North Shanxi Folk Taoist Ritual Music Study

Hengshan Taoist music is a popular music genre for Taoist rituals in northern Shanxin province. Originated from the area along the Hengshan mountain in today's northern Shanxi province, including Datong city, Shuozhou city and multiple counties in Yizhou city such as Tianzhen, Yanggao, Datong, Hunyuan, Shanyin, Yingxian county, Pinglu district and Shuocheng district, Hengshan Taoist music is a typical representative of Taoist music practiced in North China. For a long time, this folk religious music tradition had been suspended, due to wars, political and other reasons. Since 1980s, along with the revival of local and folk religions, this folk religious music was gradually reinvigorated and attracted scholarly attentions.This paper is based on field studies with a solid understanding of existing research findings. It consists of the introduction, five chapters and the conclusion. Chapter One introduces Hengshan Taoist music's religious, cultural and historical background, giving a brief account of northern Shanxi's geographical and cultural features, the folk religious system and the distribution of monasteries, and the history of Taoism in Shanxi province. Chapter Two elaborates on Hengshan Taoist music's overall status, including its historical origins and geographical distribution, different types of Taoist rituals and their respective functions, the organizational structure and rules of folk Taoist music groups in northern Shanxi. Chapter Three explains the material component parts of Hengshan Taoist music, presenting discussions about the instrument shape and design, tunes, organization of the music group, scriptures used for the rituals and the distribution of music scores and tracks. Chapter Four examines musical activities during folk Taoist rituals in northern Shanxi. The paper conducts case studies on two Taoist branches, Zhengyi and Quanzhen, to see the application of Taoist rituals for the dead and Taoist monasteries in burial ceremonies in the local society, and discusses the similarities and differences in varied localities in northern Shanxi. Chapter Five discusses the similarities and differences of Hengshan Taoist music's regional styles, and concludes with an overall of its artistic characteristics.This paper has studied the various Taoism branches in the region, corrected previous misunderstanding held by the academia while redefining the Hengshan Taoist music. Besides that, scholars in the past had tended to focus on the ritual music of Taoist monasteries, but had often neglected that of Taoist practitioners who cultivate Taoism at home. This paper has made a comprehensive study of them, collecting more than 30 scriptures and rhythm verses. The concluding chapter of the paper, "the artistic characteristics of Hengshan Taoism Music", has categorized and compared different styles of music from various regions, and summed up both regional and historical characteristics of Hengshan Taoism Music. By making a thorough study of the Taoism music in Hengshan region, this paper intends to set an example of similar studies on folk Taoist ritual music in North China and the country as a whole.