The suona songs at funerals include four main types:
1, "The Great Funeral", "Ten Kneeling Father/Mother Repeat Grace", "Thousand Sheets of Paper", "Crying Seven Guan", "Su Wu Shepherd", "Fireworks Sigh" and other seasonal tunes.
2, "father", "mother", "long time together", "former destiny", "where has the time gone" and other popular songs.
3, some of the so-called happy funeral (the old man lived past the virtual age of 73 years old, that is, 72 years of age), will also play "pig eight ring back daughter-in-law", "small cattle" and other cheerful tunes.
4, sometimes the suona player should be invited by the onlookers, but also will play its development of the repertoire, such as the "hundred birds to the phoenix", "a branch of flowers" and so on.
Suona
Suona is a Chinese national wind instrument.
The suona has a bright, loud tone and a wooden, conical body, with a brass tube with a whistle at the top end and a brass bell (called a bowl) over the bottom end, hence the common name horn. In Taiwanese folklore it is known as the drum blow; in Guangdong it is also known as the tic-tac? [1]?
The most common suona tunes include "A Hundred Birds in the Phoenix", "All in the Family", "Carrying a Sedan Chair", "Six Characters to Open the Door", "Celebration of the Society", "A Branch of Flowers", "Feng Yang Song Strung on Eight Boards", "Wistfulness of the Countryside", and so on. Mr. Wang Guo-Tong used the "Crying Tune" and "Seven Characters Tune" of Taiwan's local opera "Ge-Zai Opera" as the material for his compositions.
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