Title: The "Hua Er(flower)" in mountain folk songs of Hakka
Abstract: The mountain folk songs of Hakka refer to those populous in the geographical areas inhabited by Hakka. Judged from the formats of scales, it has three modes--Cong, Zhi and Yu. Appearing mainly in southern Jiangxi, western Fujian and eastern Guangdong is the mode of Zhi of which the rhythms are free, and melodies high and bright using frequently the melodic frames of ascending fifth and octave combined with double fourths as its units and basic themes. The texts used in Zhi illustrate a format consisting four sentences with seven Chinese characters each; all the melodies are composed basically of an up-low structure. Interesting enough, these features of songs sung by Hakka are similarly possessed by those of Hua Er ( Flower) sung by western Chinese who live thousands of miles away. This paper provides redundant illustrations to compare the two forms of songs and postulates the possibilities of their common origins.
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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