Editor's note: Mountain songs are the essence and soul of Zhuang culture, and are also one of the important carriers for Guangxi to express itself and let the outside world identify Guangxi. In recent years, the singers and listeners of Guangxi Zhuang mountain songs have tended to be aging, and the tune and singing voice are single, resulting in weak inheritance and innovation. The most obvious example is that the Mountain Song of the Zhuang nationality in Guangxi has not been able to sing the representative works of the whole region and the whole country.
A new situation may be opening - some people in Longlin and Xilin, Guangxi are exploring how to let the ancient Zhuang mountain songs enter the new era and attract more young listeners of all nationalities, and have now formed a local microclimate.
Wei Wensheng (center) performs on stage Peng Xiaoyu/Photo
Wei Dehua (center) and singers together to create the mountain song Qin Wenna / photo
"At the age of 24, I like to listen to mountain songs so much."
"The mountain song is very good now."
"This is the best and most cheerful mountain song I have ever heard."
……
This is a part of the comments on the mountain song work "Full of Grains" by the Douyin "Longlin Wei Dehua", which has been played 74,000 times and won the hearts of countless young people. Wei Dehua is the inheritor of the Longlin Zhuang mountain song, and in 2017, he began to brew innovative mountain songs to adapt it to the new era and adapt to the tastes of young people. At that time, Wei Wensheng, the multi-talented "Prince of Mountain Song" in Nazo Miao Nationality Township, Xilin County, 157 kilometers south of Longlin County, had been performing mountain songs with various instruments for many years, and he was also changing mountain songs.
Why do two middle-aged men who have never met before love to reform the ancient mountain song art and become the dominant players in their respective regions, and also praise each other: Wei Wensheng watched "Zhuangxiang Li and Li", praised "the effect is very good", the lyrics and tunes were very similar to his "Zhuangxiang March Red", but more exquisite; Wei Dehua praised Wei Wensheng for his good voice and singing voice, singing to accompaniment are very powerful...
Wei Wensheng Peng Yuyu in the creation/ Photo
The 50-year-old Wei Wensheng is still as young as a teenager in the mountain song family, born in the mountain song family, as the old man of 7 brothers and sisters, he has been influenced by the mountain song culture since childhood, practiced his voice well, had a music teacher teach basic music theory during compulsory education, and when he was young, he worshiped famous teachers, and performed with the Nazo Mountain Song And Zhuang Troupe in Xilin and Quang Nam, becoming a famous mountain song prince.
In the late 1990s, there were fewer stages for mountain songs, foreign cultural imports, and the wave of migrant workers came, and mountain songs were silent for more than 10 years. In 2012, Wei Wensheng only came back to participate in the "Thousands of Groups" mass cultural activities, Wei Wensheng and the daughter of the second sister Peng Yuyu, as the main backbone of the Nazuo Zhuang Troupe, produced the entire literary and artistic program for Nazuo for 2 consecutive years, and took it to Xilin County to perform, and the masses praised it like a wave. Looking at the audience, Wei Wensheng was a little disappointed, "all middle-aged and elderly, very few young people."
Wei Wensheng began to consciously learn to change, in addition to performance, he always likes to stare at the stage, watch others perform, learn the advantages, ponder, transform, and use for his own use. At the same time, try to improve the tone, the accompaniment of the instrument, singing while playing, the body naturally twists, shakes, and rotates with the song...
The change made Wei Wensheng stand out among the Xilin singers. Once, Xilin County held a mountain song training class, Wei Wensheng as a student to participate, after arriving at the scene, everyone exchanged mountain songs, all admired Wei Wensheng's talent, even the two teaching teachers were ashamed of themselves, recommended Wei Wensheng as the teaching teacher of the period.
"Wei Wensheng is versatile, understands traditional mountain songs, understands modern music theory, and can innovate." Huang Dachun, director of the Xilin County Cultural Center, said so.
Wei Dehua learned mountain songs from the old artist Tang Guanghua
Wei Dehua is a native of Longling Gebu Township, born in 1976, learned mountain songs at the age of 10, returned to Longlin after graduating from Tiandong Normal School in 1995, became a rural teacher, the school engaged in literary and art evenings, he made up sketches, played guitar on stage, sang mountain songs, and hosted. In 1998, he was transferred to longlin education art troupe as an actor, and used mountain songs to go to the countryside to publicize and educate the policy. He cherished this ancestral skill, and was promoted to the post of director of the office of the county education bureau, and he still enjoyed it in his spare time.
The opening ceremony of the Longlin Zhuang Nationality Song Contest of 100 Villages and 1000 People Mountain Song Contest planned and organized by Wei Dehua
In 2012, Wei Dehua was favored by Tang Guanghua, an important inheritor and disseminator of Longlin Zhuang mountain songs, with his talent for mountain songs, and the two had similar interests and led the establishment of the Longlin Zhuang Folk Culture Society (now the "Longlin Zhuang Society"). Since then, the annual song party has become larger and larger, and it has also gathered the heroes to sort out and launch the eight Zhuang ethnic eight-tone sitting singing party at the beginning of the first month of the first month and the folk activities of the June Six Jingtian Festival. Wei Dehua relied heavily on Tang Guanghua for his ability and versatility, served as the vice president of the Longlin Zhuang Society (standing), assisted the work of the society for many years, presided over large-scale activities, and sang the mountain songs with pure fire, but found that the singers and listeners were middle-aged and elderly.
The mountain songs of the Longlin Zhuang ethnic group have the tune of the Du niang river, the tune of the Nanpan River, the tune of the North Lou of Shali (township), and the tune of the Du Niang River is popular in the valley of the Du Niang River, covering almost the entire Xilin County, and it is this tune that Wei Wensheng sings. These tunes have been sung for hundreds of years, and in the rapidly changing new era, before they have time to react and adjust, they have become increasingly estranged from the times and the young people of their own nation. Singers and listeners are generally not highly educated, and it is generally "always good to be like this". Tang Guanghua only adjusted the nanpanjiang tune to the end of the tune, "Oh heh", changed from sinking to rising, sounded more lively, and was publicly reprimanded by people: "You people, spoil your own national culture." "Tang Ye was scolded for 10 years before the audience generally accepted it." Wei Dehua said that after the establishment of the Longlin Zhuang Society, it has successively absorbed young music teachers such as Liang Gang, Tao Meifang, Wei Chao, and Yang Ying.
After years of trying to explore, Wei Dehua began to try to write new songs in 2017, he learned the lesson of Tang Guanghua's scolding, imitated Bai Juyi to do the new music house, every change, first sang to the old singers and fans, they said "good" before it was decided. Wei Dehua sent the song to the Zhuangxue group again and again, everyone discussed it with all their mouths, Tang Guanghua silently paid attention, combined with the opinions of colleagues and his own feelings, before speaking out to support Wei Dehua's innovation.
Wei Dehua (first from left) participates in the Longlin Mountain Song Display Activity Lu Zongzheng / Photo
2017 is also a key year for Wei Wensheng to innovate mountain songs.
A year earlier, Wei Wensheng had sung with netizens known as "after the female song" in the QQ group, every night after dinner to the early morning, singing for 6 consecutive nights, it was difficult to separate the time, the singer audience could not cry, calling for a face-to-face.
Huang Dachun, director of the Xilin County Cultural Center, saw the situation and ran to the stage to hold a live concert in Muding Village, Xiping Township in the first month of 2017, singing from 8 p.m. to 12 noon the next day, and the audience crowded the house. Long ago repeatedly stated that no recording was allowed, and a professional household in Longlin Rock Tea Township still drove in, hid in the crowd and secretly recorded, and then burned 10 episodes for sale. There are also many people who copy into the U disk, each selling 50 yuan, and an old lady in Ding'an Town sold 103 U disks in one day.
In the mountain song creation studio at home, flute, guitar, violin, moon qin, erhu, horse bone beard, gourd silk, harmonica, gong, drum, wooden fish, electronic organ and other instruments are available, as well as a basket of wooden leaves, traditional mountain songs to modern instruments, can accompany the song concerto, he takes it, bold experimentation, in-depth creation, occasional gains, at night on the case of creation, a stack of lyrics, musical scores, manuscripts, a song circulating in all directions, witnessing the value of change.
In 2017, Wei Dehua brewed the audio version of the new song "Magnificent Countryside Li and Li" compiled and produced in 2018, which was widely sung, which made him feel inspired. In 2020, the new crown pneumonia epidemic struck, and the eight-tone sitting singing and Zhuang ethnic songs could not be done. At this time, WeChat public account, Douyin and other platforms have been popular throughout the Longlin countryside, Wei Dehua and Tang Guanghua consulted, through the county villages to provide mountain songs, made of videos by the backbone of the Zhuang Society, in the Zhuang Society WeChat public account "Longlin Zhuang Network" exhibition and broadcast 20 issues. In the meantime, the anti-epidemic mountain songs they produced were widely sung, and Wei Dehua summed up the law of mountain song dissemination: the text is not as good as the picture, the picture is not as good as the sound, the sound is not as good as the video, and the organic combination of the audio and video of the text is the best. He began to ponder the route of the transformation of the short video mountain song.
Wei Wensheng and Wei Dehua's transformation mountain song, the content and direction are somewhat different.
In addition to exploring the integration of Zhuang mountain songs with modern music, Wei Wensheng also carries a pen and paper with him, paying attention to finding creative inspiration from life. In an autumn high season, Wei Wensheng went to the Western River every morning to fish, he was in the green mountains and green waters, the rice by the river was ripe, the farmers helped each other to harvest, men and women worked together, there was talk and laughter, the "bang bang" sound of threshing grain came, very rhythmic and rhythmic, Wei Wensheng was greatly touched, took out his pen and paper, recorded the inspiration, and returned to create "Spring Morning in the Western Yangtze River", accompanied by wooden leaves, flutes, erhu and other musical instruments, which was refreshing, and won the first prize of the 2017 Xilin County Thousand Groups And Thousands of Musical Instruments Competition.
Another day, Wei Wensheng went to work in the sugar orange field, the weather suddenly changed, the wind and rain were great, Wei Wensheng ran in a hurry, hid under a big tree, watched the smoke and rain, and had a thousand thoughts. He remembered a date with a girl when he was a teenager, and he also encountered this scene, and now that things are not old, he sighed and was inspired, he hurriedly took out a pen and paper to record, and after returning home, polished into "Si Yu Love Song".
Wei Wensheng created "Spring Morning in the Western Yangtze River" and "Siyu Love Song", similar to the poetry created by modern poets, and the form of expression is in line with mainstream modern music.
The Nanpanjiang tune and the Donkey Niangjiang tune lowered the long tone at the end of the past to express pleasant feelings, and those who could not understand it still felt sad and depressed, and Wei Dehua shortened it and raised it; for the Shali North Lou tune, which was still like the Daogong Chanting Sutra and the eight-tone rap, Wei Dehua increased the musicality and made the speech become singing. In terms of content, Wei Dehua shortened the past lengthy and repeated lyrics, singing 2 times per song, before slow and fast; in form, it is in the form of short videos to adapt to the spread of short video platforms; in terms of production, it is better to improve, "mainly studying how to make young people easy to accept and easy to sing."
The video version of "Magnificent Countryside Beautiful and Beautiful" that has been brewing for 3 years, because of the excellent video production, stands out, so that Wei Dehua and the creative team began to pursue high-quality video production, so there is "Oil Tea Fragrant Sand Pear Slope" of ShaLi North Lou, which is also widely popular. This time, Wei Dehua was scolded again: you go to help others make songs, why don't you make our songs.
In this way, Wei Dehua also planned to create "Grain Full Warehouse" in Nanpanjiang tune, which is an old song praising the countryside of Zhuangxiang, the old tune sings paragraph after paragraph, repeating it like chanting, Wei Dehua shortens it, adding cheerful drum beats such as threshing, high and low tones, multi-voice harmonies, music rhythm enhancement, vibrato version 4 minutes and 37 seconds broadcast into a hit, for a time, walking on the streets of Longlin, you can hear this song everywhere, stalls, buildings, Walkman, car audio everywhere, singing Longlin County for a while.
In the creation of this series of songs, the backbone of the Zhuang Society participated, Wei Dehua, Liang Guangheng and his wife and 2 longlin music partners Liang Gang and Tao Meifang, Wei Chao and Yang Ying became the main creators and singing members, Wei Dehua wrote and directed lyrics, and Liang Gang was responsible for most of the music.
At present, Wei Dehua has created more than 10 small songs, and 200 songs translated by zhuanghans, most of which are folk customs, labor, love songs, nursery rhymes and other types of songs, of which "MurmurIng Song" is the first to fill in the blanks, and the response is good; the hottest "Pastoral Little Song" Vibrato playback exceeded 100,000, more than 300 comments, more than 2,000 likes.
"At present, Mongolian music, Xinjiang music, Tibetan music, Sichuan Yi music, and Korean music are widely spread, high-level, and influential in the whole country; we are just starting out, and we are not as good as Yunnan and Guizhou." Wei Dehua said, "The zhuang mountain song reform, we must turn the grandmother's song into the child's song, the youth's march, in order to have a future."
The New Mountain Song of the Zhuang Nationality, compiled and produced by Wei Dehua and Wei Wensheng, was praised and forwarded by young listeners of all nationalities, and flew out of the Nanpan River and the Niangjiang River Basin, breaking the region, crossing the nationalities, and spreading to a wider world.
As the leaders of the mountain song reform, Wei Wensheng and Wei Dehua ushered in the "treatment" that the old-school singers did not have - young people learned from them the new style of mountain song creation.
Source: Guangxi Education Communication Center, which casts a solid sense of the Chinese national community
Reporter: Lu Zhaode | Intern Editor: Lun Yanting
Editor-in-charge: Huang Yun | Review: Liang Qing | Review: Meng Shuqi | Producer: Wei Xiuguan