Free and Lyrical Chinese Mountain Songs
Mountain songs belong to the mountains and wilderness. Inspired by nature under the sky, seeing the beautiful scenery of the mountain and rivers, the singers sing impromptu of what they see, freely expressing their feelings. The rhythms of mountain songs are free, the tunes sonorous, loud and clear, and the lyrics are often associated with the natural scenery, often beginning with "The sun rises…..," "The moon rises…," "The river floods…," "On the high mountain...," and so forth, sounding authentic and touching.
Mountain songs have a rich variety of local colors due to different living habits and dialects in different places. With the Yangtze River as the border, the mountain songs in the north have special names. The mountain songs in northern Shaanxi are called "Xin Tian You," in the region of Qinghai, Ningxia, and Gansu they are "huaer," in Inner Mongolia "pashan diao," and in Shanxi they are called "shan qu." In south China the mountain songs are named after places, such as Jiangzhe mountain songs, kejia mountain songs, Xiang E mountain songs, Southwest mountain songs, and Tianyang mountain songs.
The contents expressed by the mountain songs are diverse,involving different aspects of life.Yo taks about the natural landscape of the Loess Plateau in the northwest and the bold unrestrained spirits of northwestern people,while"Fishing Songs"reflects the laboring life in the region with abundant water to the south of the Yangtze River.The artistic images of mountain songs are vivid,for example,"haerGoing down to Sichuan"is about the"jiaohuge"(literally meaning"footing brothers,"the peasants relying on mules in the poor mountainous regions in northwest China),driving their livestock,living in their hometowns to seek a living in Sichuan,carrying a melancholy yearning heart.The melody is soft,gloomy and undulating,and the rhythm is stretching,sad and touching,full of homesickness.
The plain mountain songs are loved and spread by people.In the northwest of Shanxi,north of Shaanxi and west part of Inner Mongolia,every man,woman,elder,and children-can sing mountain songs.Whatever they do,they sing;whatever they think,they sing.Their tunes are sonorous,loud and clear,wild and imaginative,their vocal range broad,their rhythm free.A short piece of mountain song often varies with the different backgrounds and experiences of the singers and moods and speeds in singing.Singers also sing about different content to reflect different moods in life.In Shanxi Province,the most famous place for mountain songs is in Hequ.This small place,with the large winding Yellow River passing the northwest part of Shanxi has given birth to a most popular Shanxi folk song named Zou Xikou(Walking through the West Port).At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of Republic of China period,in the region along Hequ and Baode,the land was barren when disaster and famine happened one after another;the peasants were forced to migrant through the port of the ancient Great Wall on the border of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia (Xikou) to avoid famine and eke out a living, which was called Zou Xikou. The folk song Zou Xikou pertinently reflects the pain of leaving your lover at that time.
