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The Ancient Buyi Music – Eight Music and Singing While Sitting”, Qianxinan

The Eight Music and Singing While Sitting dated back to Tang Dynasty and had been popular in southeast of Guangxi for hundreds of years, but today only Buyi people in Bajie Xinyi city still preserve this ancient tradition. The so-called “Eight Music” refers to the band which consists of eight kinds of musical instruments – flute, xiao (a vertical bamboo flute), bull or horse bone instrument, gourd instrument, drum, Baoao gong, pony gong and Cha etc. The lyrics that passed down from the ancient time are less than 13 now, most of which are about the Buyi national mythologies, and some are about Han folk tales.

The band, made up of 10 to 16 people, uses Buyi language to sing and mandarin for the spoken parts in the opera. It is quite similar to a opera and each band member takes a role in it. It is staged on many occasions such as national festivals, wedding, funeral rites, and big banquet