Xi'an Drum Music

Xi'an drum music is a wind-and-percussion suite tradition of Guanzhong temple fairs, performed seated or marching and preserved in gongche scores.

Related

GuanziBangu (Peking-opera drum)Daluo (great gong)Qupai

Time and place

Xi'an drum music circulates in Xi'an and the surrounding Zhouzhi and Chang'an districts. Since the Ming and Qing, folk music societies have played it at temple fairs, pilgrimage gatherings and festivals. Each society keeps its own score books, and its activity is close to Daoist and Buddhist ritual.

Musical features

Performance divides into seated and marching forms. Seated music gathers around tables for large suites with opening, development and close; marching music is shorter and played on the move. A dizi leads, with sheng, guanzi, yunluo, drums and cymbals, while the drum controls the whole piece. Scores use gongche notation, and singers intone the solmisation to pass on the melody.

Repertoire

The Complete Seated Suite in Chidiao Eight Beats, Flower Drum Section, Receiving the Imperial Edict, Zhongnan Mountain and Roaming the Moon Palace are common, suites usually strung from several fixed tunes and drum sections.

What to listen for

Hear The Boatman's Tune, Shaanxi Temple and Escorting Qin Qiong first to learn Guanzhong speech, then imagine how drum music expands short phrases into suites. In seated music, follow the lead drum, the heterophony of dizi and sheng, and the abrupt shifts of speed and density between sections.

Common misunderstandings

Xi'an drum music is often called surviving Tang sound, or mistaken for percussion alone. Its scores reach back to the Ming and Qing and its origins need caution; winds and gongs form the band together, with the drum as frame and dizi and sheng as melodic body.

Sources

• 《中国音乐词典》编辑部编，中国音乐词典（人民音乐出版社）— 条目与年代核对，未引用
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry "China" — framework and dates checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.