COUNCIL TALK 02/2022 - The digital magazine of the World Choir Council

The reasons for the influence on the purity of
folk choral music as viewed in the ethnological
research of Chinese folk choral music are mainly:
1.The influences of social factors in different
historical periods have led to a rupture in the
heritage of national culture, resulting in the
incompleteness of the heritage of folk choral
music.
2. The changes in aesthetic orientation and
development-concepts have greatly reduced
the objective practicability of folk choral music.
3. The minority culture has been influenced by
“Sinicization” (a process whereby non-Han
Chinese societies come under the influence of
dominant Han Chinese state and society), as
the heritage of folk choral music has added the
elements of Han nationality and the purity has
also been affected.
4. The lack of folk art successors makes it difficult
to have the characteristic of folk chorus music
again.
5. the development of folk chorus music has been
stranded for lack of finance, while the original
ecology has been lost.
6. with the development of media, folk choral
heritage has been greatly influenced by foreign
cultures, gradually losing its characteristic.
7. The participating creators rewrite with subjective
ideas, which influenced the purity of the
original performance.
8. The ease of transportation, frequent communication
and blind pursuit of fashion have affected
the quality of folk choral music.
In China, no matter in Jingning area of Zhejiang
province of Yi where I am ,or far away from our
Yunnan ,Guizhou, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet
and so on, in many direct or indirect exchanges,
there will always be the problem of the relentless
influence of modern civilization on traditional
culture, young people do not want to learn the
traditional chant of their own people and want to
engage in modern society. As the memory and
physical strength of the elderly deteriorated,
many customs such as marriage, funeral,
sacrifice and work gradually disappeared. Even
the traditional culture of Han nationality has the
urgent problem of how to protect it. Therefore,
how to preserve it is a much more urgent issue
than the mere problem of folk choral music.
Recently, the traditional art in Jiashan area of
Zhejiang province lost its last heir of Xuanjuan.
We set up appointments for an interview several
times, unfortunately, he finally died of old age. In
fact, the departure of a folk artist is not only the
end of life, but also the disappearance of culture
and art. The whole world has the same dilemmas,
including Māori music which Professor Karen
talked about, This is the next topic I would like
to talk about.
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