Beijing Modern International Music Festival presented a special program last Thursday: a concert of instrumental folk music performed by farmers from Heze in east China's Shandong Province.

Among all the modern music events of the festival, this concert displayed a most traditional music form.

"Even the most modern music contains traditional elements, while the most traditional music may adapt itself to modern times," said Zhang Boyu, dean of the musicology department of the Central Conservatory of Music and organizer of the concert. "Including this concert in the Beijing Modern International Music Festival is itself a modern idea."

Coming from Heze and its subordinate counties such as Yuncheng, Juancheng and Caoxian, the group of musicians performed a program that covered three categories of local instrumental folk music: drumming and blowing music (guchui yue), string ensemble music (xiansuo yue) and guzheng (plucked zither) music.

Located in southwestern Shandong Province, Heze has a strong tradition of instrumental folk music.

It is a centre of southwestern Shandong drumming and blowing music, which is an important school of this Chinese type of music.

Heze's drumming and blowing music is played with blown instruments and percussion instruments. The former consist of suona (a horn), sheng (a free-reed mouth organ, generally with 10 to 15 reeds) and dizi (a transverse bamboo flute), while the latter include bangzi (wood block), cymbal, gong, yunluo (a frame of pitched gongs) and small drum.

Centring on suona, the drumming and blowing music of Heze can be divided into three forms: ensemble led by one suona, suona duet with percussive accompaniment, and kaxi, in which a musician plays the suona to imitate the singing of local operas.

However, all the forms feature sonorous and mellifluous sound effects, which are reminiscent of the local dialect and personalities of southwestern Shandong, where the story of the classic Chinese novel Outlaws of the Marsh took place.

Many pieces of the program are actually variants of the two standards, Opening the Door (kaimen) and Cadenza of Dizi (dijiao).

"The musicians improvise a lot," said 60-year-old Wang Xueguang, who is artistic director of the group. "The effects of the music depend very much on the musicians' mood."

The drumming and blowing music usually opens with a complete presentation of the motif, and then comes a spectacular part in which the musicians add to the motif a lot of suizi which are semi-improvised ostinato phrases in which pivotal notes are stressed.

Wang said that each musician has his own interpretation as well as style when playing the same traditional tune. The musicians in the concert, who are mainly from two family troupes in Heze, rehearsed together for 10 days before they came to Beijing.

A large part of the drumming and blowing music is dedicated to kaxi, the instrumentation of local operas.

Southwestern Shandong is an area rich in local opera tradition. More than 10 genres of local opera, such as zaobang, taipingdiao and Shandong bangzi, are popular in Heze.

The musicians have made use of opera materials to sing the arias with the suona and bazuanzi, a member of the suona family which is also used as an instrument of higher pitch.

When playing kaxi, the musician uses both air and throat to produce a sound that falls between vocal and instrumental music.

Most members of the group are semi-professional musicians who earn their living by farming and playing for ceremonies, weddings and funerals. In Heze there are some 5,000 folk musicians like them and over 500 drumming and blowing groups.

Because of its thriving drumming and blowing music scene, Heze is called by many "home of suona."

In contrast to the rather rough sound of drumming and blowing music, the guzheng solo Hermit's Sigh (Yingong Zitan) and string ensemble work Encountering the Eight Beats (Peng Baban) created a subtle and delicate style.

Eight Beats (Baban) is a traditional tune which has hundreds of variants throughout China. Encountering the Eight Beats is a string version of the tune played by the pipa (four-stringed Chinese lute), yangqin (Chinese dulcimer), huqin (two-stringed bowed instrument) and guzheng.

"The word peng (encountering) here stands for the relationship between the different instruments, each of which contrasts and supports the others to create a heterophonous form," said Zhang.

Traditional instrumental music in Heze has largely been passed on through the family. Thirty-six-year-old Wang Lihua learned to play music from his father, 62-year-old Wang Jinyu, who is also a member of the group. Wang Jinyu also learned music from his father.

Wang Xueguang is the fifth generation of his family to play music, and he has passed on the music to his children and grand children. A grandson of his is now applying to study suona at Xi'an Conservatory of Music.

However, many musicians are also offering courses in traditional music. Wang Lihua has a class of his own, where he teaches suona, sheng, dizi and even keyboard. About 80 people have studied with him in the year since he opened the class.

Wang Xueguang has been teaching students in his class for 10 years. Hundreds of people have studied with him, and many of them later became professional musicians.

"Traditional folk music is very much alive in Heze," said Wang Xueguang, and we are trying to further promote it."

(China Daily May 31, 2004)