The sound of tradition

The glare of stage lights closes in on Gong Yuhong as he sits down with his band, which is about to produce a crescendo of sounds that overwhelms the audience.

The concert hall, located inside the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where they are performing, usually hosts classical musicians playing Beethoven or Mozart, but on Oct 20, Gong and his band played high-pitched, passionate music that seemed to transport audiences to an outdoor wilderness.

The Shanxi Gong Family Wind and Percussion Band is an intangible cultural heritage inheritance project from Lyuliang, Shanxi province. It was originally founded by Gong Quanzhong, and Gong Yuhong is its 10th generation successor.

They performed classical and traditional pieces, such as Huadaoze, Qingtiange and Shuilongyin, music usually performed during weddings, funerals, temple fairs and sacrificial ceremonies.

One of the band's signature sounds are performances based on the 12 shichen — the traditional timekeeping system in which each day was divided into 12 two-hour periods (known as shichen), each represented by a different Chinese character.

Music is performed according to different shichen. For example, traditional weddings and funerals usually last for three days, sometimes longer, so bands perform different pieces in the morning, at noon and in the evening.

"Their sound is original and from the olden times," says Yu Feng, president of the Central Conservatory of Music, who invited the band to perform during the third International Conference on Contemporary Studies of Chinese Music in a Global Perspective, which was held at the school between Oct 20 and 23.

"The Gong family's music is deeply rooted in folk culture. Their playing is also solid," Yu says.

The first time Yu met Gong Yuhong was in the winter of 2018. Together with a team of 20 teachers from the Central Conservatory of Music, Yu spent 10 days at the Lyuliang Art School, giving music classes to the school's students and long-term music training to its teachers. They also donated pianos, wind and string musical instruments and teaching materials to the school.

Gong Yuhong is one of the teachers at Lyuliang, where he teaches the suona, a Chinese double-reed woodwind instrument known for its distinctive loud, high-pitched sound.

"I had never met so many music teachers from Beijing, and I was excited because they were very interested in my instrument, which is often considered antiquated," says Gong Yuhong.

One of those teachers was Jia Guoping, who is also the director of Institute of Musicology at the Central Conservatory of Music. Jia asked Gong Yuhong to tell his family stories and urged him to preserve the family tradition.

"Jia told me that the band is like a family heirloom, and its sound is valuable," he says. "I was excited because for a very long time, I was not sure if I should continue to keep the band going.

"Then, I decided to take it seriously, visiting family to learn about more about our history and sought as many opportunities as possible to perform not only in Shanxi province, but also around the country," he says, adding that the band's techniques have been passed down from one generation to another without written records, and that he is trying to write down the history of the band, as well as background information about each repertoire and skill.

Gong Yuhong was taught to play the suona by his father when he was about 6.

He grew up by watching his father, uncles and grandfather playing the instrument, so it was natural for him to learn, but as a boy, he preferred to play with his friends rather than practice the suona at home alone.

One day, his father took him to a wedding and allowed him to play in the band. His grandfather saw his talent compared to other Gong family boys, and decided to train him seriously.

At the age of 16, Gong Yuhong was sent to the Lyuliang Art School to further his studies of the suona and other musical instruments, among them the sheng (a mouth-blown free-reed instrument) and percussion instruments, after his grandfather died in 1996. He's been the only one from the Gong family who received academic music training from an art school. In 2002, his father retired and he became the band's head.

"It almost stopped performing after my grandfather died, because traditional music faced a challenge from contemporary music, like pop songs. People wanted pop songs during weddings and temple fairs," says Gong Yuhong.

"In my father's generation, there were six people playing in the band, and in my generation, there are seven," he says, adding that, as an old tradition, only men were allowed to learn to play instruments in the Gong family."When I decided to restart the band, I called my relatives and they liked the idea. However, they all have regular jobs, so we have little time to rehearse and perform together."

This June, the band participated in the National Chinese Traditional Musical Instruments Serial Concerts in Langfang, Hebei province, where they displayed the family's music legacy and told their family stories. Gong Yuhong received an award for his contribution to preserving the band.

Now teaching at the Lyuliang Art School, he has about 200 students, one of them his son, Gong Qihan, who is also learning to play the suona.

An old suona from his grandfather's generation was passed down and sits on a bookshelf in Gong Yuhong's home. He says it is a "family treasure", and is said to have been used during performances for the imperial family.

"Unlike the instrument we use today, which has eight holes, the old suona has seven holes. I often take it out from the case and hold it for a while," he says. "I also considered quitting the band like other family members. But for us, the band is more than just a band. It's about family and history, which runs in our blood."