Chinese folk songs and folk singers

the long version

Introduction to shan'ge, the most popular type of rural Chinese folk song, and to the master performers, the 'kings' and 'queens' of this genre. A major focus of this study is monothematism: the existence of 'one-tune' folk song areas, where singers perform the bulk of their lyrics to a single tune or to two or three closely related tune forms. Monothematism is examined here in relation to tune variation, processes of remembering, and mechanisms of oral transmission.