Meng Jiang Nv Key And Its Musical Morphology Research

Meng jiang nv key (Meng key for short) is a meaningful tune system in Chinese traditional music. It’s a classical representative of folk tune featured with "multi-purpose in one tune". In earlier20th century, many folklorists and men of letters, i.e. Gujiegang, Liufu, Lugong, started the research and material collection jobs regarding Meng jiang nv story. Nowadays, Meng jiang nv has been a symbol with profound cultural deposits. However, most of studies revolved around history, folk custom and culture. The research on the musical morphology of Meng key is still at its initial stage. In view of this, with the aim of filling up the blanket in this field, the writer attempts to initiate the research on musical morphology regarding Meng jiang nv key.Based on370songs selected from a book titled Chinese Folk Songs Anthology, using the method of systematology, data statistic, comparative studies, opern collection, this article analyzed and summarized the rule of spreading and evolution at macroscopic, microscopic and middle level. Further combined with ethnicity, geography, folk custom and genre, the author dedicate to build a systematic frame of musical morphology research on same tune system.This paper is composed of introduction, body, opern,comment,epilogue,appendix and reference.The introduction comments on previous researches, which mainly refer to the story of Men jiang nv, achievements and status quo of researches. By presenting an overall introduction, the author then comes up with the main points and innovations of this paper.The chapter1depicts the story of Meng jiang nv and its spreading and evolution. The story of Meng jiang nv is tragic beautiful. It shaped a pectect female image with characteristics of politeness, pudicity,loyalty, filial piety, reason and justice etc. Crying becomes a unique customs in China, and it’s a way to express "politeness, pudicity, filial piety, affection". The story of Meng jiang nv began in Qin dynasty, and as time goes by, it was widely spreaded and has profound influence among people nowadays. The fourth part of chapter1focuses mainly on the origin of the story, its formation and evolution.In chapter2, the writer explains the concept of Meng key first. And then draw a series of conclusions, which detail:Meng key belongs to one category of existing tunes in spring singing activities. It’s also referred to as "Spring key·Meng jiang nv" in Spring key system. In contrast, it’s not a subset of Spring key in non-spring singing activities;Meng key, Spring key and Fengyang song are all derived from same origin. Meng key was earliest discovered in Meng Yuan Opern published in Qing dynasty (Chinese Tong zhi13th year,1874);Both "characteristic tune" and "declined tone at the end of sentence" are criterions to determine if the target belongs to Meng key or its variation.The chapter3to chapter7are the core of the essay, focusing on the analaysis of musical morphology.In chapter3and chapter4, based on relationship among the folk song with same origin, the author find the phenomenon of "same lyrics, different tunes". On one hand, it’s subject to geography, natural environment, folk custom and culture; On the other hand, it’s limited by thoughts expressed from writing and stability of emotion as well. This phenomenon has a close relationship with "Great Wall Cuture" particularly. Meng keys under the same frame show diversified features in musical morphology. From chapter5to chapter7, the author analyzed the Meng key in terms of ethnicity, geography, genre. Based on the music and opern, the writer attempts to find out the rule of change in musical morphology, and then summarize the path of spreading and evolution.In last part of essay, the author points out the main idea and draw a conclusion. Namely, the musical morphology of subsystem of Meng key shows diversified characteristics; To look at the change of folk songs in Hui ethnic group and other China’s Minorities, it shows many characteristics, including:Folk feature in Lyrics, alternating feature in beat and rhythm, diversified feature in sentence structure, ethnological feature in melody and tune etc; Unique characteristics in the way of thinking and feeling expression for Meng key in different locations;Inheritance and Variability in dance music, Quyi and opera;Besides, the author made an indepth discussion to improve the studies in musical morphology field. To research the relationship in tune and lyrics, and broaden the research to cultural anthropology field.