Tibetan Music
The Tibetans live mainly on the Tibetan Plateau in China, in Tibet, and in the provinces and regions of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan, with a population of 1,000 people (1982 statistics). The population is 1,000 (1982 statistics). They practise Lamaism (Mahayana Buddhism). The Tibetan language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and there are three dialect areas: Weizang, Kham and Amdo. The Weizang dialect area covers the whole of Tibet (except for the Chamdo region); the Kham dialect area includes the Ganzi prefecture in Sichuan, the Chamdo region in Tibet, the Diqing prefecture in Yunnan, and the Yushu prefecture in Qinghai; and the Ando dialect area includes the states of Hainan, Huangnan, Haixi, Haibei, and Golog, etc., in Qinghai, the Aba prefecture in Sichuan, and the Gannan prefecture in Gansu. The Tibetan people have created a splendid national culture, with a rich cultural heritage in literature, music, dance, painting, sculpture and architecture. As early as around the 12th and 13th centuries, monographs on Tibetan folk music appeared, such as the Sakya Pandit Gonge Khyentse's On Tibetan Music. The temples still preserve and use the ancient Tibetan graphic music score, the yangtrans. Tibetan traditional music is distinctive and varied, comprising three main categories: folk music, religious music, and court music. Folk music can be divided into five categories: folk songs, song and dance music, rap music, opera music, and instrumental music. The folk music of the three major dialect areas of Weizang, Kham, and Amdo has obvious differences in style, and the types of music are also different. Religious music includes sutra chanting music, Qiangmu (religious ceremonial music and dance), and instrumental music of monasteries; court music and dance gaer are only found in the Potala Palace in Lhasa and the Zashilunpo Monastery in Shigatse. Folk music plays a major role in traditional music. The folk songs include mountain songs (pastoral songs), labor songs, love songs, custom songs, and songs of praise.
Shan songs, known as "Lalu" in Weizang, "Lulu" in Kham, and "Le" in Amdo, are songs sung freely in the mountains and fields. The songs are sung freely in the mountains and fields. They have a wide range of sounds, free beats and rhythms, and a long, high melodic rhythm that is rich in highland characteristics. The mountain songs of the Amdo region are also known as wine songs. Pastoral songs are popular in pastoral areas and have similar musical characteristics to mountain songs. Mountain songs and pastoral songs have a variety of tunes, most of which are structured in the form of upper and lower stanzas, and are often harmonized in five (or six) tones, namely, fei, zheng, shang, and gong. The Ganzi mountain song "Azhong" is a representative one. Labor songs, known as "Lehun" in Tibetan, are very diverse, and there are specific songs for almost every kind of labor. Some have distinctive rhythms that are closely coordinated with labor movements, such as hitting barley, digging, and beating the wall, while others have freer rhythms, such as herding animals, plowing, and milking cows. The labor songs are sung solo, in unison, and in the form of a leader.
Love songs, including love songs, love tea songs, etc. Love songs are called "Lay" in Amdo area and "Garu" in Weizang area. Some love songs have a deeper feeling, some are more open and free, close to the style of mountain songs. Love Tea Songs, known as "Kega" in Tibetan, are circulated in places such as Zhongdian in Yunnan, and are sung when young men and women gather and drink tea to express their love, and include songs of greeting, entering, pairing, thanking, and bidding farewell. Customary songs include drinking songs, love songs, wedding songs, arrow songs, farewell songs and so on.
①Wine songs. It is called "Qiangxiao" in Tibetan, and is circulated all over the Tibetan area, and is sung at festivals and gatherings when toasting wine. The "Zeruo" of the Amdo region and the "Ge'er" of the Gannan region belong to the category of wine songs. Wine songs are sung in different forms in different regions, some are sung while dancing, while others are sung without dancing. The music is cheerful and enthusiastic, mostly in the Gong mode. The following example:
② Guess the love song. Weizang area called "sub-ga", Kang area called "Ye Mo" or "Gomo", Amdo area called "Harmony Mo", etc., is a Tibetan youth meeting. It is a song sung by Tibetan youths when they meet for recreation or to play divination games, and has been widely circulated. When young people in the Tibetan area of Sichuan play games, they often use a ring as a token for divining their fortunes, which is why it is also known as "Hoop Gua". The music of the song of guessing love is relaxed and lively, often using a mixture of five beats and four beats, with the Gong, Yu and Zheng modes being common.
3 wedding song. Wedding songs and singing forms vary from place to place, roughly including songs for receiving the bride, leaving home, on the way, welcoming the bride, etc. Some of them have a long melody and are very melodious, and some of them are very melodious. Some of them have a long melody, and some are cheerful with dance music.
④Arrow song. The Tibetan language called "Da Harmony", mainly popular in Tibet Linzhi area, also known as the "Gongbu arrow song", spring and summer, sung at the time of playing dams in the Linqa, is the archer to boast about the bow and arrow and archery techniques sung by the song. The song is accompanied by dance movements. The music is often accompanied by dots, triplets and syncopations, and is fresh and bright.
5 Farewell Song. It is popular in Danba and other places in Sichuan Province, and is sung by middle-aged and elderly women when they are bidding farewell to their honored guests, relatives and friends. The songs are sincere and touching, and are mostly in the seven-tone feather mode, which includes a change of the palace tone and a clear plume tone. Song of Songs Also known as the Song of the Six Characters of Truth. It is called "Manai" in Tibetan, and is sung by Buddhist believers on pilgrimages to the gods and Buddhas in monasteries, with different tunes from place to place. In addition, children's songs have simple and clear melodies and lively rhythms. Bitter songs, known as "Jelu" in Tibetan, are sung at a slow tempo and have a mournful melody. Zhamunie (six-stringed zither) is mainly popular in Rikaze and Linzhi in Tibet, and Gannan in Gansu Province. The music is relatively fresh and lively, with a slight dance character, and is mostly in the feather mode. There are other hypnotic songs, question-and-answer songs and witty songs.
Song and Dance Music The Tibetan folk songs and dances are of various forms and distinctive features. The lyrics of the songs and dances are wide-ranging, such as praising the sun, moon and stars, mountains and rivers, praising women's appearance and costumes, thinking of relatives, wishing for meetings, wishing for good luck and good fortune, and religious beliefs, etc. Since the 1950s, the people have also made up songs and dances to celebrate the good fortune of the people. Since the 1950s, the people have also made up many lyrics reflecting the new life.
Go Harmony an ancient form of song and dance, meaning circle song and dance, widely spread, Sakya region called "Suo", Gongbu region called "wave" or "wave strong", the northern Tibetan pastoralist area, Kang area, Amdo area called "Suo". Sakya region called "Suo", Gongbu region called "Bo" or "Boqiang", the northern Tibetan pastoral areas, Kang region, Amdo region called "Zhuo" or "Guo Zhuo" (commonly known as pot Zhuang). Fruit Harmony is mostly sung at festivals, after work and religious ceremonies, with participants holding each other's hands and shoulders, singing and dancing without musical accompaniment. The music of the Guohang in Tibet is simple, enthusiastic, and concise in structure, generally consisting of two parts: the slow song section and the fast section, the latter being a simplification and contraction of the former melody, with the foot pause as the section, as the prelude, interlude, and ending of the piece. The main beat is meter, but there are often changes in the intro, interlude, and ending. Most of the pieces are based on the five-tone scale, while some are in the six-tone or seven-tone scale; the Gong, Fei and Zheng modes are often used. Some of the Zhuo passed down in the Kham area have a three-part structure with the addition of a loose lead before the slow section; in the slow section, there are a lot of triplets, quintuplets, syncopations, appoggiaturas, and ornamental tones, making the music thick and deep, and in the fast section the melody is concise and the rhythm is distinctive, and the music is strong and full of dynamics. The potshangs popular in the Jiajung Tibetan area of Sichuan are divided into two types: large potshangs and small potshangs, and are often played in seven-tone, feather and horn modes. In addition to natural tones, there are often variations or clear feather tones in the melody, giving it a unique musical style. Dui Huan is a song and dance of western Tibet. Dui means highland, referring to the whole area of the Yarlung Zangbo River basin from Rikaze to the west to Ali. Duhong is extremely popular in Lhasa, and was initially accompanied only by Zamunie, but later developed into a small orchestra. The structure of Duhuo consists of an introduction, a slow section, an interlude, a fast section, and a conclusion, with the slow section being beautiful and cheerful, and the fast section using the technique of pulling tightly and singing slowly to make the music joyful and compact. The prelude, interlude and finale are basically fixed, but the melodies of the slow and fast sections are different. The tune is mostly in Gong mode, but also in Fei and Shang modes, and there is often an alternation of Gong and Fei modes in the piece, with the end of the piece shifting from the main key to a subordinate key to become the unique termination of Pile Harmony.
The following example is a fragment of the tune of the heap of harmonic: strings Tibetan called "page", "Yi" or "Kang Harmonious", popular in the Kang, Wei-Tibetan region. Because the men lead the dance in front of the team with a cow horn hu or erhu during the song and dance, they are called strings. The strings originated in Batang, Sichuan Province, which is famous for its beautiful tunes, rich repertoire, and expansive dances. The music of the strings is extremely singable, with a concise structure, mostly in the feather mode, followed by the levy and the shang mode, with alternating modes often appearing in the music. Songs are composed in six-syllable stanzas and four-syllable stanzas; most of the tunes are free to be sung with new words. Nangma is mainly popular in Lhasa. The music of Nangma basically consists of three parts: the introduction in medium speed, the song in slow tempo and the dance in fast tempo. The music of the song part is elegant and graceful, and the singing is accompanied by simple dance movements; the dance part is enthusiastic and lively, the dance is light and spacious, and the performers only dance but do not sing. The tune of the introduction is basically fixed; the dance part of the song is similar, most of them are in the Shang mode, and some of them end in the Yu and Gong modes; the tune of the song part is different, and some of the songs have a close relationship with the transposition; the accompaniment form is the same as the heap of harmonies.
The Harmonization Chin is an ancient form of ceremonial song and dance that has been passed down in Lhasa, Shannan, Shigatse, Ali and other areas of Tibet, and is sung during grand festivals and ceremonies. Haoqin generally consists of a number of songs and dances with titles, the first and last pieces of which are called "Hao Guo" (introduction) and "Zhaxi" (auspicious), each song and dance song consists of a slow and fast tempo, or a slow, medium and fast tempo, and the music is ancient and passionate. The lyrics include the origin of mankind, historical legends, and praise and blessings. Reba Harmony Songs and dances performed by wandering artists popular in the Khamba region. The songs and dances performed by wandering artists in the Khamba region include drum and bell dance, juggling, opera, stick dance, deer dance, knife dance, and Reba strings and other forms of performance. The music of the Reba strings is the same as that of the popular folk strings, and the music of the Drum and Bell Dance includes the male lead singing of the loose board and the slow board singing, which is enthusiastic and beautiful and full of charms. In addition, there are also popular in Tibet Zhuo Harmony (drum dance), popular in Yunnan Zhongdian region of the Xiongchong, Zhuo see, popular in the Gannan region of the Dodi Dance, Gaba Dance and so on.
Rap Music There are several kinds of Tibetan rap music, such as Zhongxun, Zuoga, and Maamani, which are mostly sung by folk artists and monks. Zhongxun means storytelling songs, said and sung, widely circulated, the content of the long folk tales or narrative poems, such as "King Gesar", "Tibetan Ling - Nyi Mai Gongjue" and so on. The number of singing is very large, most of them have recitative characteristics, and the structure is mostly composed of upper and lower phrases and their variations and repetitions.
The Zenga is a kind of rap music performed by poor wandering artists when they are begging, or by traveling monks when they are collecting money. It is accompanied by the cow-horn huqin and is sung by the artist himself. Some artists only use wooden sticks as props, and they perform actions while rapping. Some of the lyrics are stories, some are improvised, and most of them are auspicious words in praise of the master. The music is simple and plain, characterized by rapping. Mamani is an ancient form of rap. Most of the singers are nuns or folk artists, who hang up the scrolls depicting the stories of the sutras and sing the stories in the paintings to the public.
Opera Music--Tibetan Opera The Tibetan Opera includes four types of operas, including Tibetan Opera of Tibet (Ajilam), Tibetan Opera of Amdo (Nammut), Tibetan Opera of Derge, Tibetan Opera of Chamdo, etc., and each type of operas has different characteristics of singing, music, performance and costumes, etc. The Tibetan Opera and the Amdo Tibetan Opera have different characteristics. Tibetan opera in Tibet and Amdo Tibetan opera are more widely circulated and have a greater influence. Tibetan opera has a long history, and its origin can be traced back to the period of Chisong Detsen in the 8th century, when artists combined Tibetan folk dances with Buddhist scriptures into a kind of pantomime ritual of jumping to the gods during the ceremony of the completion of the Sang Monastery. In the past, when Tibetan opera was performed in squares, it was accompanied only by drums and cymbals, and human voices were used to help the actors. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Tibetan opera has been brought to the stage, and reforms have been made to the singing and orchestra, enriching the expressive power of Tibetan opera music. The traditional structure of Tibetan opera*** is divided into three parts, the first part, "Deng", is the opening speech; the second part, "Pile", is the main drama; the third part, "Zaxi", is the closing song and dance to wish for good luck and good fortune. The third part, "Zhaxi", is the concluding song and dance. The traditional singing of Tibetan opera is a free-rhythm loose plate, which is divided into "Darren" (long tune), "Datong" (short tune), "Jelu" (counter-tune), "Jelu" (counter-tune) and "Jelu" (counter-tune). Juelu" (sad tune), "Harmony Mulangda" (folk song type singing) 5 kinds, and a number of other folk songs and dance songs. Among them, long tunes and short tunes are customized for each repertoire, and the cantatas are named after the characters, which are different from each other and cannot be exchanged arbitrarily. There are as many as dozens of melodies, some of which are similar to each other. The antiphonal, sad and folk songs are common and can be used in any repertoire or character. Most of the lyrics are 7-9 words in a line, with every two lines as a paragraph. The beginning and end of the "Xiongma Rangda" is a singing section, and the middle is a recitative rhyme, and the number of words is more free, according to the need to control.
Tibetan opera music is closely related to the Harmonized Chin (large-scale songs and dances) and the folk songs of the latter Tibetans. The very distinctive "Zhengu" style of Tibetan opera singing (a kind of decorative florid accent) originates from wine songs and Houzang folk songs. The vocal accompaniments in Tibetan opera mainly repeat the endings of the phrases. The range of Tibetan opera singing is generally within an octave, with the female voice sung in a true voice, with a range of ～; the male voice is sung in a combination of true and false voices, with a higher range of ～; both male and female voices emphasize the use of the back-of-the-head voice, which is loud and clear.
Instrumental music The Tibetans have a wide variety of instruments, including plucked instruments such as the zamuni and the yangqin; bowed instruments such as the ox-horn hu, the sticker, the root card, the huqin, and the hot-maqin; wind instruments such as the harp flute, the bone flute, the tuba, the trumpet, the shawm (oboe), the copper flute, the conch, the mouth-string, the bamboo flute, the mud flute, and so on; and percussion instruments such as the daiko, the zebu drum, the dhama drum, the palang drum, the gongs, cymbals, and the stringed bells. Among these instruments, the zamunie, cow horn hu, tuba and harp flute are the most distinctive. The zamunie, or six-stringed zither, is said to have a history of 600 to 700 years, and is the main accompaniment to folk songs and dances such as the dunhun, the nangma and the zamunie. The ox-horn hu, or "Bi Wang" or "Bi Rong" in Tibetan, is similar in shape to the erhu, but the barrel is made of ox horn, and it is mainly used to accompany the strings and zhanga. Because of the short bow, all long notes in the melody are played as repeated eighth-note homophones, and the weak beat is accompanied by a major second or minor third note or a compound note, forming the main feature of stringed instrument music. The harp flute and bone flute are popular in pastoral areas. The harp flute is made of wood, and the bone flute is made of eagle or sheep's leg bone, with a high pitch area, small volume, and a thin, sharp voice, and is often used to play pastoral tunes. Tuba, Tibetan called "with the Chin", made of copper, no holes in the body, about 3 meters long, the lower end of the mouth of a large bla, can play the base note and five degrees of overtones, the volume of sound, mostly used in the monastery ceremonial activities and Tibetan opera music.
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially after the democratic reforms in Tibet in 1958, Tibetan music and culture have developed considerably. Various regions have successively set up mass art museums and professional literary and artistic performance units, such as the Song and Dance Troupe of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the Tibetan Drama Troupe, the Qinghai Provincial Ethnic Song and Dance Troupe, and the cultural and industrial troupes and teams at the level of the states (prefectures) and counties belonging to the provinces (districts), and in the process of creating and performing, collecting and organizing ethnic, folk and folkloric music, They do a great deal of work in creating, performing, and collecting and organizing ethnic and folk music. Famous Tibetan opera artists include Zhaxi Dunzhu (deceased) and Ama Tsering; artists who have sung and sung the Tale of King Gesar include Zhongke Zaba Yumei; and folk singers include Ameyjia (deceased), Poorbuzhen (deceased) and Annie. Singers such as Tsetan Drolma, composers such as Baiden Rangji and Kelsang Daji, and conductors such as Ozhuduoji are professional music workers trained after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Han Chinese composers Luo Nianyi long rooted in the plateau, for the development of national music to make valuable contributions.