Based on the language used, Tujia folk songs are categorized into Chinese songs and Tujia songs.
There are a larger number of Chinese folk songs, including such categories as ditties, mountain songs, bugles, lamp tunes, weed-gathering and gong songs, weeping songs, and funeral drums. These types of folk songs are closer to the local Chinese folk songs in terms of musical form and style.
Tujia folk songs are fewer in number, mainly circulating in Longshan, Baojing, Yongshun and Laifeng counties in the western border of Hunan and Hubei, including mountain songs, love songs, shaking children's songs, dongtong quinquing songs, and tema sacred songs. The Tujia language folk songs are quite different from the local Han folk songs, showing the inherent characteristics of Tujia traditional music. Due to the small number of Tujia-language folk songs remaining, and the reality that the Tujia's own musical culture has been diluted in the long and close exchange with the Han, this part of the folk songs shows a high academic value.
The Tujia folk songs have a relatively neat structure, with the melody in a pentatonic scale, sparse and dense rhythms, and long tones at the end of the lines, mostly consisting of four phrases in a single section, in a pure and simple style.
Tima Divine Song
The structure of the Tujia love song is more regular, using the unique pentatonic scale of [LaSiReMiSol] with two minor triads. Due to the more frequent use of large jump intervals, the style of the song is high-pitched and enthusiastic.
The "Blowing Wooden Leaves Song" is also a kind of mountain song, the content of which is mostly love songs. When the young men and women of the Tujia family interact with each other, they take a leaf with their hands, and then they can blow out a beautiful melody. When a young Tujia man or woman takes a leaf in their hands, they can blow out a beautiful melody. When they put down the leaf, they can sing a song out of it, which is a specific kind of folk song. The "Wood Leaf Blowing Songs" are mainly found in the Tujia settlement in Laifeng County, Southwest Hubei Province. The melody is in [LaDoRe] three tones, with the core tone being LaDo and the ornamental upward slide extending to Mi, and the style of the song is very simple and rustic. This may be a remnant of an ancient musical form of the Tujia people.
Another song, "Blowing Wooden Leaves Song," has a very strange tune, perhaps a shadow of an even older form of native Tujia folk song.
The Crying Marriage Song is a customary song of the Tujia, which can also be regarded as a special kind of love song. On the eve of her marriage, a Tujia girl invites her female friends and relatives to sit together and recount the joys and sorrows of the past, and envision the beauty and worries of the future, and sings a song with a melodious and poignant melody, and a soothing rhythm and inner tension, which is very touching!
The rhythm of the Tujia children's songs is soothing, the melody rises and falls steadily, and the style of the songs is closer to the folk songs of the Yi branch of the ethnic groups.
Dongdangquan tunes were originally tunes for the dongdangquan, a bamboo wind instrument of the Tujia people. These tunes can be played on the dongdong quin, which the Tujia people call quipai, or sung directly as "dongdong quin songs". These songs are composed of only three or four tones, with simple melodies and neat rhythms.
Ti Ma Divine Song is a kind of dance song sung by the Tujia sorcerer Ti Ma when he hosts ritual activities. The tune is simple and simple, with a single phrase structure and improvisational lyrics. When singing, one hand shakes the copper bell, one hand dances the knife, full of mysterious atmosphere.
Jumping funeral drum is the Tujia people of a very characteristic funeral song and dance, the Tujia people called "jumping sa worry child ho wow", the meaning of which is not known, it may be an ancient Tujia language vocabulary remains. This funeral song is very high-pitched, dance style swarthy, rough, there are many imitation tiger action dance vocabulary, when the Tujia white tiger worship of the ancient heritage. Mourning drums mainly flourish in Changyang, Wufeng, Badong and other counties in Hubei, and are representative of the traditional songs and dances of the Tujia in the Qingjiang River Basin. A funeral drum song of Changyang, "Invite a Pair of Singers", takes the [LaDoRe] three-voice cadence as its backbone, and adopts the technique of free rotation of the palace, with the melody going from the G palace to the C palace via the B palace and the A palace, using all the twelve rhythms of the traditional palace system, which illustrates the high degree of development of the Tujia's traditional music and culture.