Chinese folk song: Hidden treasures of an old nation

Chinese folk song represents a colorful piece of cultural heritage of old China. It is a highly developed art form created by people from over fifty-six ethnic groups and refined by Chinese singers for over five thousand years. It is valuable for ethnomusicological study because it is a unique musical culture and it is invaluable in song repertoire because of its exotic charm. Unfortunately it is rarely heard or studied in the United States. This project is an attempt to introduce Chinese folk songs to American audiences and American singers.;This dissertation consists of three lectures. The first lecture discusses the rationale for this dissertation, the role of music in Chinese culture, and also three categories of Chinese folk songs: love, work, and nature. The second lecture discusses the three aspects of performance practice in Chinese folk songs: music theory, musical expression, and regional styles. Music theory includes discussions of scale, mode, accompaniment, harmony, and tempo. Musical expression includes discussions of text-setting, improvisation, ornamentation, and esthetics.;In regional differences, I examine the cultural and geographical differences among Central, Southeast, and Northwest China. In the third lecture I discuss, in detail, Chinese diction in singing that employs the Pinyin Romanization and the International Phonetic Alphabet. I also include a discussion of the difficulties that many American singers encounter when attempting to sing in Chinese.