Social Changes Music

Yi was described as an ethnic group which "uses poetry to think, uses song to speak, born to sing".Music can be found everywhere, no matter in various ceremonies held by Yi, or in the whole life of Yi. In the ancient time, Liangshan Yi area was in a closed state. Along with the reform and opening up and modernization, Yi culture, especially their folk music has undergone great changes. From the perspective of music sociology, by using the method of content analysis, this paper is going to explore the relationship between music, social and cultural change.This paper consists of five chapters. The first chapter introduces the reasons for selection of the topic, research significance, literature review, research methods and research sites. The second chapter introduces the closure of the Liangshan Yi society as well as rich and colorful Liangshan Yi folk songs. The third chapter introduces the effect of modernity on Yi society in Liangshan after the reform and opening up lead by the Central Government. Development of Liangshan Yi music after the reform and opening up is discussed too. The fourth chapter focuses on the selection, classification and analysis of the content of Liangshan Yi songs the reform and opening up. The fifth chapter draws the conclusion and puts forward the further thinking.This paper shows the changes of Liangshan Yi social culture caused by the modernization lead by the Central Government. And those social and cultural changes have important influence on the Liangshan Yi music, because music theme changes, styles changes, music function changes are all related to changes of social culture of the Yi nationality in Liangshan. The traditional culture of ethnic minorities are in revival, recession and variation situations, but the revival of folk life is out of touch, and the recession is deep, folk music has important significance of spreading ethnic culture and enhance national self-confidence, the sense of national pride, enhance the national cultural identity. People who are doing folk music, should enhance their own cultural confidence and cultural consciousness in the new period of development, by learning from the excellent traditional culture, inheriting, developing, carrying forward those beautiful melody and the excellent national culture hidden deeply in the folk, protecting the native language, in order to make contributions for developing and inheriting the national culture.