Song of Dong Nationality

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Dong People's song

Applicant: Rongjiang County, Guizhou Province

Item No.: 59

Project No.: Ⅱ - 28

Time of publication: 2008 (second batch)

Category: Traditional Music

Region: Guizhou Province

Type: Extension Project

Applicant: Rongjiang County, Guizhou Province

Protection unit: Rongjiang Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center

A brief introduction to Dong People's songs:

Applicant: Rongjiang County, Guizhou Province

The big song of Dong nationality, called "galao" in Dong language, is a distinctive folk singing form of Dong nationality. As early as the Song Dynasty, Dong People's big songs were mature, and their later spread was endless. Kuang Lu of Ming Dynasty clearly recorded the scene of Dong People's "long songs and closing eyes" in chiya. The Dong songs of Guizhou Province are mainly spread in Congjiang, Rongjiang and other places. Since Xiaohuang Dong songs formed an independent system in the Kangxi period of Qing Dynasty, after more than ten generations of singers' inheritance, they have been spread to the surrounding places such as 290, Liudong, Jiudong, Liping, Sanjiang and Rongjiang, greatly enriching the repertoire of Dong songs.

The major songs of Dong nationality mainly include Drum Tower songs, voice songs, narrative songs, love songs, ethics songs, customs songs, children's songs, opera songs, old people's songs and so on. Their singing has reached a high level in multi tone thinking, chorus skills and so on. Their singing is usually divided into two parts, which are called "male voice" (high voice part) and "female voice" (low voice part). The smallest structural unit of Dong folk songs is called "jogx", which is translated into "sentence"; some "horns" constitute a "sengh", which is translated into "Duan"; some "provinces" constitute a "meix", which is translated into "Shou". In this way, it can be accumulated and aggregated to form a multi segment conjoined body of the nature of the ballad, which reflects the basic structure of all kinds of big songs.

Most of the songs of Dong nationality do not need musical instruments. In addition to narrative songs, male singers can be accompanied by big pipa. Most of the big songs are in feather mode. Generally, the range is narrow and the interval is not too big. They are mostly sung in real voice. The language tone, syllable and stress are very rich and the rhythm changes are diverse. Its representative repertoire includes "cicada song", "send teeth to the busy moon" (Chinese translation for "when is our love") and "Da Hua" (Chinese translation for "old man spent time"), etc.

With its unique singing style and organizational form, Dong folk song inherits the history and culture of the Dong nationality, and is an important part of the social structure, marriage culture and spiritual life of the Dong nationality. The contents of Dong's big songs are very extensive, involving ethnology, musicology, sociology, marriage history, ideological history, education history and many other fields, which has important academic research value. With the rapid development of market economy and the wide spread of modern culture, Dong folk song, a traditional folk art of ethnic minorities, is in danger of being lost. It is urgent to protect and inherit it.