Houzhenzi is located in the hinterland of Qinling montain. It belongs to Xi’an, but it is the remotest town of Xi’an. In this small town, there are a group of honest people who sing fair-sounding songs from sunrise to sunset. It is difficult to think that you can hear such long but mild and indirect folk songs. The tunes are full of energy, but the listener as if entering the state of floating clouds and flowing water. And the folk song is named according to its located, which is Houzhenzi folk song(厚畛子民歌).
Houzhenzi is a small town in Zhouzhi County. It takes only one hour and a half to go to Zhouzhi County from Xi’an, but it takes three hours to get to Houzhenzi from Zhouzhi County. However, with the rugged mountain road circling, the outside temperature is getting lower and lower.
The reason why the town is called Houzhenzi has different sayings. A local young man said that Zhen means field ridge. Maybe the agriculture in this small town is well developed when the town was named. But yang Junhai, the director of Zhouzhi county cultural center, said that huge mountains mean Hou and the origin of Heihe River means Zhen. And that is the reason why the town got its name.
Houzhenzi town all have more than 3000 people, but most of them are moved here from other places. As a result, Houzhenzi folk song was prepared in this unique phenomenon. After Houzhenzi folk song was formed, it was handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation and it has no scores, tunes and melodies. Most of the lyrics are handed down in this way. Wu Songjun said he is very interested in music from an early age, but what really prompted him to learn to sing folk songs here is his mother-in-law. His mother-in-law is good at singing folk songs, and when he ever engaged with the wife, he began to learn to sing folk songs with his mother-in-law.
"In Many years, when folk songs handed down from generation to generation, it is very popular in this small town. Before the 'Cultural Revolution', everyone in the work gap likes folk duet, it is funny. It also occurred that the young girl who has been engaged with one young man loved another young man who sang folk song well, and blew with the original object. "He said that they mostly learn singing folk songs in the fields, so it was passed down from generation to generation. But during the "Cultural Revolution", which was vilified as a yellow folk song and it was was banned singing. Until after the "Cultural Revolution" recovery, but due to the passage of time as well as word of mouth transmission mode, reportedly Houzhenzi folk songs have 50 kinds of tunes and melodies, but now there are only more than 30 kinds. Some tunes have not had time to pass on as the old man died. This is a very unfortunate thing.
The status of Houzhenzi folk song is worrying. People only hope to hand down the folk song, but now the state of Houzhenzi folk songs but not optimistic. Because folk songs are generated in cultivated land and other labor activities. Due to changes in working methods, such as migrant workers and mechanical operations which have c weakened the labor based on the survival of folk songs. As the growing impact of popular music and other entertainment, the audience of folk music and folk songs is less and less, and now young people do not want to learn this very much.
Trista
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