Production techniques of Yuping flute

The name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Yuping flute making skills

Applicant: Yuping Dong Autonomous County, Guizhou Province

Item No.: 384

Project No.: VIII - 34

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: traditional art

Region:

Type: new item

Applicant: Yuping Dong Autonomous County, Guizhou Province

Protection unit: Yuping Dong Autonomous County Cultural Center (Yuping Dong Autonomous County Ethnic Culture and Art Troupe)

Brief introduction of Yuping flute making technique:

Applicant: Yuping Dong Autonomous County, Guizhou Province

Yuping flute is made of bamboo from Yuping Dong Autonomous County, Guizhou Province, hence its name. Yuping Xiao flute is a famous traditional bamboo pipe instrument in China. It is famous for its beautiful timbre and exquisite carving. It is the crystallization of Yuping local Dong, Han, Miao, Tujia and other multi-ethnic cultural development. It has high historical, cultural and technological value.

Yuping flute is also known as "Pingxiao Jade Flute". Because there are many exquisite dragon and phoenix patterns on the flute, it is also known as "dragon flute and Phoenix Flute". According to records, the Pingxiao was created by Zheng Weifan in the Wanli period (1573-1619) of the Ming Dynasty, while the Yudi was founded in the fifth year of Yongzheng (1727) of the Qing Dynasty. Pingxiao jade flute is often given or collected as a gift, and is listed as "three treasures of Guizhou" together with Maotai liquor. The production of Yuping Xiao flute includes material drawing, blank making, engraving, polishing and other processes. The finished product has a beautiful style and is in pairs of male and female. The temperament loving Zheng family regarded the skill of making Xiao flute as a family treasure and stuck to it from generation to generation. Therefore, Zheng's Xiao flute was once listed as a tribute in the Ming Dynasty. During the Xianfeng Period of the Qing Dynasty, the descendants of the Zheng family were forced to sell Xiao because of the depression of their families. From then on, they became autocratic and sold Xiao. Later, due to the shortage of products, it began to break the rules and regulations, recruit apprentices and expand the scale of production. By the time of the Anti Japanese War, the production of Yuping flute had a great development. In the urban area alone, there were more than 30 flute shops and more than 80 practitioners.

After 1949, Xiao flute production technology was protected. From the 1980s to the early 1990s, it was the heyday of the development of Yuping Xiao flute. Its products won the titles of provincial and ministerial excellence year after year, with a maximum annual output of more than 500000 pieces and an output value of more than 800000 yuan.

With the acceleration of the modernization process, the national musical instruments have been greatly impacted, and the protection and development of Xiao flute production technology is in a serious situation. At present, Yuping's flute making skills are facing the situation of death and no successor. There are only seven people left in the flute factory, including the factory director and management personnel. There are less than ten old artists engaged in flute making in the urban area. If we don't rescue and protect the Yuping flute making skill, this special handicraft skill will soon disappear in the world.