Changyang Nanqu, the artistic crystallization of the integration and development of Tujia and Han cultures, is an ancient type of local folk songs in Hubei. It has been called "Nanqu" (also known as Silk String) since ancient times. It was named as the current name in 1962. It is mainly spread in the two Tujia Autonomous Counties of Changyang and Wufeng, and is most popular in Ziqiu. It enjoys a high reputation in the music circle with its strong ethnic and folk characteristics and distinctive local style, and is known as "fragrant mountain flowers". According to the transmission of Changyang Nanqu's tunes and styles over the generations, it is enough to show that it was produced and developed on the basis of the overall source of the entire folk song art in my country during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It was first introduced to the Tujia area at the latest during the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods of the Qing Dynasty. It is an art variety that was introduced and "localized" before and after the "reform of Tujia and returning to the flow". It has a history of more than 200 years. Changyang Nanqu has never had professional artists. It is spread among the people, taught by close friends, or learned by sons from their fathers, and passed down from generation to generation. Tujia Nanqu artists are the main team that inherits and develops Nanqu art. A type of music can take root in Tujia mountain villages for two hundred years, which is rare in Hubei local music and even in more than 300 types of music in the country. To this day, people in Tujia mountain villages often invite each other to get together during festivals, weddings, birthdays and after work. You play and he sings, clap the board and sing the tune, sing and entertain yourself and others. In Ziqiu, Changyang, known as the "hometown of southern music", every night is quiet, but you can hear the sanxian on the stilt house, the music lingers, facing the night of the mountain village, it is refreshing. Changyang Nanqu is a relatively elegant art of playing and singing, mostly performed in weddings, birthdays and other happy occasions. The performance form is mainly sitting and singing, mostly one person plays and sings by himself, or multiple people play and sing by themselves or one person plays, one person sings while beating the simple board, and can also sing duets according to the content of the song. There is little dialogue in traditional songs, and there is no action performance. Changyang Nanqu is beautiful, lyrical and melodious. Its music is characterized by less rigidity and more softness, and is good at narration. It belongs to the qupai singing style, and the entire singing style is divided into two major singing systems: "Nanqu" and "Bei Diao". In the "Nanqu" singing system, there are 31 qupai, among which Nanqu Tou, Duozi, Shangxia Jue, and Nanqu Wei are the main qupai of Nanqu; in the "Bei Diao" singing system, there is only one qupai. The main music of Nanqu is Xiao Sanxian, and the rhythm is played by two people. In terms of the content of the repertoire, Changyang Nanqu has some common themes popular throughout the country, such as chapters from novels and dramas such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", and "Romance of the West Chamber", as well as special themes that express Tujia ethnic customs, such as "Fat Aunt Crossing the River" and "Praying Mantis Seeking Marriage". Although there are some tunes commonly used in the province and even the whole country, such as "Four Seasons Love Song", "Foreign Smoke Song", "Dangling Golden Fan", "Snowflakes Falling", "Fengyang Tune", "Broken Bridge", etc., through long-term transmission and singing, the melody, melody decoration characteristics, singing smoothness and coloring, accompaniment and other aspects have shown that they have been "Southernized" and "localized". The lyrics of the traditional repertoire of Changyang Nanqu are mostly short pieces, and no medium or long pieces have been found. Generally, there are about 50 sentences. The lyrics are generally elegant, using metaphors, antithesis, parallelism, personification, exaggeration and other rhetorical techniques, leaving many popular and wonderful words. For example, "The golden horse neighs on the grass, and the people in the jade tower are drunk in the apricot blossom sky", "The rouge mountain is piled with silver powder, and the jade strips are hung in front of the Yellow Crane Tower", "The simple board knocks the bright moon in leisure time, and the fishermen sing the sunset after being drunk". Although Nanqu is not native to the country, it has gradually become "localized" due to the introduction of Tujia mountain villages, settlement and inheritance from generation to generation. It is an artistic crystallization of the fusion of Tujia and Han cultures. Nanqu is a local ditty popular in Wufeng, Changyang and other places. In Changyang, it is called "Changyang Nanqu", and in Wufeng, people are still accustomed to using the traditional folk name and still call it "Nanqu". This ancient song has been proven by experts to have existed in Wufeng and Changyang for more than 200 years, mainly based on the reputation of artists and physical evidence. In the 1982 Wufeng Nanqu Artists Symposium, Zhang Hongao, an old artist from Fujiayan Township who attended the meeting, kept a small sanxian that was handed down by his father, Mr. Zhang Kaishu, which had a history of more than 180 years at the time. At the meeting, a simple board that had been used for more than 100 years and passed down for several generations was also found. The discovery of these things is consistent with the experts' arguments. Nanqu is popular in most areas of Wufeng. Of the original 16 towns, except for the county seat, Caihua, Niuzhuang, Houhe, and Wantan, the remaining 11 towns are also populated. Among them, Yuyangguan, Haoping, Changleping, Bailuzhuang, Xiejiaping, Hongyuping, Shuiyusi, and Fujiayan are the main popular areas and were popular for a time. Shengziping, Renheping, and Qingshuiwan are also distributed in the three towns. People with surnames such as Jian, Xu, Yang, and Zhang in the three places have learned to sing Nanqu. Jian Chunzhi from Renheping often went to Yuyangguan, Haoping, and Changleping to participate in singing meetings, and sang with famous Nanqu artists Du Haiqing and Xiang Zaizi. Li Lianquan, an old artist in Yuyangguan, recalled that people in Jingzhou, Shashi, also sang Nanqu before. In the early 1940s, Li went to Jingsha to do business and heard people singing "Chen Gu Chasing Pan" in a warehouse in Honghu. The two became friends because of the song and learned from each other. When Li returned to Yuyangguan, he also bought a Zhongsanxian from Shashi. The collection work of Wufeng began in the mid-1950s. In early November 1956, the Cultural Center held the first folk artist representative conference of various art categories in the county. The participants included 12 representatives from Tangxi, shadow puppetry, Nanqu, Han Opera, and folk art. The content of the meeting included the implementation and study of policies and guidelines, registration of artists, performances, statistics of repertoires, investigation of program content, and data collection. Since 1957, on the basis of extensive rural cultural activities and performances, the annual Spring Festival folk art performance has been organized. At that time, Nanqu artists such as the three Cais of Xiejiaping (Cai Honggao, Cai Fugao, Cai Degao), Chen Wenzhang of Hongyuping, Hu Cisheng of Haoping, Xiang Zaizi of Yuyangguan, and Jian Chunzhi of Renheping were all the backbones of local amateur cultural activities and performances. In November 1962, the Cultural Center held the second folk artist meeting, at which the eight articles on literature and art were implemented and studied, folk materials were excavated and sorted out, artists were encouraged to pass on their skills with apprentices, and subsidies were issued to artists with difficulties in life. The excavation and sorting work continued until 1964, but due to personnel changes and the successive movements in the cultural center, this batch of precious materials could not be properly preserved in a centralized manner. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the creative staff of the troupe took the opportunity of going to the countryside for training and touring to collect some Nanqu materials sporadically. However, there were great limitations. They only found Du Haiqing, Chen Wenzhang and others in Chaibuxi and Hongyuping; the purpose was not clear, just to learn singing and find creative materials; although later based on these materials, they wrote pieces such as "Xiong Xiong Jumping into the Sea", "He Long Entering Yuyangguan Three Times", and "Zhou Chu Reformed", but no valuable original materials were left. In 1980, the county began to collect folk songs on a large scale, and at the same time, a census of Nanqu was conducted throughout the county through the cultural center station. The key local cultural bureaus organized a special team to conduct verification in 1981. At the end of March 1982, a symposium for Nanqu artists in the county was held, with more than 10 old artists with an average age of 72 attending the meeting. It contains more than 20 tunes and more than 30 traditional pieces. All the Nanqu materials in Wufeng now are from that survey and the artists. It should be said that Wufeng started collecting Nanqu not too late, but the work was not completed. When it was continued in the early 1980s, it was already three years later, and most of the artists had passed away, leaving many regrets. According to the statistics of Nanqu artists in 1956, there were more than 10 artists with high attainments who could play and sing dozens of pieces by themselves, and there were nearly 100 artists in total. The representative artists are the following three: Yang Zhibai (1900-1968): a farmer from Gangou Village, Changleping, studied in private schools for many years, studied as a doctor, had a high level of literary and musical accomplishment, and could sing dozens of pieces. According to Du Haiqing and others, "Chasing Pan" was Yang Zhibai's tune (arrangement), and he was the only artist in Wufeng's Nanqu artists who could arrange music. Hu Cisheng (1905-1980): A farmer from Huotiankeng, Haoping, studied in a private school for 7 years. At the age of 20, he became a disciple of Zhu Heqing (from Haoping, date of birth and death unknown) to learn to sing southern songs. At the same time, he also learned to sing shadow puppets and play the jinghu, and could sing dozens of pieces. Hu Cisheng learned both the sanxian and jinghu very well. He had performed sanxian and jinghu solos on the stage of local and county performances. He was the artist with the highest level of musical instrument performance among artists. Du Haiqing: Born in 1903, a farmer from Chaibuxi, Changleping, studied in a private school for 4 years. At the age of 17, he became a disciple of Su Boan (from Bailu Village, date of birth and death unknown). Later, he taught and learned from Yang Zhibai, Peng Jiyao (from Changleping), Wu Yuanqing (from Changleping), etc., and his skills became more and more mature. After completing his studies, he went to various places to sing and performed independently. He had performed in Yuyangguan, Renheping, Fujiayan, Hongyuping in the county and Changyang in the neighboring county. Du Haiqing is good at playing and singing. He can play and sing dozens of pieces and tunes by himself. He is especially famous for singing "Sweeping the Pine" and "Chasing Pan". His singing is delicate, beautiful, graceful and fluent, with strong artistic appeal. Since the late 1950s, he has received many batches of literary and artistic workers from the province, prefecture and county to collect folk songs, and has provided important tunes and repertoires for Changyang Nanqu. In the early 1980s, he was rated as the first batch of outstanding folk artists by the County Cultural Bureau. He is the representative figure with the most inherited materials among Nanqu artists. In addition to the above three people, there are more than 10 artists such as Tian Kejia, Zhang Hongao, Yan Huanqing (from Hanyang, later moved to Yuyangguan), and Zhang Chaomei (female, from Haoping) who have inherited the materials. Tian Kejia: Born in June 1922, a farmer in Erdunyan, Shuiyusi, his master is Tian Shanfu (from Shuiyusi, his birth and death years are unknown), and he has studied privately for 10 years. He can sing "Talented Man Traveling the River", "Heroes of the Three Kingdoms", "Spring Goes and Summer Comes", "Self-sigh", "Parasite" and other pieces. Zhang Hongao: Born in 1910, a farmer in Fujiayan Township, he studied privately for 12 years and learned to sing southern songs from his father Zhang Kaishu at the age of 17. He can sing more than 10 traditional pieces such as "Chasing Pan", "Sweeping the Pine", "Four Evils Meet Old Man", "Congratulations on the Wedding", "Spring Goes and Summer Comes", "Fishermen, Woodcutters, Farmers and Readers", and has certain artistic attainments. (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.) (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.)