Background of Longboat Song

The 'Dragon Boat Tune', popularized in Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Hubei Province, was originally called 'Planting Melon Tune', and sung as 'Planting Melon in December': "It's the New Year in the first month (Clothes yo also), and melons are only coming into the garden (Luo ah also) ......", and as it's Since it is popular in Hubei Lichuan (also including Enshi) generation does not have the custom of rowing a dragon boat, so some people ask Enshi Lichuan how there will be a 'dragon boat tune' it? Some researchers have also said that "the Dragon Boat Song cannot be a folk song of the Tujia people in Enshi".

In the second half of 1937 A.D., the then Hubei Provincial Government moved west to Enshi, and some folk art forms of the Jianghan Plain were also spread in Exi, and the "Lotus-picking Boat" gradually flourished in the mountains and the fields, and there were no lilies to pick in the mountains. In 1956, Hubei Provincial Song and Dance Drama Troupe and Wuhan Song and Dance Drama Theater went to West Hubei to collect wind, and wrote down the melody of "Planting Melon Tune", because what they heard was that the local people rowed the "Colorful Dragon Boat". "colorful dragon boat" sung by the local people, the name of the "Dragon Boat tune", since then, that is, moved to the stage of the professional troupe, "Dragon Boat tune" from this hair and can not be recovered, spread to the province, the country and even abroad, has been rated as one of the world's most popular songs. Over the decades, there are solo, duet, chorus, lead chorus, song, dance, dance and other forms of widespread activities in the country as well as many provincial and municipal arts groups on stage, Enshi Prefecture is the hometown of "Longboat Song" proud, both amateur and professional troupes have been enthusiastic about it repeatedly for a variety of literary forms of adaptation and re-creation.

Some scholars study that the melody of "Longboat Song" is beautiful and melodious, and its spinning method is related to the song of "Ba Ren" (ancestor of the Tujia people) in "Song Yu's Question to the King of Chu" during the Western Han Dynasty, which is one of the most typical traditional song characteristics in West Hubei region. This is one of the most typical characteristics of traditional songs in West E region.