The earliest source of Gaoyou folk song can be traced to the Neolithic Age; being the widely circulated traditional folk song in the production and living of people in the area of Gaoyou City Gaoyou Lake and Lixia River, it mainly includes work songs, minors, love songs and rustic songs, children’s songs and antiphonal songs for various life and customs; it is does not only have the soft feature of southern Jiangsu folk songs, but also has the bright and clear temperament of northern folk songs with mild and tactful rhythm and very strong Lixia River water region style.
Gaoyao folk song is different from other local folk songs and its classic master works includes: count duck eggs, Gaoyou northwest hometown, sending husband to join the army, yangko work song and my hometown in Gaoyou etc.
On October 18th, 2007, China Society for The Study of Folk Literature and Art officially granted Gaoyou with the honor “China Hometown of Folk Songs” and therefore Gaoyou became the only “China Hometown of Folk Songs”nationwide at that time.
Gaoyou folk song characteristics:
Water Breading Gaoyou
Gaoyou folk song emits the aroma of soils, hides delicate beauty of water, is both common and elegant, and such characteristics is originated from the very nice natural environment and deep cultural deposit of Gaoyou. Located at Lixia River area in middle Jiangsu, Gaoyou covers an area of over 1,960km2 totally with a population of 830,000. As early as in the Qin Dynasty, high platforms were built and post houses were set here, so it was named as Qinyou. Since it was established as a county in the Han Dynasty, it has been called as “Qinyou Han County, a significant city in middle Jiangsu”.
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Local Accent Style
People often say that the more national, the more global, and so on, the more local, the more national. The reason for Gaoyou folk song is different from others is that it has very particular and strong local colors. Only from the application of dialects and nameplaces in the words of song, it’s very easy to judge as Gaoyou folk song.
