Artistic Features of Pipa Songs of Dong Nationality

Due to different pipa models and strings, different dialects, different vocals and different voices, Pipa music has formed many different styles.

1, Sanbao Pipa (also called Chejiang Pipa) is a lyric Pipa. It is accompanied by a medium-sized four-stringed pipa and a Ji Guo. The man plays the piano, and the man plays the male singer or female singer. The male voice uses his own voice and the female voice uses a small voice. Mainly popular in Rongjiang county with Sambo as the center.

2. "The Red Pipa at Sunset" (also known as "Pipa with Forty-eight Strings") is not only a lyric pipa, but also a pipa playing and singing music. Male voices are accompanied by large and medium-sized pipa with three or five strings, while female voices are accompanied by small and medium-sized pipa with three or five strings, all of which play and sing by themselves. It is mainly popular in forty-eight villages adjacent to Rong and Li counties and seventy-two villages in Rongjiang county. In the whole Dong area, only 48 villages have women playing the pipa and singing, while 72 villages play the pipa as a narrative pipa. Most of them are accompanied by middle-aged and old male artists who play the three-stringed or five-stringed pipa themselves. At the invitation of the audience, they sing in residential halls or promenades, mainly singing narrative songs or reasoning songs, which are only popular in 72 villages and Dong areas in Rongjiang County.

3. Flat Pipa (also known as Hongzhou Pipa) is a kind of lyric Pipa, accompanied by a man with a three-stringed pipa (shaped like a cow leg piano) and played by a man or a woman. Both men and women use falsetto, which is unique and mainly popular in Dong areas centered on Hongzhou Town of Liping County and Bo Yang Town of Tongdao County.

6-hole pipa is a lyric pipa, accompanied by a four-string pipa, played by a man or a woman and sung in the dead of night. In the past, both men and women used falsetto, but now some of them use their own voices, which are mainly popular in Liping and Congjiang counties, and are generally called six-hole, thousand-five and ten-hole areas.

5. Rongjiang Pipa is lyrical and narrative, and its singing form, place and content are the same as those of Liu Dong. Mainly popular in Sanjiang County, Rongshui County and Liping County of Guangxi, with four-legged cattle as the center. The main tracks are crossing the river, first meeting, bumpy road, long time no see, two wishes and so on.

6. The lyric narrative of pipa music "Seeking the River" is the same as that of Liu Dong in singing form, place and content. Mainly popular in Sanjiang County, Longsheng County, Guangxi, and Jiang Xun and Qushui River basins in Tongdao County, Hunan Province.

7. Hongzhou Pipa Song is popular in Pingjia Village, Hongzhou Town, Liping County, Guizhou Province. It is located 33 kilometers east of Liping County, on the edge of Hunan, Guizhou and Guangxi provinces. Pingjia Village was built in Yongle period of Ming Dynasty (about 1405). It is said that this kind of song was sung here at that time and has been passed down to this day. 1952, musicians from the Guizhou Provincial Department of Culture discovered this pipa song, selected it for the Guizhou Provincial Minority Literature and Art Exhibition, and recommended it to Beijing for performance. At that time, Pingjia Village was under the jurisdiction of Hongzhou, so this pipa was named Hongzhou Pipa.

The biggest feature of Hongzhou Pipa is that both men and women sing in falsetto and treble, and the tune is melodious and unique. Its tunes and lyrics are rich, including love songs, filial piety songs and narrative songs. Love songs are duet songs played by young men and women at home or on the hillside, mainly to pour out their love to each other. Song of Filial Piety for the Elderly is a song sung by young men and women in public. The content is how to honor the elderly. There is a famous song called Young People Respect the Old. Narrative is a song sung by the elderly in the Drum Tower or public places, which mostly describes national history, major events and folk stories.

Hongzhou Pipa music is mainly taught to each other in the combination of interests and hobbies organized by the people spontaneously, and is not directly taught between father and son or relatives. Old people teach songs, young people sing and children learn songs, which is a traditional custom of Dong people. Hongzhou pipa plays an important role in Dong music. It is the treasure of Dong Pipa music and the heritage of ancient folk songs. Among pipa, Hongzhou Pipa is the only rare variety that sings in falsetto. Its pipa production process is self-contained, and its singing and performance are deeply loved by the masses, which has become an inseparable and important part of local life.