting the people, educating them, fighting the enemy and destroying them.
③The lyrics are mostly in the form of sectional openings. There are various types of sentences, including five and seven lines. Each section has four or six sentences, and there are also three or five odd sentences. Some of the lyrics are shorter, and some of them are up to twenty or thirty paragraphs. Generally, the lyrics are fixed and not characterized by improvisation. Singing forms include solo and duet singing, as well as singing in unison or as a group.
4 As the ditties and songs and dances, songs and operas influence each other, thus getting more processing in art. Generally speaking, the rhythm and beat of the minor key is relatively neat, the melody is flowing and flowing, rich and diverse but standardized, the structure is clear and complete with independence, and widely used in the liner notes and cadences, commonly used instrumental accompaniment, and with the introduction, the door and other sets of forms.
2. Classification of ditties
Based on the ideological content of the ditties, singing and use, we divided it into five categories: passable ditties, social fire songs, customary songs, silk-string ditties, and large-scale suites. There are narrative songs, lyrical songs and witty songs in the passable ditties.
Passing ditties
①Narrative songs
Narrative songs, like narrative poems, are based on writing about people and events. It has a relatively complete story and distinctive characters, but does not give specific and detailed depictions.
The narrative of a narrative song is usually based on narration, which means that the singers use the third person to sing about people and events. Sometimes they combine narration and endorsement, using the first person to replace the singing of the characters in the work. Comrade He Qifang once said in Talking about Writing Poetry, "Narrative poetry is not telling a story, but singing a story." The so-called singing story means that in the narrative song, not only the story is narrated, but also the emotion is expressed. But this "love" must be combined with the character and the progress of the story. In the narrative in the lyric, in the lyric in the narrative, so that the narrative and lyric well combined. Xie said, "Narrative is the mother of sentiment, but sentiment is the untamed son of sentiment." This sentence has two meanings, one is that lyricism can not be vague, the second is that the narrative should be simple, lyricism should be complex. That is to say, lyricism must be based on the narrative, the feelings expressed are dripping, refreshing, its words out of the mouth, no softly pretentious attitude to enhance the characteristics of the narrative.
Narrative songs are usually sung in a single tune over and over again, and most of the narrative songs written by professional authors are in the form of through-score songs, seldom in the form of sectional songs.
②Lyric Song
There are many narrative songs in the minor key, but most of them are short lyric songs. It is the poet-singer due to the objective things caused by a variety of feelings, such as love for the motherland, leader, hometown, relatives and all the beautiful things, the enemy and all kinds of ugly things hate, as well as love between men and women, friendship, etc. Joy, pain, sadness, nostalgia, expectations, etc. feelings of the true expression, it is not like the process of narrative poetry detailed account of the events of life, do not describe the characters in specific terms, general There is no plot, but to express their feelings, or to express their feelings through the scenery.
③Witty Songs
Witty Songs are songs that make people laugh with witty strokes. Generally with vivid plot description, humor, lively and cheerful, can give people unlimited fun and interest. It can praise the advanced and beautiful things, express the optimism of the working people's witty and humorous character, and also satirize and ridicule the ugly and corrupt things.
In addition, some of the works in the ditty, the subject matter, the content is basically the same, but there are different kinds of tunes or the same tune but there are a few different subject matter and content of the lyrics. This kind of variation is one of the important features of oral composition.
One of the reasons for this phenomenon of variation is that folk songs are passed on orally among the working masses, and there is no material form to fix them, or the singers change them intentionally or unintentionally according to their own interests and hobbies, so that a song is often changed at different times and in different spaces. The second reason for this phenomenon of variation is the interaction between regions.