南管
Nanguan (nanyin)
Nanguan (南管), also called nanyin, is a chamber music of voice and a small ensemble from the Minnan region of southern Fujian, carried by Minnan-speaking communities to Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Its melodies are slow and plain on the surface, and its ballads are sung in the Quanzhou dialect.
Liner notes
The name means "southern pipes." For many Minnan people at home and abroad, UNESCO notes, it is heard as the sound of the homeland.
How to listen
The core ensemble is small, usually five players. At the centre is a singer who keeps time on a wooden clapper. Around the voice are four "higher instruments": the pipa, held horizontally across the lap rather than upright as in most Chinese playing; the three-stringed sanxian; the end-blown bamboo flute dongxiao; and the two-stringed fiddle erxian. UNESCO singles out the pipa and the dongxiao as the most distinctive of these.
Listen for the clapper first. It marks the tempo, and the pace is unhurried. Then follow how the flute and fiddle trail the voice closely while the pipa sets out the frame of the melody in plucked notes. Nothing is loud, and the interest lies in small turns of ornament and the long breath of each phrase.
The repertoire falls into three parts. There are suites that combine instrumental and vocal music, a set of purely instrumental pieces, and a large body of individual songs, of which a great many survive in manuscript. Scores are written vertically, with columns for the notes, for fingering and rhythm, and for the clapper strokes.
A short history
Practitioners trace nanguan's roots to the Tang and Song dynasties, a lineage that is part of how the music understands itself but is hard to date precisely. Quanzhou, an old port city, is its home ground. From there it travelled with migrants to Taiwan, where accounts of its arrival vary, and to Chinese communities across Southeast Asia.
Nanguan has long been kept up by amateur music clubs rather than professional troupes. Many clubs were linked to a temple that gave them a place to meet. The music belongs to ritual as much as to leisure: players gather for spring and autumn ceremonies honouring Meng Chang, the patron god of music, and play at weddings, funerals, temple fairs and celebrations in courtyards and streets. It has also shaped other arts, including regional opera and puppet theatre.
In Taiwan, interest dipped by the 1970s and revived over the following decades, and nanguan is now often treated as one of the island's representative traditional musics. UNESCO inscribed nanyin on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.
Start with
Kotone has one field recording here, made in 2023 at the Temple of Heaven in Tainan: Nanguan and ceremony at the Temple of Heaven, Tainan, which places the music in its temple setting. For more temple sound from the island, see the collection Temple courtyards of Taiwan, and for the lute on its own, the pipa page.
Questions
- What is nanguan music?
- Nanguan, also called nanyin, is a chamber music from southern Fujian, China, also kept alive in Taiwan and among Minnan communities in Southeast Asia. A singer keeping time on clappers is accompanied by pipa, dongxiao flute, sanxian and erxian, in slow, finely ornamented songs sung in the Quanzhou dialect.
- What is the difference between nanguan and nanyin?
- They are two names for the same tradition, which is also known as nanyue, xianguan or nanqu. UNESCO uses nanyin, and nanguan means "southern pipes."
- What instruments are used in nanguan?
- The core ensemble has a singer playing a wooden clapper, a pipa held horizontally, a three-stringed sanxian, an end-blown dongxiao flute and a two-stringed erxian.
- Is nanguan on the UNESCO intangible heritage list?
- Yes. Nanyin was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.