*Cantonese Music

13.*Cantonese Music

Nominating Units: City of Guangzhou and Taishan Municipality, City of Jiangmen

Popular in the Pearl River Delta and Guangfu Area where Cantonese is widely spoken, Cantonese Music, the treasure of Lingnan folk art culture, is a kind of traditional string and bamboo flute music. Characterized by lightness, softness, splendor, exquisiteness, and concentration, it is well received by the public with its melodious Lingnan style, which has a huge influence upon the Chinese communities all over the world.

With a history of over four hundred years, it has gone through the stages of emergence, development and maturity. Now there are over five hundred songs left, among which the most famous ones are Rain Pattering on Plantain Leaves, Thunder in Drought, Regrets of the Lover Stars, Triratna (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha), Bubugao (Life Is Always Better Off), The Autumn Moon over the Placid West Lake, Extolling Good Times with Singing and Dancing and Dragon Boats Racing for the Champion. The band can be formed with different kinds of instruments, among which the most typical one is the “Wu Jia Tou” (also called “the Foshan Percussion Music of hard bows” which are the two-string fiddle, the fiddle, the Chinese trichord san xian, Yu-kin and Hengxiao) and the “San Jia Tou” (Yuehu, Yangqin and Qinqi) in the 1920s and 1930s. Various traditional stringed and woodwind instruments supplement each other harmoniously to fully reveal the exquisiteness and splendor of the Lingnan string and bamboo flute music.

During its long term of development, adopting an opening policy, Cantonese Music selectively assimilated the beneficial elements from the foreign music and other folk art, having formed a unique style of folk music. Featured by a body of prominent composer, performer and some characteristic musical instruments, Cantonese Music is hailed as “the Three Gems of Art in Lingnan” together with Cantonese Opera and Lingnan School of traditional Chinese painting.(https://www.daowen.com)

In foreign countries, where there are people of Chinese nationality, there is Cantonese Music. It serves as an emotional bond between the Chinese people abroad and the people in China, dedicating to the spreading and succession of the excellent traditional Chinese culture.

Taishan Municipality, the famous home to overseas Chinese, is located in the southwest of the Pearl River Delta. With its unique local color and a long history, the “Bayin Ban” (“Eight Civil Musical Instruments Class”) in Taishan is one of the activities of Cantonese Music. In the Ming and the Qing Dynasties, “Bayin Ban” played mainly Buddhist music and folk melody. After the Taiping Revolutionary Movement, “Bayin Ban” underwent a reform and gradually matured by combining musical performance and opera singing. After 1949 when New China was founded, the Cantonese Music activity was incorporated into the Urban and Rural Culture Room and became its major item. Now there are more than 120 Cantonese Music organizations in the whole city, spreading all over the downtown and rural areas.

As the representative of Lingnan culture, Cantonese Music boasts rich cultural connotations, forming a specific system and a unique style after hundreds of years’ development. It is deeply rooted among the folk people of Lingnan, while this splendid cultural gem is even faced with the problem of continuation. Measures are urgently needed to protect the Cantonese Music.

Cantonese Music was selected into the list of the first batch of state-level intangible cultural heritage in 2006.