Zhuang nationality is famous for its "good songs", while Zhuang township is famous for its "sea of songs". Zhuang people are good at expressing their lives and feelings with folk songs. Zhuang folk songs have a long history. Zhuang people have been singing from Pangu to today, and almost everyone can sing very well, which is close to the point of "speaking with songs". Therefore, the expressions of Zhuang folk songs are simple, natural and true, with strong local flavor, especially short structure, harmonious charm, catchy, easy to remember and spread, which makes Zhuang folk songs have a wide range of themes, rich contents and diverse artistic expressions. From the famous Zhuang historian Huang Xianfan's article Tan, A General History of Zhuang Nationality (co-authored) and Collection of Zhuang Folk Songs (note 1), we can know that ancient Zhuang folk songs include songs of grievances (songs of long-term pains, songs of bitter wives, songs of single pains, songs of lamenting pains, songs of complaining lives, etc. ) and love songs (Sanqu, Suite). Prayer songs, ceremony songs, toast song, welcome songs, farewell songs, lullabies, mourning songs, wedding songs, etc. ), the production of labor songs (farming songs, leisure songs, seasonal songs, solar term song, rain songs, drought songs, etc. ), Panqu (also known as question-and-answer song, meeting song, quiz song, quiz song) is expressed in the form of duet.
Folk Songs of Zhuang Nationality ... are divided into different types. The main Zhuang dialects are called Tan, Tan and Tan, that is, Tan, Sing and Poetry. In addition, there are free-form folk songs. Every Kubinashi has a definite sentence, which can be long or short. Poetry says' Poetry is too white'. It is a long poem telling stories, including people, events and riddles (called "drum-drum essentials" in Zhuang language), such as Ganluo, Emperor Qianlong, Zhu, Mosquito and so on. There are dozens and hundreds of lyrics. There are five words, seven words and nine words in the sentence. The singing method is that the man finishes singing and the woman sings again. If she can't sing or sings wrong, she will be teased by the other party. On the other hand, women sing first. Only experienced folk singers can sing' poems', and novices are afraid to sing. So, when you don't sing, ask the other person if he can sing, instead of singing rashly. This singer is difficult to get along with unless he is smart and sensitive. For example, in "solve riddles on the lanterns", that is, "playing drums", the man sings a few words and says one thing first. For example, if you sing "Screaming at the top of your lungs, you can't attack all night", the receiver will also sing a few words:' mosquito net', which shows that you must be very sensitive. Few people can sing this kind of song today. The second is "singing", in which words and expressions are generally ten or eight sentences, which is less than "poetry". Sentences are limited to seven words, no five words and nine words. The characters or things they sing don't pay attention to their life experiences, but pay attention to their love, just like singing Zhu Yingtai.' Poetry' is about her schooling, and' singing' is about her love with Liang Shanbo. So young men and women love to sing this kind of song, which is very popular. Then there is "poetry", which is different from "poetry" and "singing" The lyrics are limited to three sentences per person, a total of seven sentences. The second sentence is short, and the first and third sentences are long. Men sing three sentences first, and women sing three sentences in turn, which is different from the first two kinds of men singing ten or twenty sentences and women singing again. Poetry is easier to sing than the first two songs, and beginners in some areas sing more and are more popular than' singing'. Zhuang songs are divided into blank and rhyming genres. There are single rhyme, complex sentence without complex sentence, foot rhyme, foot rhyme, waist rhyme and foot rhyme, especially the latter is strange and rare for all kinds of poems. ”(2)
The poems in Zhuang folk songs, that is, long narrative poems, are famous as Bubo, Buluotuo, Song Liao, Song of Magu Lake, Six Mountains and Seven Reaches, and King Mo Yi. Song Liao has a special form of expression. Brother Liao is not a narrative way to tell a complete story, but a pair of young men and women's feelings of joys and sorrows are expressed by lyric duets against the background of the merger of feudal lords and wars. A group of four sentences, asking and answering each other, are independent lyric poems and story poems with a beginning and an end.
When singing Zhuang folk songs, we must abide by the established etiquette norms and not sing indiscriminately. Especially political songs, etiquette songs and love songs, there are traditional rules for singing on any occasion. Love songs, for example, can be sung at wild songs, but not in front of parents at home. In folk songs, we can't sing anything about sacrifices, weddings and funerals. Even different guests are greeted with different welcome songs.
Due to the differences between northern dialect and southern dialect, Zhuang folk songs have different names: Huan, Xi, Jia, Bi and Lun. In the Zhuang area, each district or township has several tones, including a flat tone for narration, a happy tone for expressing cheerful emotions and so on. According to rough statistics, different tunes in different places add up to more than 1000. Although these folk songs are fixed, they can express different thoughts and feelings. The singing methods of folk songs include solo, duet, lead singer and chorus. No matter solo, harmony or polyphony, they are all colorful and have their own characteristics, among which Funing Guichao folk songs, Jingxi Mahe and Hanlong folk songs, Tian Yang Gumeishan folk songs, Mashan folk songs and Huanjiang folk songs are the most famous. The combination of folk melody and lyrics can produce strong appeal in the audience. In addition to one-part strong songs, there are two-part and three-part strong songs. Unique two-part and three-part folk songs, each part revolves around the main theme, sometimes parallel, sometimes cross, high and low contrast, ups and downs, good to listen to. There are about 100 different tunes in Zhuang multi-voice folk songs. Guangxi Zhuang multi-voice folk songs are distributed in more than 30 counties in six regions of Guangxi, especially in Baise, Liuzhou, Hechi and Nanning. The multi-voice folk songs of Zhuang nationality are ideological, deeply rooted in people's hearts, and their artistic forms are mature and perfect. It is a spiritual civilization created by the Zhuang people in their long-term life practice and a peak in the history of Zhuang folk music.
Zhuang people all like singing. It is said that the ancient Zhuang people used folk songs to talk with their ancestor Buluotuo. It is no exaggeration to say that there are folk songs in places where Zhuang people live in compact communities. In the fields, after the night shift, you can always hear melodious folk songs, and various festivals are indispensable. The original ecological folk songs of Zhuang nationality are different from place to place. For example, different counties in a district have different folk songs, such as Gaoliao songs, euphemistic Napo folk songs, Mashan three-part folk songs, Daxin high-pitched folk songs and so on. And most of them are duets. They not only sing at home at ordinary times, but also have regular folk songs, which are called "singing parties" or "singing parties". The date of the song festival is mainly on the third day of the third lunar month. However, it seems that it is customary to form a song fair on the Spring Festival, April 8, Mid-Autumn Festival, wedding, full moon and the completion of new houses, and occasionally even form a temporary song fair on the way to the market. There are two kinds of songs: daytime songs and evening songs. In the wild, Japanese song festivals mainly focus on young people's "song selection". The night songs in the village mainly sing production songs, seasonal songs, vegetable songs and historical songs that impart knowledge and skills in production and life.
The custom of the song fair of Zhuang nationality has a long history. Legend has it that a long time ago, the daughter of an old Zhuang singer was very beautiful and good at singing folk songs. Young men from far and near wanted to propose to her, so the old singer proposed to choose a spouse. Young singers from all over the world come to participate in the competition in order to be selected by old singers and girls. Since then, a regular song contest party-Gewei has been formed. It is said that the Zuojiang rock paintings, represented by Huashan Mountain in Ningming, show the scene of Luo Yue, the ancestor of Zhuang nationality in the pre-Qin period, holding a grand song meeting. China's records about the customs of the Zhuang people's song fair were first seen in the Southern Dynasties, and many of them came from the Zhuang villages in Nanning. According to the records of the Southern Dynasties Liang Dynasty, in Yancheng County (now Binyang area): "Local accent songs." The music history of the Northern Song Dynasty, Taiping Universe, records that Zhuang people "dress up ... get together to write songs." Zhou Qufei wrote in The Generation Beyond the Ridge, Volume 4, Posting the Old: Zhuang people are "full of harmony and sadness, ... all written on a whim and refused to copy them, and many of them are excellent people." The book emphasizes the word "self-writing", which is the characteristic of antithesis. Volume 10 "Flying Camel" contains: "On the third day of the third lunar month, men and women get together and live in a row, tying balls with five colors and throwing them with songs, which is called flying camel. Men and women succeed, women are camels and men are married. " Until today, "March 3rd" is still the biggest festival of Zhuang nationality. The Mid-Autumn Festival on the first day of the first month, March 3rd and other books of Kuang Lu in the Ming Dynasty recorded that men and women "picked flowers and picked up green mountains and rivers" and "sang with the sun". In the Ming Dynasty, Tianshun Jinshi Liu Fu wrote a poem "Believers talk about local customs, write about Cambodia's love for the king" in Nanning, and also mentioned that "men and women sang songs into ceremonies", all of which described the scene of Zhuang's song fair. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were many poems praising the grand occasion of the Zhuang people's song fair: "Kapok flying catkins are the fair period, and the flowers are bright." Men and women enter the market with the same song and listen to who makes new words. "Wuyuan County Picture Book" records: "On the day of answering songs, there were two places in Wuyuan (now Wuming), Hu Xian and Liao Jiang. Every year from the first day of March to the tenth day of March, there are literati up and down the river and in Fiona Fang. The Summary of Guangxi Frontier Defense written before liberation records: "The most meaningful border crossing is Xu Ge. "For example, the folk songs of Wuming have a long history and are very popular in Luwo, Matou, Lu Xiao, Baoqiao, Maling, Wang Qiao and anywhere. March of the lunar calendar is the widest and largest, followed by September, and some are in the first month, July and October. In order to carry forward the national traditional culture, the local people's government has held a Zhuang "March 3rd" song meeting in the county every year since 1985. On the day of the concert, there were crowds of people on Lingshui Lake, Unknown River, Ming Xiu Garden, bazaar, road and hillside, which was simply "singing everywhere", and Zhuangxiang became a sea of songs. So far, scholars and folk singers from Japan, Thailand, the United States, Britain, France and other countries have come to participate in the music festival. Hengxian county fair is also unprecedented. Hengxian County is the gathering place of Luoyue people, Wuhu people, slang people, modern people and Zhuang people in Guangxi history. Throughout the ages, there are customs of "singing" and "singing good songs". The Zhuang people call it "Feng Wei" and the local Han people call it "Gexu". According to incomplete statistics, there are 38 points in Hengzhou, which are distributed in Gewei towns all over the country. Hengxian people work in the fields, and their families talk to each other, and the exits are all songs. Joy, anger, laughter and scolding are all songs. Hengxian Song Festival is mostly held by temples (temple fairs). Among them, the most famous is the Fubo Temple Song Festival at the foot of Wuman Mountain on April 14th of the lunar calendar, with 30,000 to 40,000 people from towns and counties (cities) in Nanning, Yongning, Binyang, Wuming, Qinzhou, Lingshan, Hepu, Pubei and Guigang, and even compatriots who came back from Hong Kong and Macao to attend the temple fair. The popular folk Song Yao in Hengxian County is distributed in 22 towns and villages in the county. Song Yao comes from people or singers, so long as they are interested, they can sing it anytime and anywhere. These songs can be divided into: labor songs, church songs, children's songs, mud belly songs, boat songs, funeral songs and love songs. According to historical records, Tian Yang Ganzhuang Folk Song Club was formed before Sui and Tang Dynasties, and it is the oldest and largest song club in Guangxi. Every year from the seventh day to the ninth day of the third lunar month, more than 100,000 people spontaneously come to Ganzhuang Mountain to sing folk songs in memory of Buluotuo, the ancestor of Zhuang nationality. (The upper right picture shows the scene of local Zhuang people singing love songs with foreigners at the Buluotuo Song Festival in Tian Yang on March 3rd-the picture is taken from the photo center of Pingguo Power Supply News Network) 1985. The People's Government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region designated the "March 3rd Song Festival" as "Guangxi National Art Festival". 1999, Guangxi International Folk Song Art Festival, which evolved from the National Art Festival, was renamed Nanning International Folk Song Art Festival. It is scheduled to be held every year 165438+ 10, sponsored by Nanning Municipal People's Government, and has been held for eight times.
The activities of the Zhuang Song Fair are rich in content. In addition to singing and answering questions, there are also wonderful ethnic activities such as throwing hydrangeas, touching eggs, grabbing fireworks, hitting poles, singing case-solving, Zhuang opera, tea-picking and so on. In Yongning County, there is also a popular ball-returning song meeting, that is, one village sends colored balls to another village, greets each other with ball-returning, and holds a folk song competition in due course. If the returning party can't sing, the colored ball won't come, and it will wait until next year. This incident was recorded in the Song Dynasty. Song Hui spread to modern times, increasing economic activities such as buying and selling business, and playing basketball, running and other sports.
The social functions of the Song Club of Zhuang nationality are various. But in history, young men and women have always chosen marriage mainly through public singing. Every song fair day, young men and women will dress up and come to the song fair in groups of three or five to show their talents, express their feelings, exchange ideas and find their Mr. Right. In the concert, duet is the main activity. Duets are one-on-one. When a young man and a young woman sang a duet, friends from both sides were around to help, and even the singer was there to give advice. The procedure of duet is very complicated and strict. Generally speaking, from the first acquaintance to the initial determination of love relationship, there are several stages of duet: song introduction, song of first meeting, song of big talk, song of first love, song of making friends, song of making love, song of giving gifts, song of farewell and so on. Each link is relatively independent, interlocking and closely linked. The songs in each link are very long and rich, and good singers can sing for days and nights. Therefore, the vast Zhuang township is called "the ocean of songs". It is called "the land full of keys" by the poet. Many famous singers have emerged in history, such as Liu Sanjie and Huang Sandi, who are called "Song Fairy" and "King of Songs".
Generally speaking, Zhuang folk songs have the following artistic forms and characteristics:
1. Zhuang songs have memorable and thrilling metaphors, which are more beautiful than Xing. One of the characteristics of Zhuang people is to express their thoughts and feelings tactfully, which is obviously different from the naked expression of westerners. This may be the reason why metaphors are widely used in Zhuang songs.
2. Zhuang songs have the characteristics of one chapter. Although the ancients used the allusions of "two sentences won in three years, one song shed tears", "one word won, and several words had to be broken" and "scrutiny" to illustrate the hardships of poetry creation, Cao Zhi was also a sensitive talent with "faster auto" and made his famous poems in seven steps. Therefore, it is not surprising that Zhuang singers usually talk eloquently, and they don't repeat their amazing singing skills for days and nights. Quick thinking and agility, even faster than Cao Zhi's "seven steps into a poem". The mouth of a strong man is almost the source of folk songs!
3. Zhuang songs have neat, rigorous and catchy rhetoric and beautiful phonology. As Huang Xianfan, a famous historian, clearly pointed out: "Zhuang's poems are best at metaphor and vividness, and can greatly touch singers and listeners." Therefore, in the Qing Dynasty, Min narrated: "Zhuang people were born in the deep mountains ...' Their songs and words are all local sounds, rhyming naturally, being able to translate and understand the meaning, and using words almost skillfully." "("Yuexi Bishu "cited" Yuexi Accidental Biography ") (3)
Note: 1: information of Zhuang folk songs, edited by Zhuang literature and history editing room of Guangxi Science and Technology Commission, June 65438+July 0959.
Note 2: Quoted from Huang Xianfan: Talking about Children's Songs, published in Guangxi Daily (1957 February 10).
Note 3: Quoted from Huang Xianfan: Talking about Children's Songs, published in Guangxi Daily1February 957 10).