Teochew string music or Chaozhou xianshi ( also called "string-poem music") is classed as a type of music (chamber music for strings and woodwind, literally 'silk/bamboo') although it typically uses stringed instruments only. It is found in northeastern

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

and parts of

Fujian Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its cap ...

and also in regions with overseas Teochew populations, such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States. The

Chaoshan Chaoshan or Teoswa (; peng'im: ''Dio5suan1'' i̯o˥˥꜖꜖.sũ̯ã˧˧ is a cultural-linguistic region in the east of Guangdong, China. It is the origin of the Min Nan Chaoshan dialect (). The region, also known as Chiushan in Cantonese, c ...

region of Guangdong, bordering on Fujian and comprising the cities of Chaozhou, Shantou and

Jieyang Jieyang () is a prefecture-level city in eastern Guangdong Province (Yuedong), People's Republic of China, part of the Chaoshan region whose people speak Chaoshan Min distinct from neighbouring Yue speakers. It is historically important as th ...

, forms its own cultural sphere. Teahouses often accompany with Chaozhou music.

History

Developed from a fusion of elements, popular song, arias of Chinese opera, ancient melodies and pieces of

Buddhist music Buddhist music is music created for or inspired by Buddhism and part of Buddhist art. Honkyoku Honkyoku (本曲) are the pieces of shakuhachi or hocchiku music played by wandering Japanese Zen monks called Komuso. Komuso temples were abolished ...

, string music falls into two styles: () is music of the

Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or ...

school that can be performed as an independent instrumental music genre or at weddings and other ceremonies and that aims at elegance and nobility, while () is principally the music of the theatre, though it may be played independently: it cultivates a sober, rustic style.

Instruments

The instruments most commonly employed include several varieties of two-stringed bowed lutes; the () ''

erxian The ''erxian'' ( 二弦; pinyin: èrxián; literally "two string") is a Chinese bowed string instrument in the ''huqin'' family of instruments. It has two strings and is used primarily in Cantonese music, most often in "hard string" chamber en ...

'' () or () the lead instrument in the

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...

style, shorter and higher-pitched than the ), the '' tihu'' (of lower pitch than the , adapted from the Cantonese ''

gaohu The ''gaohu'' ( 高胡; pinyin: ''gāohú'', ; Cantonese: gou1 wu4; also called ''yuehu'' 粤胡) is a Chinese bowed string instrument developed from the ''erhu'' in the 1920s by the musician and composer Lü Wencheng (1898–1981) and use ...

'') and the big and small ''

yehu The ''yehu'' () is a bowed string instrument in the ''huqin'' family of Chinese musical instruments. ''Ye'' means coconut and ''hu'' is short for ''huqin''. It is used particularly in the southern coastal provinces of China and in Taiwan. The i ...

'' (coconut shell body), as well as several types of plucked lutes: the '' pipa'', large and small ''

sanxian The (, literally "three strings") is a three-stringed traditional Chinese lute. It has a long fretless fingerboard, and the body is traditionally made from snake skin stretched over a rounded rectangular resonator. It is made in several siz ...

'' (a fretless bass instrument like the '' shamisen''), ''

qinqin The qinqin ( 秦琴; pinyin: qínqín; Vietnamese: Đàn sến) is a plucked Chinese lute. It was originally manufactured with a wooden body, a slender fretted neck, and three strings. photo 2/sup> Its body can be round, hexagonal (with rounde ...

'' (four-stringed with short, fretted neck and round body), (four-stringed with long, fretted neck and round body) and . Other than this, the (zither) and ''

yangqin The trapezoidal yangqin () is a Chinese hammered dulcimer, likely derived from the Iranian santur or the European dulcimer. It used to be written with the characters 洋琴 (lit. "foreign zither"), but over time the first character changed t ...

'' (a hammered dulcimer thought to derive from the Iranian santur) are played as well as percussion instruments: a hand-held wooden clapper (), a pair of "temple" blocks ( and ) that mark the beat, and a small drum ().

Cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...

is sometimes also used, particularly in the style performed in the area of Shantou.

Characteristics

The ten characteristic compositions of are * (, 'Grief of Wang Zhaojun') * () * (, 'Jackdaws Play in the Water') * (, 'The Oriole's Cry') * (, 'High Moon') * (, 'Great Eight Beats') * (, 'Flock of Geese on the Shore') * (, 'The Male Phoenix Seeks the Female') * ('Five Knots of the Chain') * (, 'Adding Flowers upon Brocade') The form of each of these pieces resembles a suite () of

variations Variation or Variations may refer to: Science and mathematics * Variation (astronomy), any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon * Genetic variation, the difference in DNA among individua ...

upon a stock melody ('' qupai'' or 'noted tune'). These are called or 'beat' variations and follow an ordered sequence with changes of tempo and measure (most pieces have six or eight beat measures). Augmentation and

diminution In Western music and music theory, diminution (from Medieval Latin ''diminutio'', alteration of Latin ''deminutio'', decrease) has four distinct meanings. Diminution may be a form of embellishment in which a long note is divided into a series ...

of the melody is used, so that it may repeatedly double in speed through the variations. The technique of introduces a division-like filling in of the melody with

figures Figure may refer to: General *A shape, drawing, depiction, or geometric configuration * Figure (wood), wood appearance *Figure (music), distinguished from musical motif * Noise figure, in telecommunication * Dance figure, an elementary dance patt ...

such as repeated notes and neighbouring or passing notes. Perfect-fourth transposition of the melody () also occurs, though the tonal centre remains constant. Four or five main

modes Mode ( la, modus meaning "manner, tune, measure, due measure, rhythm, melody") may refer to: Arts and entertainment * '' MO''D''E (magazine)'', a defunct U.S. women's fashion magazine * ''Mode'' magazine, a fictional fashion magazine which is ...

() are traditionally identified. However, while elsewhere in China such modes are mainly defined by absolute pitch and by the degree of the

pentatonic A pentatonic scale is a musical scale (music), scale with five Musical note, notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed ...

scale that is taken as the key-note (thus setting the

intervals Interval may refer to: Mathematics and physics * Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers ** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to arbitrary partially ordered sets * A statistical level of measurement * Interval e ...

of the scale), the conception of mode, rather like the Indian raga system, includes motif, ornament and intonation. Pitch is not absolute but the scale is usually constructed on a key-note approximating to western concert F – F. Modes are pentatonic but all derive from a seven-note scale: no notice is taken of the starting and finishing tones of the melody in determining the mode and the key-note remains the same in every mode. Tunes may be adapted to a new mode, but the mode remains constant throughout any performance of the suite. Apart from the major pentatonic scale two further tones, corresponding to a (sharp) perfect fourth and a (flat) major seventh, are employed. The "missing" steps of the scale in each mode may be used in ornament but are not part of main mode structure. The mode ("Light III Light VI") is the standard major pentatonic. But ("Light III Heavy VI") calls for a heavy string-pressure upon the sixth degree, raising it to the seventh. ("Heavy III Heavy VI"), similarly, applies this upward string-bend to the third degree as well, raising it to the fourth. The fourth common scale, called ("Live V"), resembles this last but avoids the plain third degree and instead uses a heavy vibrato on the second degree. This is said to be the most characteristic mode of the region. Chaozhou drum music includes the big drum and gong, the small drum and gong, the dizi set drum and dong and su drum and gong ensembles. The current Chaozhou drum music is said to be similar to the form of the Drum and Wind Music of the Han and Tang Dynasties.

References

*Anon, ''Sizhu yue : musique poétique à cordes de Chaozhou'', China.org, retrieved April 200

*Prof. Mercedes M. Dujunco, ''The Birth of a New Mode? Modal Entities in the Chaozhou Xianshi String Ensemble Music Tradition of Guangdong, South China'', in ''Ethnomusicology Online'', Issue 8, 2003, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, retrieved April 200

{{Authority control Chinese styles of music Teochew music