*Chaozhou Music

14.*Chaozhou Music

Nominating Units: City of Chaozhou and Chaoyang District, City of Shantou

Chaozhou Music is the general term for the music played by various folk musical instruments, prevalent mainly in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, and also popular in South Fujian, East Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Southeastern Asian countries and in areas where Chaozhou people live. City of Chaozhou is the birthplace and center of Chaozhou Music whose origin can be traced back to the Tang and the Song Dynasties and which matured in the Ming and the Qing Dynasties.

Chaozhou Music, beginning with the local folk music, dance and canzonet, formed its own system coexisting with and accommodating to the elements of Yiyang melody, Hebei Opera, Shaanxi Opera, Han Opera, Fa Qu and Dao Diao. With its great varieties, it can be generally divided into two groups, the music played in the public square and that inside a room. The former includes music played with big gongs and drums of Chaozhou, Waijiang Luoguyue, Chaozhou Xiaoluogu, Chaozhou Huayinluogu and Chaozhou Bayinluogu. The latter includes Ditao Acient Music (played mainly with flute, wind musical instrument, sheng and xiao), Chaozhou lyric string music, Chaozhou Xiyue (music played by Chinese trichord san xian, Pipa and Guzheng) and Chaozhou Temple Music. Chaozhou Music is able to express not only the serenity of small bridges and fl owing water but also the magnifi cence of an epic. The “Ersipu”, an ancient music score, is typical of Chaozhou Music whose unique charm is embodied by the score’s distinct note system, with the two notes, “si” and “fa”, played alternatively in a flexible way. Meanwhile, the system is also responsible for the various scale degrees such as Qingliu, Zhongliu, Huowu and Fanxian as well as the full display of the two techniques, rhyme and improvisationally adding grace notes. There are over 20 kinds of instruments commonly used while playing Chaozhou Music, among which the ones with the typical local color are er xian, suona and Shenbo. The representative melodies of Chaozhou Music are Fishing by Casting Net, Two Fighting Goose (played with big gongs and drums), Zhao Jun’s Regret, Xiao Taohong (played with Chinese trichord san xian, Pipa and Guzheng) and Yan Denglou (played with Suluogu). The instrument combination, performing techniques, musical forms and variation of Chaozhou Music all have their own rules and aesthetic basis, which together form a precious cultural heritage.

In the late years of the Song Dynasty, a court music player, a eunuch named Wu Bing (who styled himself Ru Guang with his ancestral home in Jiangxi), arrived in Chaozhou with the army. After the fall of the Song Dynasty, Wu settled down in Miancheng, Chaoyang. Since then, the seeds of court music were sowed in the land of Chaoyang, and after musical workers of various dynasties enriched and developed the music, it finally evolved into Chaoyang Ditao Music with elegance and primitive simplicity as well as fullbodied local color.(https://www.daowen.com)

According to its manifestation, Chaoyang Music can be classified into two forms, Ditao Music (played mainly with flute, wind musical instrument, sheng and xiao) and Ditao Luogu (played with gongs and drums). Ditao Music includes Ditao Ancient Music (the traditional Ditao Music) and the evolved Ditao Music. Ditao Ancient Music, characterized by elegance with primitive simplicity, gravity and subtleness, is full of Chinese traditional flavor. It keeps the flavor of ancient court music from the musical form to the melody. Ditao Luogu includes Ditao Xiaoluogu (Ditao Music accompanied by lovely sporadic hits of gongs and drums), Ditao Daluogu (Ditao Music mixed with music played by large percussion instruments of Chinese Base Drum, Douluo and Daba) and Ditao Suluogu (Ditao Music accompanied by Suluogu, mostly a combination of Sugu, Zhegu and bass Suluo).

Chaoyang Ditao Music has something in common with Ditao Music in other places: they both belong to the music of cyclical form. Chaoyang Ditao Music is mainly played with flute, wind musical instrument, sheng and xiao, organically accompanied by san xian, Pipa, Guzheng as well as some other string instruments and plucked strings. However, Chaoyang Ditao Music has its specific characters, with the music different from other places from the way of blowing Dadi to the timbre, which constitutes its local feature——the music with “Chaoyang flavor”. As to the way of blowing, Chaoyang Ditao Music adopts the traditional way (the court way), called “Fengtoufengweizhi”, with Daluogudi (flute with 28 nodes) as the leading musical instrument.

Due to historical and economic reasons, Chaozhou Music, whose development and spread has been invariably restricted by the loss of historical information and aging of artists, is on the wane. Thus related organizations and departments should further improve the protection of the Music.

The items of Chaozhou Music nominated by City of Chaozhou and the Chaoyang Ditao Music nominated by City of Shantou were selected into the first list of the State-level Intangible Cultural Heritages in 2006. Besides, Chaozhou Music nominated by City of Shantou was selected into the list of the second batch of province-level intangible cultural heritages in 2008.