A Study on "高腔 (Gao Qiang)" Vocal Technique by Selected Northern Shaanxi Folk Songs

Abstract

Northern Shaanxi folk songs have a long history rooted in the Loess Plateau. It was started in the Zhou Dynasty (1046 B.C.–256 B.C.). The development and inheritance of folk songs in northern Shaanxi mainly come from life, and art comes from life. Northern Shaanxi folk songs vividly reflect life's joys and sorrows, giving birth to many touching stories on the vast Loess Plateau (Zhang, 2021). Northern Shaanxi folk songs are full of empty and sad melodies, which contain the contradiction between depression and boldness, the entanglement between suffering and happiness, and the dilemma between fate and struggle (Su, 2020). In short, they can all find emotional support in folk songs. In recent years, the development of northern Shaanxi folk songs has shown a prosperous scene; not only new songs have appeared one after another, but some old songs have also been recovered and are deeply loved by the people. The northern Shaanxi folk songs, rich in rhythm and power, align with modern people's aesthetics, so they have developed relatively quickly (Qin, 2014). The northern Shaanxi folk songs have beautiful melodies and unique vocal techniques, especially the"高腔 (Gao Qiang)" technique, which has aroused people's intense curiosity. The researchers used practice-led research as the methodology to summarize them for singing northern Shaanxi folk songs, which had a certain reference significance for people singing northern Shaanxi folk songs, especially for people specialising in vocal, aim to solve the technical difficulties of singing folk songs in northern Shaanxi.