"In the early morning your face was rosy as an
apple
"Now sadness gives it a hue as brown as vinegar
"My heart is burning with a fierce flame
"Love's fire tortured me
"I have been tormented to the limits of my strength
"Just like the autumn dragonfly
"I would strain my wings to fly high, high
"It is so long since I had news of my beloved
"How can I bear the pain of parting?"
Farmer musicians
from Makit County of the Xingjiang perform the Dolan Muqam at the China
Conservatory in Beijing last week. [China
Daily]
With such passionate poetry, it seems difficult to fully express the emotion
by just reading it. This is probably the reason why the authors of the poetry,
the Uygur people, choose to sing it.
They have been singing such poetry for hundreds of years in Muqam, an art
form of large-scale suites which involves songs, instrumental music and dance.
When the Xinjiang Muqam Art Ensemble and the Dolan Muqam Group performed at
the China Conservatory in Beijing on December 11, their Muqam won warm applause
from the audience, though the performance was unfamiliar to most people in terms
of its scale, instruments and language.
"This is the first time that I have seen a Muqam performance," said Liu
Shulin, a student from the Musicology Department of the conservatory. "I was
very much attracted to the composite form of Muqam."
The concert actually displayed two aspects of Muqam: the Twelve Muqam, a
highly systematic classical art of the Uygur people; and Dolan Muqam, one of the
many branches of the folk Muqam.
Distinctive music
Muqam is a common musical phenomenon of the Muslims farming in Central Asia,
South Asia, West Asia and North Africa. However, the meaning of the word differs
from people to people. Its associations include mode, scale and melodic type.
For the Uygurs, it is primarily a large-scale suite.
The Uygurs are the biggest group among the 13 ethnic groups in Northwest
China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
In history, Uygur music was divided into five major types identified by the
regions where they are most popular - Kuga (Kucha) music, Ili Valley music,
Shule music, Gaochang music and Yutian music.
According to historical accounts, the earliest component of the Muqam - "qong
nagma" (also known as daqu or major verse-songs in Chinese historical books) -
constituted a comprehensive body of music even before the 6th century.
As time passed, the number of Muqam tunes increased, the music developed, and
the different regional styles showed signs of homogenizing.
In the 16th century, under the influence of such Muqam scholars as
Amannisahan and Kedirhan, folk musicians and Muqam scholars from different
regions gathered to unearth, collect and collate various types of Muqam. The
result was that Muqam was systematized into a collection of 12 sets of Muqam -
Rak, Qabbayat, Muxavirak, Qahargah, Panjigah, Uz-Phal, Ajam, Uxxak, Nava, Bayat,
Sigah and Irak - each of which would last about two hours.
Of course it is impossible to perform the whole Twelve Muqam in one concert,
yet the Xinjiang Muqam Art Ensemble offered the audience a microcosm of the art
form in their performance, which included ensemble, solo, duo, singing, dancing
and even juggling performances.
Selections from the Rak and Qabbayat, the first two sets of the Twelve Muqam,
showed the Muqam's basic structure.
Each Muqam can be divided into three major parts of "qong nagma" (major
verse-songs), "dastan" (narrative songs) and "mashrap" (gathering).
After an unmetered introduction, a Muqam enters the "qong nagma," in which
the singer starts with slow songs and gradually works his way through faster and
faster songs.
The "qong nagma" is followed by the "dastan." The lyrics of these songs are
taken from folk songs and poetry most often telling the tales of famous heroes
and lovers from Uygur folklore. The melodic range of the dastan is particularly
wide.
And finally comes the "mashrap," a set of fast dance songs which conclude the
Muqam.
"The influence of Muqam on the Uygur people is very deep," said Mamtimin
Mamtili, director of the Xinjiang Muqam Art Ensemble. "You can find such
influence in the folk songs and even pop songs of the Uygurs."
Besides ensemble playing, musicians from the group also performed solo and
duo works, in which the characteristics of Uygur instruments were specifically
shown.
The plucked rawap is a leading instrument in Uygur music. It is the most
instantly recognized Uygur instrument when it is played in an ensemble, like in
the well-known movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
When Parhat Dawut played "Xadiyana" (celebration), with a single rawap, he
created the atmosphere of people celebrating a victory. The sympathetic strings
and the semi-spherical sound chamber of rawap gave it a unique timbre.
The duo piece "Edzem" by tambur player Samat Sabir and dutar player Dilxat
Rayidin displayed the perfect match of the two Uygur string instruments. At the
accompaniment of the comparatively low sounds of the two-stringed dutar, Samat
Sabir performed fast plucking and subtle sliding on the five-stringed tambur.
Dolan Muqam
If the Xinjiang Muqam Art Ensemble presented highly refined artistic Muqam
music, the Dolan Muqam Group brought Muqam music in its most primitive and vital
form.
Created by the Dolan people, a sub-group of Uygurs who live on the edge of
the Taklimakan Desert, the Dolan Muqam is performed with only four kinds of
instruments: the qalun dulcimer, Dolan rawap, Dolan ghijak (a vertically-held
fiddle) and dap hand drum.
Unlike the Xinjiang Muqam Art Ensemble's musicians who have received
professional training in conservatories and art schools, the Dolan Muqam Group
was made up of farmers from the Yantak Township, Makit County of the Kashgar
region in Xinjiang. None of them read music scores, yet every note is kept in
their minds from oral transmission.
Each Dolan Muqam begins with unmetered instrumental music and then repeated
calls of "Allah Allah" on the same pitch by the lead singer.
According to Zhou Ji, a researcher from the Xinjiang Research Institute of
Arts, such tunes are related to the Dolan people's lives in the desert and
jungles, and their hunting lifestyle.
The Dolan Muqam is firstly distinctive from other types of Muqam due to its
high pitch. Their singing may actually sound like crying when it is compared to
traditional Han music or Western classical music.
It was hard to believe that such passionate singing came from musicians who
are mostly over 60.
"Singing like this is not easy, but it is worth the effort, since singing
lightly would make no sense," said 72-year-old qalun player Abdujilil Rozi.
In addition, the dap is beat heavily with the palm in Dolan Muqam, rather
than the light fingering of the Twelve Muqam.
It takes about six to 15 minutes to perform a Dolan Muqam, which is much
shorter than the Twelve Muqam. However, the Dolan Muqam is not simple. The
melodic instruments, the qalun, Dolan rawap and Dolan ghijak do not follow the
singing part, but created a certain kind of heterophony and figuration.
This is obviously reflected in the group's performance of the "Uzral," the
second of the nine existing Dolan Muqam.
Maybe because they were used to performing in orchards and courtyards, the
Dolan Muqam musicians sat on the floor to sing and play, instead of sitting on
chairs.
"For Dolan Muqam, there is no limitation in terms of time, place and
audience," said Zunongslam, director of the Dolan Muqam Group. "Dolan Muqam
takes place whether there are just a dozen people or hundreds of people, whether
there is a stage or not, and you can be both a viewer or a performer."
The end of the concert proved his words, as many people in the audience
joined the dance on the stage, and became part of the Muqam.
In history, Uygur music was divided into five major types identified by the
regions where they are most popular - Kuga (Kucha) music, Ili Valley music,
Shule music, Gaochang music and Yutian music.
