The Melodic Study Of Shanqu Mountain Songs From Hequ, Shanxi Province

The shanqu (mountain song) from Hequ county, Shanxi province, is a genre of songs representative of Han Chinese folk songs in northern China. The structure of these songs is brief and compact, while the content of the lyrics is simple, but conveying warm and sincere emotions. The shanqu occupy an important position among the folk songs of the Han nationality.This dissertation adopts as methodology of investigation the ’twelve dimensions melodic analysis’(xuanlii shier weidu poxi) put forward by Zhao Songguang. Such analytical tool is applied in the exploration of148shanqu from Hequ that have been published in Anthology of Chinese Folk Songs. Shanxi Volume. The aim of the analysis is to provide a detailed study of the sentence structure and amplitude, mode, cadential notes, rhythm, meter and frequent melodic techniques of these songs.This investigation leads to a summary of five types of melodic structures:DP2\a,a’(two symmetrical and parallel sentences); D2\a,a’ and D2\a,b (two symmetrical sentences); D3\a,b,c,c’(three symmetrical sentences); BP2\a,a’(two asymmetrical and parallel sentences); B2\a,a’ and B2\a,b (two asymmetrical sentences).The lyrics of shanqu display four types of sentence structures:O7(2), i.e., originally two verses each of7word-syllables;07(2+padding syllables), i.e., originally two verses each of7word-syllables and addition of padding syllables; O7(2+padding qiang), i.e., originally a structure of two verses each of7word-syllables with the addition of padding singing (chen qiang); and O7(2+padding word-syllable)+padding sentence of7word syllables.The shanqu have six types of sentence amplitude:4,4;4(2+2),4;4(2+2),4(2+2);4,+4;-4,+4;+4,+4. The shanqu have three types of rhythmic layout:a, a; a, a’; a, b. The range of these songs is between an octave and a twelfth. Their common melodic techniques include:repetition, huan tou (change the head of the verse), he tou (common head), lian huan kou (chain-like links).Through the summary of the morphological regularities that emerge from the study of the shanqu, this dissertation attempts to reach its final aim, which consists in finding out the cultural information hidden in the background of the notated score.