At 8 o'clock on New Year's Eve, the professional suona group "Cao Jia Ban" from Peixian County started broadcasting on the Douyin platform on time. The musicians cooperated with each other, showed their talents, took turns to sit in the C position, and presented classic songs to netizens. "Spring Festival Overture", "Facing the Emperor", "Horse Racing", "Hundred Birds Paying Attention to the Phoenix"...the familiar suona pieces were performed one after another, loud and high-pitched, directly touching people's hearts. As of 0:30 the next day, a total of 3.729 million people were watching the live broadcast of "2023 Light Boat has passed the Ten Thousand Mountains".
In 2023, while inheriting traditional repertoire, "Cao Family Class" continued to innovate, persisted in broadcasting more than 300 live broadcasts, appeared on the CCTV stage 4 times, and gained more than 1.5 million fans. Live broadcasting not only allows the "Cao Family Ban" to solve their livelihood problems, but also becomes an important way for them to promote traditional folk music culture.
Six generations of a family have been playing suona for more than 70 years
Xuzhou Pei County is known as the "Hometown of Suona", and the folk band "Cao Jia Ban" founded in the 1940s and 1950s is one of the best. They have made a living on the suona for generations, and for decades they have performed in various rural weddings and funerals.
The leader of the "Cao Family Class" is named Cao Henan, who comes from a suona family. He is the provincial intangible cultural heritage inheritor of Peixian Suona and the president of Peixian Suona Association. "Six generations of the family have been playing suona for more than 70 years." Cao Henan said that they have participated in countless parties and performances, and have won many awards in national, provincial, and municipal competitions. "Cao's Class" has also become a local The famous suona team.
Cao Henan’s son Cao Ga, born in 1986, is the fifth generation successor of the Cao family’s suona. He said that more than 20 years ago, the monthly income of suona artists could only exceed 1,000 yuan. At its peak, the monthly income of suona artists could exceed 10,000 yuan. For a long time, the suona skill allowed an artist to support his family with a single suona.
However, with the development of the times, daily celebrations, performances and other activities are all keen on new Western musical instruments. Many people are unable to make a living by playing suona and performing alone, so they have changed careers. In addition, it is difficult to learn suona, and many young people go out to work. Gradually Even though the country is the "hometown of suona", the current number of suona teams in Peixian County is less than half of its peak. "Cao Jiaban" is one of the few permanent teams that still rely on suona to make a living.
participated in 11 sets of CCTV's "Blockbuster" column and was promoted
tried Douyin live broadcast and became a hit
"How about we also try live broadcast?" For the "Cao Family Ban" whose main business is suona performance, watching the family Relatives and brothers changed careers one after another. At the end of February 2022, Cao Ga made such a proposal.
just do it. After half a month of preparations, on March 18, 2022, the "Pei County Caojia Ban Suona" Douyin live broadcast room was launched. "I thought it would be good to have one or twenty people come to see them, but hundreds of people came in one after another on the first day." To Cao Ga's surprise, the short video platform quickly gathered a lot of popularity, and many people visited the same city to see them. During the live broadcast, I came in specially to say hello. On the 11th day of the live broadcast, the number of fans exceeded 100,000, with an average increase of 10,000 fans a day.
“Actually, when we first tried to open a live broadcast on Douyin, everyone just thought that the things belonging to our ancestors should not be lost. We hoped that a few like-minded people would get together to make music, and use digital means and the Internet to bring this skill to the next generation. Pass it on from generation to generation and attract more people to like suona." Cao Ga said that after more than a month of live broadcast, he did not expect so many viewers to like it. For each live broadcast, thousands of people were waiting in the live broadcast room, and some people left messages of praise. , some specially called them to invite them to perform, and some parents said that they would send their children to them to learn suona...
On April 5, 2022, grandfather Cao Weibang, who is over eighty years old, came to the live broadcast room and talked with Cao Henan and Cao Ga played "Striking the Golden Branches" and "Qipin Zhima Guan" together. This is the first time that three generations have appeared on the same stage in half a month since it started airing. When grandpa played, Cao Henan played drums and gongs, Cao Ga played the electronic keyboard, and Cao Ga's younger brother Cao Gan played instruments and accompanied grandpa. The three-hour live broadcast that day received more than 2 million likes from viewers.
Due to the popularity of promoting national musical instruments on the Internet, the "Cao Family Band" was also invited by CCTV. On December 31, 2022, Cao Ga led the "Cao Family Class" to the CCTV New Year's Eve Party and sounded the first sound to welcome the New Year.The
party revolved around the four chapters of "Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter", showing the harvest of China in the past year and conveying people's good wishes for the New Year. When the high-pitched and clear suona sounded, the "Autumn Harvest" chapter slowly kicked off. Pei County's "Cao Family Troupe" teamed up with actors from the Nanchang Symphony Orchestra and Jiangxi Provincial Song and Dance Theater to present a wonderful music performance "Autumn". Suona players dressed in red played cheerful melodies, and the joy of the harvest was conveyed to thousands of households through the screen. It is a great honor for
to be on the CCTV stage, but it is also an arduous task. Cao Ga said that at that time, they only had a week to prepare for the new music score. Everyone worked overtime and practiced repeatedly. Through solid performance skills and years of performance experience, they not only quickly understood the music score, but also added their own ideas, carefully choreographed movements and movements, and expressed the joy of harvest. These ideas of his were also adopted by the director.
In less than a month after that, "Cao Family Class" participated in more than 10 large-scale offline performances. That period also became the busiest time for "Cao Family Class" in the past three years. During the Spring Festival holiday of 2023, "Cao's Class" will continue to broadcast live from the second day of the Lunar New Year, from 8pm to 12pm every day, and there will be one or two performances every week. "We can feel that offline performances have increased significantly. ." Cao Ga said.
Suona should be passed down from generation to generation
According to Cao Ga, there are currently more than 30 people in the "Cao Family Class". In addition to family members, there are also many apprentices and students. The youngest is Cao Ga's youngest son, who is only 7 years old now. The eldest is grandfather Cao Wei Bang, who is over eighty years old. Cao Ga said that 90% of the "Cao Family Class" members are young people, with an average age of about 30 years old. Young actors appeal to a young audience. Among the 1.5 million fans who follow "Cao Family Ban" on the entire Internet, young and middle-aged fans account for 60%.
Douyin live broadcast has also changed the previous performance format of "Cao Family Class". "The first is the lengthening of the performance time. In the past, weddings and funerals played a few tunes a day, and the performance on stage lasted only ten minutes, but in the live broadcast room, it started from 3 hours." Cao Ga said that they played at 8 p.m. every day The live broadcast was started in the middle of the night. It was originally scheduled to be broadcast for 3 hours, but often there were still many people entering the live broadcast room at 11 pm, making it impossible to download the broadcast. The longest delay was as late as 3 am. Although the current regular performers in the live broadcast room are almost all around 30 years old and are "the most powerful generation", Cao Ga said frankly: "To be honest, the intensity of this performance is much greater than in the past. After the live broadcast every day, everyone is I just sit there and don’t want to move, I’m so tired!”
The second thing is the change in the relationship between watching and performing. In the past, Suona's audience was mainly middle-aged and elderly people. Nowadays, young people aged 19-30 account for a large proportion in the live broadcast room. How to attract young people? Cao Ga worked hard on repertoire innovation. In addition to Suona classics, he also adapted popular songs such as "Xi Yang Yang" and "Compendium of Materia Medica", folk songs from all over the country such as "Yangge" and "Jasmine", and even the world famous song "Katyusha". The Suona version has won popularity among fans of different age groups.
In addition, Cao Ga and his team members will also make adjustments and improvements in clothing, musical instruments, etc. He recruited several erhu, flute, guzheng and other players in their 20s to accompany them in the live broadcast room to participate in the live broadcast. Their live broadcast is no longer entirely about suona, but also uses northern percussion instruments to form a folk orchestra.
Six generations of suona inheritance have helped the development of folk music. Currently, "Cao Family Class" has three original works, namely "Joy of Harvest", "Happy New Village" and "Happy Family". Among them, "Happy Family" is based on Cao Ga's family. He wants to bring the young members of the Cao Family Class to more big stages so that the Cao Family Suona can be passed down from generation to generation.
Yangzi Evening News/Ziniu News Reporter Zhao Tian
Correspondent Zhang Jingliang
Pictures provided by the interviewee
Proofreading Tao Shanggong
