The Investigation And Research On The Art Of Fanbang Drum In Huarong County, North Hunan Province

"Huarong Fanbang Drum", popular in north Hunan Province and parts of Jingzhou in Hubei, is a kind of local narrative songs. From the local investigation and my own investigation experiences in Huarong, we knew that this kind of narrative songs has been popular from the middle and late Qing Dynasty in the vast rural areas and towns. In the middle 20th century, It has almost become such a popular kind of narrative songs that lots of old people can perform it anywhere at any time. However, the field of ethnomusicology paid attention to it from the music investigation in Hunan and Hubei Provinces during the late 1980s. The concise introduction and some scores of "Huarong Fanbang Drum" and "Dongshan Fanbang Drum" firstly appeared in "History of Chinese Dramas: Hunan Volume" and "The Collection of Chinese Dramas: Hubei Volume" published in 1992. This is the beginning of the research on the local narrative songs.I spent nearly one and half a year collecting all the oral materials of Fanbang Drum in Huarong County, the video materials that have existed since 1980s and the only historical document materials through my own investigations on it one place by one place all over the county. The author discussed a whole survey of the Fanbang Drum through the arrangement and research of these materials from several aspects: the distribution of Fanbang Drum in Huarong County; the inheritance of Fanbang Drum; the art characteristics of each school; Fanbang Drum in Huarong County and local folk music; the folk art characteristics of it and its current development.