China News Service, Urumqi, March 25 (Reporter Wang Xiaojun) The warm spring sun falls on Wenquan County at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang, presenting a peaceful and vibrant scene. Under the blue sky and white clouds, melodious Mongolian folk songs float over the vast grasslands, nourishing every citizen.
Wenquan County, Bortala Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, located at the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, is one of the birthplaces of Mongolian short-tuned folk songs. Photo courtesy of Wenquan County Fusion Media Center
What is Xinjiang Hot Spring Mongolian short tune?
Wenquan County, Bortala Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, located at the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, is one of the birthplaces of Mongolian short-tuned folk songs. Here, the Mongolian people express their love for life and longing for the future through singing. With its unique melody and lyrics, Mongolian short-key folk songs in Wenquan County show the bold, enthusiastic and simple national character of the Mongolian people, and have become one of the most popular art forms on the grasslands.
Xinjiang Hot Spring Mongolian short-key folk songs are short in length, compact in tune, neat and distinct in rhythm, and relatively narrow in range. Short-key folk songs are mainly popular in semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral areas. Performers often sing impromptu and are very flexible. Its music is characterized by concise tunes, less decorative sounds, and little fluctuation in the melody line. The themes of traditional short tunes are very wide, covering almost all areas of social life, including love songs, drinking songs, wedding songs, birthday songs, narrative songs and other types of songs. Among the most popular are love songs. The number of love songs in short tunes accounts for more than half. There are some love songs whose lyrics and tunes date back to ancient times, but they are still popular today.
Hot spring Mongolian short tune has been inherited in many places in Xinjiang. In addition to having a very good mass base in the Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture south of the Tianshan Mountains and the Bortala Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture north of the Tianshan Mountains, it is also inherited in Altay region, Tacheng region, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture and other places.
Jiang Gu actively participated in the activities of bringing intangible cultural heritage into campus, communities and villages, bringing Mongolian short tunes to a wider range of people. Photo courtesy of Wenquan County Fusion Media Center
Jiang Gu’s persistence and inheritance
Jiang Gu is the representative inheritor of the autonomous region-level intangible cultural heritage project Mongolian folk songs (Mongolian short-tune folk songs in Wenquan County, Xinjiang), a national-level intangible cultural heritage representative project. In her early years, she was a heroic member of the Ulan Shepherd Cavalry, riding over mountains and ridges across the grasslands, bringing cordial singing and beautiful dances to farmers and herdsmen; in her seventies, she was a teacher in an intangible cultural heritage training class, providing all kinds of Folk song inheritors and enthusiasts of all ages teach what they have learned throughout their lives. Jiang Gu knows very well that as the inheritor of Mongolian short tunes in Xinjiang hot springs, she shoulders the important task of carrying forward this intangible cultural heritage. Therefore, she devoted herself to the work of cultivating inheritors, hoping that through her efforts, more people would understand and love Mongolian short-key folk songs.
In the past 40 years of singing in grassland pastoral areas and later collecting folk songs at the grassroots level, Jiang Gu has been persisting in collecting folk songs and has collected and sorted out more than 300 songs. "I grew up in the sound of my father's folk songs. When I learned to speak, I also learned to sing. It is engraved in my body and will accompany me throughout my life." Jianggu not only sings Mongolian folk songs well, but also studies them thoroughly. .
Jiang Gu plays an important role in the training program for intangible cultural heritage inheritors at the Wenquan County Cultural Center. She not only provided singing demonstrations for the students, but also personally guided them to learn the singing skills and cultural connotations of Mongolian short tunes. She used her enthusiasm and professional knowledge to inspire students' interest and love for intangible cultural heritage. Under her guidance, batches of outstanding inheritors emerged. They not only inherited the traditional essence of Mongolian short tunes, but also injected new era connotations into it.
"The short-key folk songs of our hot springs have regular sentences, simple tunes and few decorative sounds. They are divided into four lines and one section. They are sung repeatedly on different rhymes and are catchy." When Jiang Gu sings, the accompaniment instrument she often uses is the support instrument. Bushuer, sometimes the companion will also add flute, ukulele, etc. Short-key folk songs are very suitable to be paired with dance, bringing a fuller emotion to the dance performance and an atmosphere that is more in line with the needs of modern literature and art.
"During the years of collecting folk songs, I found that the short-key folk songs circulated in Wenquan County have a strong sense of improvisation. Herdsmen often add their own inner words to express their feelings based on the old tunes." Jiang Gu said, in fact, until now, this kind of improvisation Lyric writing is still very popular. Many young short-key folk song singers will add very modern lyrics to old songs to refresh the listeners. This is why short-key folk songs are very popular among the people.
With its unique melody and lyrics, Mongolian short-key folk songs in Wenquan County show the bold, enthusiastic and simple national character of the Mongolian people, and have become one of the most popular art forms on the grasslands. Photo courtesy of Wenquan County Fusion Media Center
Become a cultural business card of Xinjiang Hot Spring County
On May 24, 2021, this unique music form was officially announced by the State Council as the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative projects. Today, Mongolian short tunes have become a cultural business card of Wenquan County in Xinjiang, attracting a large number of tourists to watch and learn. This achievement is inseparable from the hard work and selfless dedication of Jiang Gu and other inheritors.
Jiang Gu also actively participated in activities to bring intangible cultural heritage into campus, communities and villages, bringing Mongolian short tunes to a wider range of people. She goes into schools to tell children the story of Mongolian short tunes and teaches them to sing songs; she goes into communities and villages to perform for the masses, allowing them to experience the charm of this art form first-hand. Through these activities, Mongolian short-key folk songs have been more widely disseminated and popularized, and more and more people have begun to pay attention to and love this intangible cultural heritage.
In the past ten years, Jiang Gu has devoted herself to the work of cultivating inheritors. Influenced by her father and the teacher of the Wulan Mu Cavalry Team, she regards the word "inheritance" as very important. She cherishes every discovery and inheritance. Miaozi Opportunity values every student who comes to study. Through the intangible cultural heritage inheritor training program of the Wenquan County Cultural Center and the activities of intangible cultural heritage in schools, communities, and villages, thousands of students have been trained.
Until now, every year, college students from colleges and universities across the country come to Jianggu to learn short-key folk songs. Jiang Gu said: "I don't want any compensation for teaching them to sing, as long as they are willing to learn, willing to sing well, and willing to tell more people the history and stories behind these folk songs." (End)