A Study On The Amdo Dunglen Art

Amdo Dunglen(A mdo rtung len)is an art form embrace of Tibetan Folk song,folk musical instruments,contemporary art and foreign instruments.Dunglen literally means playing(instruments)while singing.It was originally an individual effort to inherent and develop Tibetan traditional music,and later generated to a prevalent art form mainly popular in Amdo nomadic areas as well as all Tibetan regions.With recent several decades’ development and dissemination,the Amdo Dunglen has became a music form with unique ontological characteristics,numbers of musician communities,stable targeted audiences,relevant musical lives as well as corresponded musical expressions.As a regional musical form,Amdo Dunglen art is prevalent in all Amdo Tibetan dialect spoken areas.Moreover,as a hit contemporary musical form,Amdo Dunglen art has certain numbers of fans and audiences in all over Tibet,and even in many cities in inland China,such performances are not only to be seen but also well-received by local audiences.After Entering into the new century,through media like radio and television,audiovisual products and Wechat,Amdo Dunglen art spread rapidly and extensively and as one of important factor of Tibetan pop music is demonstrating new development trend.During the process of inheritance and development of Amdo Dunglen art,famous playing–singing artists like Palgon(dpal mgon)hasmade key contributions.Their contributions include inherence of traditional music and spreading of newly composing works,as well as fostering and training new generation artists.As an important part of Tibetan folk musical culture and unique form of Tibetan contemporary music culture,studying Amdo Dunglen art is significantly important.This dissertation is consisted of seven parts.In Introduction part,the author presents the research motivation,the significance of the study,literature review,the analytical approaches and methodologies applied in the study,as well as the research scope.Chapter one,takes two cognitive bases,namely the nature ecology and culture environment,as two research starting points,demonstrates the influence of natural environment,living condition,method of production,social history,language,literature,religious belief towards the forming and development of the Amdo Dunglen art.As one of the traditional Tibetan music genres,the playing-singing performing art in different regions has different characteristic.These varieties are not only relevant to the natural environments,but also cultivated by different cultural backgrounds.Amdo Dunglen art is prevalent in the Amdo Tibetan dialect areas,especially in these of nomadic area.This art form is most popular in Machu(rma chu)County,Gannan Prefecture,Gansu Provence.The production mode reflects the nomadic cultural background.Chapter two interprets the culture connotations of Amdo Dunglen art.Explains the oral transmission,modern medias transmission,performances in various venues,different musical forms and nomadic culture based musical aesthetic characteristic of Amdo Dunglen art.This chapter also discusses the Buddhist connotational musical educating function of Amdo Dunglen art,as well as its entertainment function and function of strengthen the regional identities of recipients.These functions exhibit a cultural integration;therefore,the changes of some parts often contribute the altering of others parts’ various levels of changes.Chapter three is the analysis of the ontological characteristic of Amdo Dunglen art.Firstly,the source of music of Amdo Dunglen art include both inherited Tibetan traditional music as well as newly created works.The tone mode applied in Amdo Dunglen art continued characteristic of Tibetan traditional music,are mostly pentatonic.Among them the requisition style applies most,the seven-tone mode and six-tone mode are rarely used.The rhythm of Amdo Dunglen art is relatively unison and regular.Especially the three-beat mode has extraordinarily strong regional characteristics and is considered to be related to the folk music style named "mdog r".In addition,the syncopated and dotted rhythmic patterns are most commonly used.Amdo Dunglen art is a Polyphonic texture form which combines singing and instrument playing.The musical forms of Amdo playing-singing performing art are generallystrophic form with same tune repeating with different lyrics.The structures of main body of each song generally can be clearly distinguished and are mostly single toned form.The main structure forms have two-lined form,three-lined form and four-lined form.There are also few one-lined form and multi-lined form.The multi-line forms are mostly repeated passages.The singing and playing morphologies of Amdo Dunglen art are relevant to the Amdo Tibetan dialects and regional phonetic characteristics.Its decorative singing style is unique,and the changings of accompaniment instruments are corresponded to the singings.The main changes are reflected in the exchanges between the left and right hands and changing of rhythm.Amdo Dunglen art also partly demonstrates the inheritance of Tibetan traditional literature.These lyrics mainly describe the natural environment,are historical and cultural related expressions.The accompaniment instruments are the traditional Tibetan instrument Dranyan(sgra snyan)and foreign instrument Mandolin.Chapter four studies the roles and functions of famous performers in the inheritance of Amdo Dunglen art.By researching the “cultural heroes”,i.e.through introducing three key performers,namely,Palgon(dpal m.gon),Dulpal(bdud bhe’)and Dorul(rto red)and their dedications,demonstrate the individuals’ contributions to the development of Amdoplaying-singing performing art.Chapter Five analyzes the transformation and revival of Amdo Dunglen art.Under the context of globalization and cultural transformation,there are also corresponded adjustments happened to the Amdo Dunglen art.These changes can be categorized into three parts: the changings of techniques,the changings of people and the changings of music.Another kind of changes are the “transformational” and “revival”behaviors generated by insiders and outsiders’ gradually deepened rational understandings toward this art form.In Conclusion presents thoughts on the protection and inheritance of Amdo Dunglen art as well as prospect on its future development.