Mongolian patriarch tune is a kind of song with a unique singing style, which embodies the characteristics and characteristics of Mongolian nomadic culture, and is closely related to Mongolian language, literature, history, religion, psychology, world view, outlook on life, customs and habits.
After the mainland's guzheng and kunqu opera were included in UNESCO's "Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Mankind" protection project, the Mongolian patriarchal tune was listed as a new masterpiece of Folk Culture of the Chinese nation and recommended by the state to be declared as a "Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Mankind".
The trajectory of the development of folk songs by Mongolian patriarchs
On June 7, 2004, the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and Technology of Mongolia signed the Agreement on jointly declaring the Folk Songs of Mongolian Patriarchs as "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Mankind" in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. The two countries are currently preparing their applications, which will be submitted to UNESCO shortly.
In addition to the joint "application for heritage", China and Mongolia have promised to make a ten-year action plan for Mongolian patriarchal folk songs as soon as possible to take protective measures.
Mongolian folk songs are divided into long tones and short tones, long tones, long words, high pitches, soothing and free, suitable for narrative, and longer than lyricism, expressing the unique affection of the children of the steppe. Long-tuned folk songs are accompanied by a horse's head piano with a more grassland culture. The long tune is generally two lyrics of the upper and lower parts, and the singer plays according to the accumulation of life and the perception of nature, and the rhythm of the singing is different. Most of the long-key lyrics describe grasslands, horses, camels, cattle and sheep, blue skies, white clouds, rivers, lakes, etc.
What is the development trajectory of Mongolian patriarchal folk songs?
★ A generation of singers Hazab
Talking about long tones, we cannot but talk about a generation of singers Hazab, which has become an indisputable fact in the industry.
Born in 1922 in Abaga Banner of the Xilin Gol League in Inner Mongolia, Hazab showed outstanding musical talent from an early age, and at the age of 12, at the age of 12, he won the first place in horse racing and the first place in singing after the Ao Bao in the flag, and became the royal singer of the Mongolian prince at the age of 19.
Morjihu, a famous music master in our region, told reporters that after the establishment of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, under the personal presidency of Comrade Ulanfu, Hazab joined the Xilingol League Cultural and Labor Troupe, and with the help of Teacher Morjihu, he was transferred to the Inner Mongolia Song and Dance Troupe and became a state-level actor.
In 1996, after visiting Hazab, the famous mainland poet Xi Murong was deeply overwhelmed by the Mongolian patriarchal tune he sang, and wrote praises like this: His song crossed the grassland, the clouds in the sky forgot to move, the wind on the ground forgot to breathe; the old man by the stove in the felt room suddenly remembered the past time, the girl who milked the cow on the grass suddenly forgot where she was; all the hearts, all the souls flew up and down in the wilderness with his song, refusing to come back for a long time...
For the long tune, in addition to the generation of singers Hazab, there are many influential at home and abroad. Ke Qinfu, a famous musician in our district, believes that the grassland long tune folk song, as a singing art, began to show a highly developed prosperity as early as the 18th and early 20th centuries. There are almost no Mongolian herders on the steppe who do not sing or do not sing long tunes. He said that good singers will be respected and treated with respect and courtesy, and famous singers will receive special respect and courtesy. Among them, the famous singer Damuting had the honor of recording a song "Ode to the Holy Lord Genghis Khan" in the 1930s, and his high-pitched false voice, Shu Rihai, could easily sing a high note that was unimaginable to ordinary people. The high-pitched singing of contemporary singer Hazab's "Little Yellow Horse" is also amazing. In 1955, the "king of long-tuned songs" Baoyin Deliger won the gold medal at the World Youth Festival with a song "Vast Grassland", dumping world-class music masters and young people from all over the world. One of the judges, the famous Soviet composer Shostakovich, called it a "rare folk soprano." Subsequently, the Mongolian soprano long-form singer Noribbande won the title of "King of Asian Songs" in two consecutive Asian and world competitions. This shows that the Mongolian patriarchal pastoral song has reached a very high level, and it is a vocal art that can compete with the Italian bel canto singing.
Koqinf believes that a high degree of artistry must be accompanied by a high degree of scientificity. In the 1950s and 1960s, Hazab became famous at home and abroad for his "prairie lyrical tenor". At the end of the 1970s, Zamusu, a rare Ordos long-tuned folk singer, shocked the Beijing stage and caused a sensation and amazement in the field of music theory, vocal music and education. Many experts happily praised the "grassland bel canto singing method", and he was invited to give a lecture at the Central Conservatory of Music, the highest music school in China. The famous vocal master Shen Xiang came to the scene to listen to his singing. In the early 1990s, Zamusu, who was more than 80 years old, still sang his voice, fully showing a solid and scientific singing foundation. This fully shows that the art of long-tone singing not only has its unique aesthetic essence and its style, but also has a unique and scientific singing technology.
★ The perfect unity of nature and heart
Listening to a long-tuned pastoral song is like standing on a vast grassland and pouring out the experience to nature. This artistic realm is called "the perfect unity of nature and heart" by many musicologists and singers, while aestheticians call it "the highly free and perfect unity of man and nature". This unique artistic conception and charm of the fusion of scenes, the law of nature, and the unity of heaven and man, in the era of large-scale industry and the serious destruction of the natural ecological environment, highlights the high aesthetic value of mongolian patriarchal folk songs.
It is understood that as long as there is one person leading the long melody and three or five people with a continuous bass tide, it will produce a solemn, huge, brilliant and magnificent momentum; and a horse-headed piano folk solo song "Walking Horses" will have the arrogance of overwhelming the sea. Both can produce a majestic and sublime experience. The exemplary work of the long-tuned pastoral song "The Vast Grassland", the musical language and the structure of the song are concise and concise, the whole song only has two dual music sentence melodies, but it is enthusiastic and unrestrained, achieving the perfect unity of image and artistic conception, man and nature, and also giving people a vast and bold masculine beauty. The ancient feast song "Sixty Beauty" sings sixty beautiful things in a simple song of a single piece. The song lists the grassland land, life and youth, cattle, sheep and horses, migratory birds and geese, sunshine clouds, bright moons and stars, mountain scenery, sea scenery, blooming flowers, clear flowing water, plucked strings, loud songs, parents' kindness, brother's love, the elders' teachings, the peace of the world... This song is simply a textbook of wonderful ideological character and aesthetic education, and the aesthetic value and educational significance are self-evident.
Ke Qinfu, a famous musician in our region, believes that because of this, Mongolian music is becoming more and more loved by the people of all ethnic groups on the mainland, and with amazing artistic charm, it has attracted music students and experts of all nationalities to walk into the grassland and get close to the Mongolian people. Xin Huguang, Du Zhaozhi, Lü Hongjiu, Narisong, etc., many famous musicians are like this, they have learned Mongolian and Mongolian, and even named Mongolians, found Mongolian life partners, and ate Mongolian milk... Wholeheartedly integrate into the Mongolian music culture and even the Mongolian nation, and selflessly dedicate the beautiful youth, life's energy and wisdom to the grassland and the cause of Mongolian music.
★ The historical origin of long-tuned folk songs
"The Shule River, under the Yin Mountain, the sky is like a vault, and the cage covers the four fields." The sky is clear and wild, and the wind blows grass low to see cattle and sheep. This song, which was produced during the Southern and Northern Dynasties of the mainland, depicts the magnificent picture of the northern grasslands in a highly vivid way, and when we are enchanted by the beauty depicted in this poem, we will naturally think of the "song" that accompanies the poem in this "vault".
What is the origin of the Mongolian patriarchal folk song? Li Shixiang, head of the Music Department of the School of Arts of Inner Mongolia University, was the first researcher in my region to publish a monograph on Mongolian patriarchal tunes. For the historical origin of long-tuned folk songs, Li Shixiang believes that from the historical materials currently available and the research results of Mongolian studies, the history of Mongolian music development can be divided into three major historical periods from a macroscopic perspective, namely, the period of mountain and forest hunting music culture, the period of grassland nomadic music culture, and the period of Yinong and pastoral music culture.
Li Shixiang told reporters that before the 7th century AD, the ancestors of the Mongols had been living in the Daxing'anling Mountains and the Erguna River Valley, and the production method was mainly hunting. In the long years of life, the Mongols created their own musical culture rich in hunting characteristics, such as hunting songs and dances, shamanic songs and dances. Generally speaking, the musical style of this period is represented by short tones, and folk songs have the characteristics of short structure, concise tone, clear rhythm, and few words. The overall musical style has narrative and song and dance, and the lyricism is weak, which is also a common feature of human musical art in the primitive period. From the existing data, it can be seen that some Mongolian folk songs that clearly bear the characteristics of the musical culture of this period are still in circulation in the folk, such as "Hunting and Fighting Wisdom Song" and "White Sea Green Dance".
Since the 7th century AD, the Mongols, who live on the banks of the Erguna River in the northeast of the continent, began to move out of the mountains and forests and gradually moved westward onto the Mongolian plateau, gradually becoming stronger while forming a nomadic production mode. In 1206 AD, when genghis Khan, the great historical figure of the Mongol nation, unified the Mongolian tribes in the northern steppe, he announced that the Mongolian nation officially stepped onto the historical stage of the northern steppe, and naturally became the integrator of the northern steppe culture according to the historical trend. After taking over the baton of the northern steppe culture, the Mongols injected fresh blood into it in their own way, added new impetus, and made the northern grassland music culture develop rapidly. With the transformation of hunting production mode to nomadic production mode, the musical style has also evolved from short-key folk songs to long-tuned folk songs, forming a period of steppe nomadic music culture in the history of Mongolian music.
Li Shixiang believes that the phenomenon of music culture in the nomadic period of the grassland is extremely complex, and from the perspective of musical morphology, this period not only retains and develops the short-key music style of the hunting period, but also gradually innovates and forms a long-tone music style. As far as the long-tuned folk songs themselves are concerned, this period has also undergone a long process of inheritance and development from simple to complex, from low to high. Therefore, in the thousand-year history from the 7th century to the 17th century AD, the general trend of the development of Mongolian folk songs can be summarized as follows: based on short-key folk songs, with long-tuned folk songs as innovations, and long-tuned folk songs gradually dominating the period, it is also an important historical period for the formation of the overall mongolian musical culture style.
Li Shixiang said that since about the 18th century (the middle and late Qing Dynasty), with the historical changes and development, the connection between the northern grasslands and the interior of the Central Plains has been further strengthened, and the pace of integration and exchange between various ethnic groups has accelerated. The agriculture-based production methods in the Central Plains also penetrated into some northern grasslands, and cultural exchanges were more frequent. In this historical background, short-key narrative songs and long rap songs have been newly developed, forming a period of Mongolian music culture of agriculture and pastoralism. The characteristics of the musical style of this period can be summarized as follows: short-key folk songs have regained new life and developed rapidly, and long-key folk songs have maintained more mature characteristics.
★ Long tone emotional introverted lyricism
Mongolian long tones, people who are not familiar with the nomadic peoples of the northern steppe, often think that Mongolian music (folk songs) should also be like its external personality, always sonorous and powerful and full of fierce atmosphere. In this regard, Li Shixiang, head of the Music Department of the School of Arts of Inner Mongolia University, believes that this is really a misunderstanding.
Li Shixiang told reporters that mongolian folk have many such proverbs: "Teeth fall out and swallow into the stomach, and broken arms are hidden in sleeves." This introverted personality is reflected in mongolian folk songs and even in the aesthetic concept of the whole art.
For the personality of the nomadic peoples of the northern steppe, they generally have the understanding of "bravery and good fighting, rough and bold", but they rarely understand the other side of their "emotional delicacy, kindness and worry". If the rough and bold is regarded as an external character, then the kindness and worry are the inner character, and this yin and yang just complement each other. This kind of inner character is more expressed in the musical art of the Mongolian nation, so it is not difficult to understand the appearance of Mongolian folk songs of "slow more fast, more and less, more worry and less music", and the formation of the inner lyrical expression of long tune songs also has inevitability.
★ Love is the fundamental theme of the long tone
In a sense, there is no human world without love, much less art. However, due to the different living habits of various ethnic groups, different religious beliefs and differences in living environments, the way of expressing love will naturally not be consistent.
Li Shixiang believes that the living environment of the Mongolian people has always been vast and sparsely populated, coupled with the unique way of life of nomads, so that they have their own thinking about love, and they also have a unique way of expressing love. Therefore, the nature and connotation of this love are reflected in long-tuned folk songs all the time.