For various reasons noted below, much of the significant research on nanyin was done in the diaspora, by scholars based there. Overall, research in Minnan itself developed later. Let us first review the literature on nanyin in diaspora, then examine work done within the PRC.
Research on nanyin in the diaspora
The Japanese musicologist Tanabe Hisao (1883-1984) was the first to carry out research on nanguan in Taiwan, as early as 1922 (Wang Ying-fen 2012:168). Access to China for fieldwork was limited between 1949 and 1979 following the establishment of the PRC, so foreign scholars researching Chinese culture had to go to Taiwan or other parts of the diaspora. No ethnographic investigation of the nanyin tradition in its motherland southern Fujian could be conducted by Western scholars until the 1980s, so activities there are scarcely mentioned in English and are little known to scholars in the Western world.
Several Western scholars who worked in Taiwan became serious nanyin researchers and aficionados, including Kristofer Schipper, Frederic Lieberman, Laurence Picken, Alan Thrasher, and François Picard. Piet van der Loon dedicated several decades to the study of nanguan and Chinese classical theatre. His work (1992) provides historical
background and ritual context for the classical theatre in Minnan, performances in Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines from the 16th to 18th centuries and information on the heritage of nanyin. As early as 1971, the first nanyin LP recording was produced in the West, documented by Frederic Lieberman (S. Jones (1993 (7):114).10 This shed light on the early development of nanguan in Taiwan. Stephen Jones’ research (1995) covers a broad spectrum of Han Chinese instrumental music, providing historical background of the genres and the changing dynamics related to the interactions between the authorities and the musicians. Jones also did some fieldwork in Minnan and included an overview of Fujian nanguan [nanyin].
In the Philippines, the renowned nanyin master Liu Honggou (Lao Honkio in Minnanese) first taught nanyin music in the University of the Philippines in the 1970s.
His works (1973, 1981) were the texts most frequently referenced by early nanyin scholars in Southeast Asia. Patricia Lim of the University of the Philippines produced a Master’s thesis (P. Lim 1981) focusing on musical analysis of Nan Kuan (nanguan, the common term for nanyin in the Philippines).
An important step in non-Chinese exposure to nanguan was the performance in Paris by the Taiwanese nanyin (nanguan) troupe Tainan Nanshengshe in 1982 (Wang Ying-fen 2012:169). Research on the genre as practised in Taiwan has been published by Taiwanese scholars. Nora Yeh (1985, 1988, 1990) has explored its historical and cultural background and produced several musicological studies. Lü Chuikuan (1986a, 1986b) provided a historical and musicological studies via manuscripts collected from Taiwanese nanguan societies. Wang Ying-fen’s musicological studies (1986, 1992a, 1992b) centred on analyzing structure and tune families of nanguan, adopting Western semiotic analytical methods. In her two works (2003, 2012) she discussed the outcome of government intervention and the Taiwan government’s preservation strategies of the genre. Chou Chiener (2001, 2002a, 2002b) discussed nanguan learning from her own field experience in Taiwan.
Research on nanyin in its homeland
Nanyin did not receive much attention from the state before the 1980s. The earliest research on nanyin was initiated by the eminent Chinese musicologist Yang Yinliu before
10 LP ‘Anthology of the world’s music: musical anthology of the Orient 3, Music of China II, Traditional
the 1950s, but data was scantly documented in his report, which was assumed to be the consequence of language problems, namely Yang’s lack of familiarity with the Minnan dialect (Zhao Feng 2000: Preface). In 1961, the researcher Li Quanmin was sent to study folk music in Minnan by the Chinese Music Research Department of the Central Music Academy. He visited Xiamen and Quanzhou but included in his field report only a short introduction to nanqu (southern songs) performance in these two places (Li Quanmin 1963). Before the revival of traditional culture during the Reform period, the genre was undermined by the government and even neglected by Fujianese pioneers of folk music research such as Liu Chunshu and Wang Yaohua, and nanyin “only occupied 22 out of 610 pages of the 1986 Survey of folk music in Fujian” (S. Jones 1993:115). Nevertheless, Liu and Wang were the first to produce a nanyin monograph, in 1989.
The late 1980s marked the revival of traditional culture in China, and in order to stem the gradual decline of traditional arts, many mainland Chinese scholars started to document folk traditions from written and oral materials in order to raise awareness of and respect for indigenous culture. Following the publication of the first comprehensive nanyin monograph by Wang Yaohua and Liu Chunshu (1989) are the writings of several scholars and nanyin educators, such as Wu Shizhong and Li Wensheng (2000), Wang Aiqun (1984), Sun Xingqun (1996), Yuan Jingfang (2006), Zheng Changling and Wang Shan (2005). These are mostly historical discussions and musical analyses. Many of these articles were published in periodicals and bulletins through major publishing outlets.11
As preparatory work for submitting nanyin to UNESCO for consideration as ICH in 2002, a special government department was set up in Quanzhou City in the mid-1990s to conduct nanyin research. Enthusiasm in nanyin study became intensified and nanyin activities proliferated which included publication of books and compilation of scores, significantly a series of volumes by the Quanzhou Difang Xiqu Yanjiushe [Quanzhou Local Opera Research Society] authored and edited by Zheng Guoquan (2005, 2006). The publication is a composite of nanyin studies tracing the historical background of the genre, notation, instruments and repertory based on archaeological findings and documentation of manuscripts discovered. From this I draw the history of nanyin, social background in the pre-1949 era, and the class and prestige of music and musicians in Chapter 3. In the year 2006, a series of nanyin teaching materials, Zhongguo Quanzhou nanyin xilie
11Quanzhou lishi wenhua zhongxin; Fujian Minjian Yinyue Yanjiu and Zhongguo Yinyuexue.
jiaocheng [Zhongguo Quanzhou nanyin teaching material series], for theoretical studies with practising scores and separate volumes of nanyin repertories (zhi, qu, pu) were published. This series has become the main nanyin teaching material used by two institutions, Fujian Quanzhou Arts School and Quanzhou Normal University, as discussed in Chapter 6.5.2.
In Jinjiang, Ding Shibin’s recent work (2009) is a musicological discussion of performance practice in nanyin. This text initiates the discussion of an obsolescent repertory, the ‘transitional songs’ (guozhiqu 过枝曲) which nanyin musicians have striven to revive in the recent years. Ding specifies five different procedures and rules in performing the transitional songs during a formal nanyin recital. This is the first publication detailing performing processes, and it forms the ground for my discussion in Chapter 7.3.2. My rationale for researching this repertoire is because despite much documentation, there are still many interesting elements (such as performance practice, unique concert programmes) that deserve more careful study.
Recent Master’s dissertations on nanyin include Zhang Zhaoying’s (2003) study of the relationship between nanyin gongche notation and the realisation of melody in performance; Zhang Yingying’s (2004) comparative study of Xiamen and Quanzhou interpretive style, which I consider in Chapter 4.2.4; and Zhou Xiaofang’s (2006) study of nanyin in the Republican period and its relationship with religious practice, on which I draw in Chapter 5.1.3. A common shortcoming I found in these theses is the lack of references and of clear citation of the sources of quotations. I had to confirm the accuracy of some of the claims in these writings with nanyin musicians in the field. Chen Yu’s MA thesis (2008) discusses gunmen features in nanyin music. I compared her conclusions with those of Wang Yaohua and Liu Chunshu (1989), Chen Shilian and Lin Zhongrong (2008, 2009) and Lü Chuikuan (1986b); based on the discussions in these studies and my own work with several nanyin masters in the field, I drafted my own classification of gunmen families (Appendix 1) and discussed it in Chapter 2.1.2. Though most of these dissertations focus on musicological analysis, a change of approach in China can be seen:
contemporary research shows an emerging trend as scholars are beginning to adopt Western empirical and theoretical methodology in their fieldwork by playing the role of an observer/participant in the field. The earlier studies were restricted by specific social and political criteria largely through self-censorship. Since the 1980s, a more open style
of writing can be seen in research by Chinese scholars, and with the political relaxation of the 1990s, they clearly no longer felt that they needed to censor their own writings by omitting details about religion and so forth (S. Jones 2003:291). Nevertheless, there is no discussion in these dissertations about the political impact on the evolution of the repertoire. The musical changes sections (Chapters 4.2 and 4.3) of my thesis intend to expand understanding of this subject.