The Historical Evolution of Shangdang Drum Script

During the light years of the Qing Dynasty, Shi Jinxing, an artist from Huang San Xiangyuan Dongshe, absorbed and blended the "border tune" of local folk songs and Taoist priests, and reformed the singing method of drum lyrics to a certain extent. In the early years of Xianfeng, Lu Yongquan, Shi Jinxing's apprentice, compiled a medium-length bibliography, the theme of which expanded to folk stories and myths and legends. In order to better express the dramatic conflicts in the book and portray the characters' personalities, he began to integrate local operas, such as Dang Gong Diao, Luozi and Xiangyuan Yangko, into the drum book. Later, Miao Xilai, a blind artist, created Sad Board and Grab Board on the basis of the original singing.

In the early years of the Republic of China, on the basis of the original "tightness, slowness, sadness and grabbing", the five generations created "starting board", "duality", "overlapping board" and "cutting board", and further divided grabbing board into two types: slow grabbing and tight grabbing. Thus greatly enriched the version of Shangdang Drum Book. His disciples Hou Yicheng and Dong Caiyuan successfully integrated Shangdang Bangzi, Shangdang Luozi and Xiangyuan Yangko into the drum book, forming the characteristic that Shangdang Drum Book can freely clip and sing other operas. At the same time, Dong Caiyuan set a precedent for one person to play a full set of percussion music.

With the development of drum lyrics, another rap form with "discerning people" appeared quietly. According to Song Shuanghuan, the fifth generation descendant of Liudiao in xiang yuan, during the Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty, Tian Wei, a discerning yangko artist in Fu Shan village of Xiangyuan County, combined with the local popular minor "Yinggeliu", formed a fixed singing method-Liudiao, and began to rap the upper and lower sentences repeatedly.

In the early years of the Republic of China, the accompaniment instrument of Liudiao was changed from Hu, and there were actions such as crying, grabbing and tightening the board in the aria. At the same time, it began to communicate and integrate with the "drum words" sung by the blind, and "discerning artists" and blind artists learned from each other, gradually forming today's "Shangdang Drum Book". At this time, there are both "sacred books" and "wishing books", as well as folk stories and legends, and the length is long, and some can be said to be fifteen to twenty days. Because the blind can't move easily, there are few books showing war and battle scenes, and most of them reflect the themes of "loyalty and betrayal" and "talent and beauty". The form of rap is: the number of bands has increased to more than five. One person sits in the middle of the band, playing a full set of percussion instruments and literature and music accompaniment instruments: one person plays Huang Er (yangko, drum book), Qin Le (bangzi) and Banhu (Luozi), and the other two people play Tribal Tiger, Sanxian, Yueqin, Erhu and Xiaohu respectively. There are many types of vocals, such as: starting board, Chinese character, tight board, adagio, overlapping board, cutting board, adagio, tight board and crying board. Qupai is mainly based on the basic Qupai of Goer's Ci, which is a kind of board cavity complex with other operas. Narration is lyrical, which can express dramatic conflicts, sing more and talk less. Percussionist is the lead singer, and the accompanist plays one or two roles according to the roles in the bibliography, which is roughly divided into three occupations: life, Dan and ugliness. During this period, the plate and singing form of Shangdang Drum Book were basically finalized and began to develop initially. However, the social status of blind artists is still very low, which is called "the third line".