Art of Music
( 2005-09-13 )

In the mid-16th century, aided by other musicians, the imperial concubine Amannisahan of the Yarkant Kingdom, who was also an esteemed poetess and musician, devoted all her efforts to collecting and compiling Muqam music, which was then scattered across Uygur-populated areas. She finally worked out 12 grand, yet light and entertaining compositions that are now known as the Twelve Muqam.

The Twelve Muqam are large-scale suites consisting of sung poetry, stories, dance tunes and instrumental sections. Some of the lyrics of the Muqam are drawn from the great Central Asian Chagatay poets. Some are drawn from folk poetry, especially the popular tale of the lovers Gh?rip and S?n?m.

Contemporary scholars refer to four distinct regional genres: the Twelve Muqam of the Kashgar-Yarkand region, theTurpanMuqam, the Qumul Muqam, and the Dolan Muqam. Strictly following the astronomical almanac, each of the Twelve Muqam is divided into three parts: Cong Naghma, Dastan, and Mashrap, each with 25-30 sub-melodies.

After the founding of new China (1949), the local government of theXinjiangUygur Autonomous Region made every effort possible to preserve the Twelve Muqam. The whole set of the Twelve Muqam consists of 360 different melodies and takes over 24 hours to play in full.

 Folksongs

The Uygurs classify folksongs according to their region of origin, and each region has its own distinctive sound. Modally the songs of southern Xinjiang are usually heptatonic while the songs of Ili, Turpan and Qumul are more commonly pentatonic or hexatonic. Many folksongs have recurrent raised or lowered intervals. Folksongs may take any note of the scale as tonic, and many folksongs feature modulation to a secondary mode. Rhythms are in short cycles, with much variation. The Ili style tends to use duple rhythms while in the south 5/8, 7/8 and 9/8 rhythms also appear. Primarily accompanied by the dutar and/or a frame drum, one interesting feature of Uygur folksong is that the accented drum beat does not fall at the beginning or end of the melodic phrase. The singing style is highly ornamented and uses a wide range, especially in the songs of Ili whose attractive swoops and leaps in the melodic line have lead the Chinese to term them 'wolf songs' (lang'ge). The Qumul style is considered softer, while Kashgar style is more vigorous. Songs are usually short, lasting a few minutes, and are commonly strung together into suites (yürüshi), like the street song suite (kocha nakhshisi yürüshi) of Ili. The vast majority of song lyrics dwell on tragic love, others take religious or local historical themes, and others are comical.