Introduction to the Three-Bang Drum Opera

One of the Han folk sports activities - Sanbang Drum

Sanbang Drum appeared in the Tang Dynasty and was called Sanzhan Drum at that time. It was once widely popular. Three-stick drumming, named after throwing three sticks and beating gongs and drums, is a cultural and sports activity that integrates percussion instruments, oral literature, and performance skills that can be seen everywhere in Tujia villages.

The three-stick drum is popular in Tianmen, Mianyang and other places in Hubei Province. It originated from the "three-stick drum" in the Tang Dynasty and was once widely popular. It gets its name from the technique of throwing three special drum sticks to accompany the drumming. Ming Shen Defu's "Miscellaneous Comments on Gu Qu" records: "There have always been women playing three-stick drums in the Wu Dynasty to beg for money. I saw them when I was a child." This shows that this type of music existed in the Ming Dynasty, and later flowed into Hubei and was performed in Jingling. (Today’s store) It’s popular in the area. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, it merged with Fengyang Huagu and spread gradually, reaching Mianyang, Tianmen, Honghu, Qianjiang, Jingshan, Macheng, Shashi, Yichang, Enshi and other places in Hubei; and spread to Hunan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and other places. , Guangdong, Jiangxi, Henan, Hebei, Shandong, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Tibet and other provinces and regions. The three-stick drum has also spread with artists to Britain, France, Italy, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other countries.

The stick techniques of the three-stick drum come from life. The four stick techniques of "Spring Plowing", "Harvest and Field", "Celebrating Harvest" and "New Year's Day" have a rich flavor of life. Playing the three-stick drum is highly technical and requires a high degree of concentration, appropriate force, a coherent flow, and tacit cooperation with the singer during performance.

Every Spring Festival, artists go together from village to village to pay New Year greetings. Regardless of whether they are rich or poor, they visit every household. When meeting a particularly poor fishermen, the performers will also pass on the gifts given by other families, hoping that everyone will be happy during the festival. In the Honghu area of ??Mianyang, there is a market for three-stick drums, so there are many artists. Around 1818, three daughters of a family in Honghu, Mianyang, who were all excellent three-stick drummers, formed a troupe. Wherever they went, crowds of people gathered to watch often "raised their heads and stretched their necks, surrounding the wall."

However, the water shortage in the Honghu Lake area continues, causing people to live in dire straits. In order to find a way to survive, people carried three drums on their backs and traveled around. The three-stick drum has become a way for the people of Honghu to express their thoughts and a weapon in the hands of the people of Honghu.

Since 1949, water damage has been eradicated and water conservancy has been promoted. The wandering of Honghu people has become a thing of the past forever. What is played by the three-stick drum is the "new song of the three-stick drum" of the people of Honghu. Listening to the new song of fish jumping over crab fat and lotus green and lotus root white, you can understand the confidence and determination of Honghu people to strive for a well-off society.

How to use the three-stick drum

The three-stick drum, also known as the Sanzhan Drum in the Tang Dynasty, was introduced to the country around the Ming Dynasty and gradually became a popular Han folk art. Every Spring Festival, artists go together from village to village to pay New Year greetings, showing that they visit every household regardless of whether they are rich or poor. If they meet a poor family, the performer will give gifts from other families to each other, hoping that everyone will be happy during the festival. It fully reflects the hospitable and kind-hearted national character of the Tutu people. It plays a certain role in strengthening unity among ethnic groups.

Sanbanggu usually consists of three to five people, one person plays drums and sings lyrics, one person plays gongs and drums to accompany music, and one person plays flower sticks. There are three flower sticks, one foot long. The dancer holds one on each side, throws the other one in the air, draws the bow left and right, and hits the flower sticks in the air to prevent them from falling to the ground. There are also techniques in which a knife is used instead of a stick, and five knives are used instead of three sticks. The steel knife danced happily in the air, shining with silver light, and shuttled left and right. A highly skilled person suddenly throws the knife high into the air, turns around, swings out, and continues to catch the knife and throw it up. It is dazzling and makes people admire it. There are usually four sets of three-stick drum playing: "Spring Plowing", "Harvest Playing Field", "Harvest Celebration" and "New Year's Eve", which are divided into "Carp Jumping over the Dragon Gate", "Jade Girl Shuttle", "Slate Beach" and other projects . Playing the three-stick drum is highly technical. When performing, you need to be highly concentrated, use appropriate force, have a coherent flow, and cooperate with the singer tacitly. The indispensable props for the three-stick drum include drums and sticks, as well as short knives and steel forks. The performance is similar to acrobatics. Usually, the artists are mostly women. Generally, 3-5 women form an artistic team. During the performance, one person plays the drums and sings lyrics, one person plays the gongs and drums to the music, and the other plays the sticks. The flower stick player holds a flower stick in his left and right hands, draws his bow left and right, and hits the other flower stick thrown in the air so that it does not fall to the ground, but his rhythm must be consistent with the drum beat. There is also a technique in which five steel knives are used instead of sticks. The steel knives shuttle left and right in the air, shining silver and dazzling.

Three-stick drum is a unique form of walking singing. There are no interludes in the singing, and the performance is divided into single and double performances.

The solo performer throws three drum sticks embedded with copper coins to accompany the drums and sings, and beats the horse gong hanging on the side of the drum. In a double performance, one person throws a stick and plays the drum, the other plays the horse gong, and the two sing duet. The drum head of the three-stick drum is seven and a half inches in diameter and four inches high. There are three drum sticks, each seven inches long. Three small square holes on different sides are drilled into the sticks, and copper eye coins are embedded in them. Three drum sticks are equivalent to nine eyes and eighteen copper coins. The three-stick drums started beating, the money hit each other, the drumsticks flew up and down, and the falling drums made a sound. There are about 20 to 30 techniques for playing the three-stick drum, including "gold thread hanging gourd", "girl spinning cotton yarn", "white snake spitting flying arrows", "sparrow drilling in bamboo forest", "oolong stirring water", "lame" Dustpan", "Four-door chopping", "Single-span flower", "Double-span flower", "Single-back flower", "Double-back flower", "Weaving", "Cable flower", etc. The lyrics of Sanbanggu are popular, the words are short, and each paragraph rhymes. The lyrics structure varies from place to place. The more common sentence pattern is "five, five, seven, five" sentences, a group of four sentences. There are also "five, five, seven" sentences, a group of three sentences. The sound style of the three-bang drum is simple, euphemistic and low-pitched. Due to the strict rules of throwing sticks and drumming, the rhythm is stable and does not change much when singing.

Dasanbanggu usually consists of three to five people. The master plays the drums and sings lyrics, one person plays the gong, and the other plays the flower stick and flower knife. It is performed by one person. The drum stand is placed on the drum stand in front, the gong is hung under the drum stand, and the gong stick is tied with a string and placed on the foot board. During the performance, the lyrics are sung orally, the drum is played by hand, and the gong is stepped on by foot. The rhythm of gong and drum is It depends on the speed of the flower throwing rod and flower knife. The lyrics of Sanbanggu are composed of five words and four sentences repeated half a sentence. That is, one sentence of five characters and one section of four sentences. The fourth sentence of each section should be repeated half a sentence. Sound the gongs and drums four times for each section. The first three lines are sung three times, and the last line is sung, i.e. the end of each section is struck ten times. For example, when singing: learn to play the three-stick drum, hit Qiang Qiang Qiang; learn to sing and learn hard, hit Qiang Qiang Qiang; Clang, Clang, Clang, Clang, Clang, Clang, Clang-Clang. In this section, each word sung is one beat, the gongs and drums sound together, each sound occupies one beat, and the punctuation mark also occupies one beat. The speed of each beat depends on the falling speed of the flower sticks. Each drop of any flower stick is one beat. Therefore, if the flower stick is thrown low, the falling frequency will be fast and the time occupied by each beat will be short. On the contrary, if the flower stick is thrown high, the time occupied by each beat will be long. The second and fourth sentences of Sanbanggu both require rhyming, and the first and third sentences may or may not be rhymed.

The gongs and drums played by Sanbanggu remain unchanged, but the lyrics are varied. Except for the fixed lyrics such as "December Flower", they are all improvised lyrics and sung casually. People are flexible and eloquent.

Playing the three-stick drum is very skillful. You need to be highly concentrated, use moderate force when throwing the knife and stick, and move quickly and accurately. If you are a little careless, not only will the performance fail, but you will also be scratched by the knife. Hands or feet may accidentally injure others. Therefore, anyone who learns to play the three-stick drum must practice flying throwing and catching techniques regularly so that they can throw and catch the knife and stick with their eyes closed. Therefore, Han teenagers often use three pebbles to practice throwing and catching skills. Over time, practice makes perfect, and they can not only throw sticks, but also throw knives.

Main forms

Sanbanggu, also known as Huaguzi, is extremely popular in Laifeng, Hubei, Longshan, Hunan, and Youyang, Chongqing, especially in Jiusi and Dahe, Laifeng County In this area, a three-year-old baby can improvise a few songs anytime and anywhere. I still clearly remember two songs I sang when I was a child: Talking about playing flower drums, I had to learn hard. I only learned how to play flower drums when I was three years old.

Three pieces of iron are like knives and knives. If you dare to throw them, you dare not catch them. If they fall on your feet, they will bleed. You will have to take a break to find medicine.

According to research, Sanbanggu was called Sanzhangu in the Tang Dynasty. Ming Shen Xingfu's "Gu Qu Zayan" said: "How come there are people who play Sanbanggu to beg for money? I saw it when I was young. "It started in Xiantongzhong of the Tang Dynasty (865 AD)", was introduced to this area around the Ming Dynasty, and gradually became a popular Han folk art form. Every Spring Festival, artists go together to visit villages and villages to pay New Year greetings. They perform for every household, regardless of whether they are rich or poor. If they meet a poor family, the performer will send gifts from other families to each other, hoping that everyone will be happy during the festival.

Three-stick drums generally consist of 3 to 5 people, one person plays drums and sings lyrics, one person plays gongs and cymbals for music, and one person plays flower sticks. There are three flower sticks, about 33 centimeters long. People hold one in each hand, throw the other one into the air, draw their bows left and right, and hit the flower sticks in the air to prevent them from falling to the ground.

Due to the low terrain and abundant water in Tianmen and Mianyang areas, floods have occurred in the past, and people have suffered greatly. In order to find a way to survive, they left their homes, picked up three drums and sang wherever they went. Many people travel from Hubei to southwest China, India, Iran, Central Europe, Western Europe and other places.

Some people also go to the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries via Guangdong. People call them "Chinese Gypsies". "Shahu Mianyang Prefecture has not been harvested for ninety-nine years in ten years." "Carrying three drums on his back, he wanders around everywhere, drums banging, gongs clanging, and singing with tears in his eyes, so as not to break the heart." It sounds like this. It is heartbreaking and extremely sad! It can be imagined how low-lying the terrain of Mianyang and Tianmen in history was, how frequent floods were, and how poor the people's lives were. According to the "Mianyang Prefecture Chronicles - Buried in the Earth", the Tianmio area is called "Zeguo" because of its "barren soil and poor people" and "nine floods in ten years". In the 104 years from the 30th year of Qianlong to the 9th year of Tongzhi, there were fifty-four floods in Tianmian County. "The water spread for hundreds of miles, drowning countless people and animals, the old and the weak were relocated, and nine out of ten houses were empty." Therefore, the poor people had no choice but to carry three drums on their backs, either husband and wife, brother and sister, or father and daughter, wandering in other places, walking through the forests and markets, begging and singing flower drums along the doorsteps. It can be seen that the special environment created the art of three-stick drum. In the late Qing Dynasty, Sanbanggu merged with Fengyang Flower Drum and became more widely spread. In order to make a living, people from Mianyang and Tianmen areas left their homes and wandered around the world, to Central Europe and Southeast Asia. Wherever they went and sang, they were called "Chinese Gypsies".

Mianyang Three-stick Drum is said to have existed in the Tang Dynasty. At that time, it was called Three-stick Drum. A person hung a flat drum around his neck and wheeled three small wooden sticks. The three sticks beat the drum in turn, and one stick was used to throw it in turn. in the air. Dance, beat and sing. After the development of the Song Dynasty, it changed from singing small songs to medium-length songs, and transplanted events from scripts and drum lyrics, such as Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Fengshen, Journey to the West, Xue Jiajiang, etc. Later, the vocal tunes developed, in addition to "Ping tune", "Bei tune", "Fengwei tune", "Zahua tune" and "Yuwei tune", there were also "Shizhimei tune" and "Zhaohua tune". Most of the lyrics are three to five to seven sentences, that is, the number of words in each sentence is five, five, seven, or five. "Three sticks and drums" spread to Mianyang and Tianmen in Hubei Province, and are integrated into local lanterns, gongs and drums, field songs, etc., and are full of distinctive local colors. When the people who suffered from floods were fleeing in all directions, they played fishing drums, three-stick drums, plates, and lotuses, while dancing and singing. Some even integrated martial arts, juggling, and magic into them. There were many tricks, so they were widely spread. spread widely, and some even spread abroad.

According to "Records of Mianyang": "Shi (Chen Youliang's wife) is a beautiful girl who is good at singing and dancing. Her feet are always bent and her mouth is chanting... Shi is good at swordsmanship. She can use three swords at once. Back and forth like flying... Liang (Chen Youliang) formed a singing team and sang among the soldiers. "The people were envious of his exquisite skills and wanted to imitate them. Through continuous exploration and improvement, they used three sickles used to harvest wheat in the countryside and sawed them into pieces. Leaving a small handle that can be pinched with one hand, and throwing it away with both hands, it soon became a folk performing arts form. Due to continuous floods, in order to make a living by begging for rice, the people had to remove the sickle and the three sticks left, which became " Three drums."

"Mianyang Records" also says: "In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the three sticks were popular, and they were not allowed to be performed in the city. The literati mostly sang flower drums in teahouses." It can be seen that the "three sticks and drums" were popular throughout the Qing Dynasty. Mianyang urban and rural areas. However, the evolution formula of "Three Sticks Drum" is basically: martial arts - entertainment - juggling - making a living. This is the origin of "Three Sticks Drum".

According to the "Tianmen County Chronicle": During the Tongzhi period, Tianmen artist Chen Dengzhou and his children came to Ukraine by singing fishing drums and playing three-stick drums. There were also overseas Chinese from Tianmen in other European countries who made a living abroad by playing flower drums. Today, there are "Chinese Flower Drum Troupes" and organizations that conduct research on this art in European countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Poland, Belgium, and Switzerland.

In the late Qing Dynasty, fishing drums and three-bang drums changed from singing to escape famine life to stories of two people dressing up and three people dressing up to perform stories, and then formed a grass stage group to participate in rural gods-welcoming games, folk festivals, family rituals and other gatherings. During the performance, several tables are used to set up a stage, so it is called "Platform Flower Drum Opera" in rural areas. Around 1930, he entered the peak entrance of Honghu Lake, Yanglinwei in Mianyang, and performed in the tea gardens and theaters of Tianmenchengguan. During town singing, he had more exchanges with Han Opera and Chu Opera, thus absorbing the performance routines of Han Opera and Chu Opera. In terms of music, string accompaniment has also been added, forming one of the independent types of flower drum opera with local characteristics. Sanbanggu refers to a form of folk art popular in Hubei. ② Mr. Hou Baolin’s cross talk jokes. The three-stick drum in folk art is also called the trick drum. The drum played by the artist is not big, more than three inches high and about two feet wide. It is set up on a three-legged stand, which is the same as the flat drum used in Jingyun Dagu and Fengdiao Dagu.