Hainan Island is home to the four ethnic groups of Li, Han, Hui and Miao. The long-term cultural blending and infiltration between them has special expressions in the lyrics, sentence patterns, tunes, etc. of folk songs, and these bring Folk songs with strong local ethnic characteristics bring endless vitality to the increasingly active original music. This cannot but be attributed to the richness and diversity of Hainan folk songs. The soul work of the famous modern ballet "The Red Detachment of Women", "I Weave a Bamboo Hat to Send to the Red Army", is based on the Li folk song "Five Finger Mountains and Five Rivers" as the basic material, and was composed through composition techniques such as transposition and variation. Likewise, it is majestic and powerful. "Red Detachment of Women's Song" also benefited from the inspiration of folk songs from the Wuzhi Mountain area, such as Chen Guangzhou's "The People's Liberation Army Arrives in Qianchili Village", Xie Qing's "No More Beautiful than the Li Family's March 3rd", and other songs sung in the 1980s. "Come to the Ends of the World" and other songs that resonate across the land of China all come from the musical inspiration provided by Hainan folk songs.
Hainan folk songs are mainly based on Yazhou folk songs in the south, Li folk songs in the Wuzhishan Mountains in the central part, Danzhou tunes in the west, and Lingao slang tunes. Since the Yazhou dialect has Han Hakka, That is, Hainanese, Junhua, Maihua, Danzhou dialect, Jiahua, Li dialect, Huihui dialect of Hui people and Miao dialect, the songs of four ethnic groups and eight languages ??almost combine the tastes and tastes of Central Plains culture, farming culture and maritime culture. Characteristics, it is rich in content, lively in form, unique in style, and has distinctive national characteristics and local language characteristics. Yazhou folk songs are mainly popular in today's Sanya and Ledong areas. According to the "Sanya City Data Book", its origins can be traced back to "Midnight Song" and "Wu Song" popular in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Tang Dynasty's "Midnight Song" popular in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. "Baojuan Song", "Zhuzhi Ci" from Jiangnan in the Song Dynasty, and Cantonese songs, Chaoshan folk songs, and Hakka folk songs that were popular in the south after the Ming Dynasty.
Yazhou folk songs originated in the Ming Dynasty and matured in the Qing Dynasty. They include guest songs (Hainan dialect songs), military dialect songs, Mai dialect songs, Danzhou dialect songs, Jia Xianshui songs, and Li folk songs. , Hui folk songs and Miao folk songs. Almost all the typical ballads and tunes of Hainan Island are included in Yazhou folk songs. Among them, it is worth mentioning that the Li songs in Yazhou area have a wide range of themes, rich content, unique style and beautiful tunes. They are divided into two types: one is traditional Li songs, which are sung to traditional Li songs in the Li language. "Li song Zhengtiao"; the other is Li song with Chinese words, also known as Hakka Li song, which is Li tune sung in Hainanese dialect. This kind of Li song is deeply influenced by Hakka songs and is the product of the blending of Li and Han cultures. . As Zhang Yuehu, an expert and writer on Li ethnic culture, pointed out: "The Li ethnic group has its own language, but no written characters. Therefore, its cultural classics cannot be effectively preserved and are inconvenient to spread. There are Chinese ballads (mainly cliff songs) that can be recorded in written form. Prefecture folk songs) have become popular in the Wuzhishan Mountains and have been published as Li songs by some comrades. "A Brief History of the Li Nationality" also states: "Li folk songs are divided into ancient folk songs sung in Li language and Chinese Hainan dialect. "Folk songs influenced by the Han people." At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Feng Zicai came to Qiongfu Li and encouraged the Li people to learn Chinese. From then on, the Hainan dialect was used as the basis of Li songs to compose Li songs, and the creation of Li songs also began to enter a rich Chinese language. A new stage of rhythm began to appear, which was comparable to Chinese lyrics or poetry. For example, the Li folk song "Brother planted flowers by the stream" that is popular in the Kamo area: "Brother planted flowers by the stream, and the wind blew the banyan leaves jingling. When the moon rises, the east shines brightly, and when the moon sets, the west shines brightly." This is At that time, Li folk songs had reached a very high artistic level.
Hainan folk songs have simple lyrics, vivid lyrics, strong sense of music, and flexible music rhythm arrangements. Taking Hakka songs as an example, its common sentence structures are overlap, elaboration, contrast, repetition and question and answer. It mainly uses the traditional rhetorical techniques of fu, comparison and xing, integrating lyricism, romance and melancholy. As long as you master its rules, you can almost sing it. The Yazhou area and Wuzhi Mountain area in Hainan still maintain the simple folk custom of duet singing of folk songs. In the 1960s, when the famous musician Wu Zuqiang was composing the music for the modern ballet "The Red Detachment of Women," he went to Wuzhi Mountain to collect folk songs. The folk songs casually sung by the villagers who liked to sing folk songs deeply moved the musician. The beautiful melody of Li nationality songs opened the door of passion for his creation, so there was the touching rhythm of the red classic, the eternal chant of "The water of Wanquan River is clear and clear...", and the cheerful "Tiao" of Danzhou The melody "Voice" also appeared in this red classic and became famous as the "Red Detachment of Women" gained fame.
Music can be said to be the companion of poetry. If there is good poetry, there will be good music. The lyrics of Hainan folk songs are beautiful poems praising life, love and labor. They contribute a unique and charming fragrance to the artistic creations of artists.