The Wedding Music of the Yao in Jinxiu, Guangxi, China

Abstract

This dissertation deals with the music of the Yao wedding in Jinxiu, Guangxi, China. It describes the musical context of the Yao wedding music and analyzes its musical elements in order to examine its importance and significance to the community of Jinxiu Yao. Using literature research and field work, this study further examines the music of Jinxiu Yao wedding in the context of its culture, religion, language and history. The music of the Yao wedding is described according to its instrumentation, compositional techniques and performance form. More importantly, the music is analyzed according to its structure, mode and tonality, melodic style and rhythmic characteristics. Based on the literature review, and the description and analysis of Jinxiu Yao wedding music, this dissertation concludes with the following. Jinxiu Yao wedding music is related to its culture, religion, language and history. It has a profound national cultural significance but retains its traditional culture. The music of the suona has the most complex musical elements, performed as solo or in an ensemble with percussion instruments. The relatively fixed wedding melody is simple and easy to remember, with pentatonic mode as the main melody and played in free rhythm. The Jinxiu Yao wedding music and ceremony complement each other, expressing the traditional culture of the Yao, and ensures the transmission of the music from their ancestors through the ceremony. With the recent changes in the social economy, this wedding ceremony and music have gradually declined in importance and practice. It is thus necessary to propose and undertake a series of ways towards the preservation and transmission of this precious music culture.

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