Research And Studies On Tongwei Ditty In Gansu

Tongwei, Gansu, with the edification of Yellow River Culture, is a city with a long history. People have lived and multiplied on this land four and five thousand years ago, and it is the important historical site for "Yangshao Culture" and "Qijia Culture" and quite a few contemporaneous ancient painted pottery had been excavated. Tongwei Ditty is the perfect representative of folk art which was born, inherited and developed in this yellow land with deep history of sedimentation.Centuries-old history and as well as the simplicity of folk customs make the artistic form of ditty could survive and inherit. Tongwei is located in the Northwest of China, where the primitive environment for folk arts is well preserved. Tongwei Ditty is one of the folk arts which has the closest connection to local people with its most direct expression. Its unique genre and vivid music form have gained it rich local characteristics and matchless national style. The ditty is close to life with a wide range of source materials, such as various forms of performance of singing. For performance form, they have unaccompanied songs by a stall, or different stage shows with make-up. As for the singing forms, they have many different ways such as joint standard and combination of single songs. Tongwei Ditty as a local ditty has a large group of listeners in the entire whole Tongwei city, and is the main entertainment and way to express themselves for local people during farming season.Tongwei Ditty, with its tunes, melody or even the development precess, is the living fossil for studying fork arts in not only Gansu, but also in the whole country. All those plays and songs spread by Tongwei Ditty reflect the picture of social and cultural activities that in Qin, Han, Tang, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasty, which brought a great theory value and realistic meaning for the research and study in the Gansu fork arts and the traditional music development process.The author did a systematic analysis and deep study in Tongwei Ditty in different views, including the natural environment and social culture, which are not much related to music itself. Through the interview with many fork arts performers and recording of their performances, the author shows the art charm of Tongwei Ditty, and also reveals its current existing situation.