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Acknowledgements
I wish to express my gratitude to the reviewers and editors’ helpful comments and corrections. I am particularly grateful to Bell Yung for approaching me about writing for this issue and for the very good questions he raised about earlier versions. I also want to thank Louis Lee for help making the paper more readable and for Chan Chi Chun’s help with converting my transcriptions in the musical examples into computer readable format.
Notes
1 This is what all of her students were asked to call her.
2 Chinese characters that are especially related to Cantonese musical traditions focused on in this paper will be transliterated into Cantonese (those that are not will be transliterated into pinyin).
3 See his “Reconstructing a Lost Performance Context: A Field Work Experiment,” CHINOPERL Papers 6 (1976): 120–43.
4 On this video and other precious audio-visual materials made by Mrs. Pian, as well as her work on a wide variety of Chinese oral performing literature, see Bell Yung’s essay in this issue.
5 Dou Wun learned the art of fortune telling, but did not rely on it to make money. This mixing of fortune telling and balladry by blind musicians was also common in other parts of China. See, for instance, Jonathan Stock, Musical Creativity in Twentieth-Century China: Abing, His Music, and Its Changing Meanings (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1996), on the career of Abing 阿炳 (1893–1950, a blind musician born in Wuxi and active there and in Shanghai).
6 A two-part article by Bell Yung in CHINOPERL Papers, vols. 11 (1982) and 12 (1983), provides analysis, transcription, and translation of a ban'ngaan song.
7 On changes in the social-cultural contexts of Cantonese opera and naamyam in Hong Kong of the mid-20th century, see Yung Sai Shing 容世誠, “Chengshi de Guangdong quyi—Getan, yuequ yu shuqingxing” 城市的廣東曲藝—歌壇, 粵曲與抒情性 (Urban Cantonese narrative singing: The world of song, Cantonese song, and lyricism), in Leung Bing Kwan 梁秉鈞, ed., Xianggang de liuxing wenhua 香港的流行文化 (The Popular Culture of Hong Kong; Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian, 1993), pp. 3–34; idem, Xunmi Yueju shengying: Cong hongchuan dao shuiyin deng 尋覓粵劇聲影: 從紅船到水銀燈 (English title: From Red Boat to Silver Screen: Visual and Sonic Culture of Cantonese Opera; Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2012); and my bilingual Such Are the Fading Sounds (Hong Kong: International Association of Theatre Critics, 2005), especially pp. 278–82, and “Performing Arts and the Survival of Some Traditional Genres in Hong Kong Popular Culture,” in Danny Yung, Jessica Yeung, and Wong Yuewei, eds., Asian Performing Arts: From the Traditional to the Contemporary (Hong Kong: Zuni Icosahedron, 2013), pp. 221–26.
8 See Lum Man Yee 林萬儀, “Guanzhong de juese: Yi Xianggang Yuequ getan wei li” 觀眾的角色—以香港粵曲歌壇為例 (The role of the audience: Taking the world of Hong Kong Cantonese opera singing as an example), in Kaocha Xianggang: Wenhua lishi ge’an yanjiu 考察香港—文化歷史個案研究 (Investigating Hong Kong: Case studies in cultural history; Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian, 2005), pp. 131–54.
9 See my Such are the Fading Sounds, pp. 279–82, and “Performing Arts and the Survival of Some Traditional Genres in Hong Kong Popular Culture.”
10 A review of these four sets of CDs by Chuen-Fong Wong was published in vol. 31 (2012) of this journal. A fifth CD was published later.
11 The three singers are Kam Ming Chiu of the 1996 recording session, as well as Au Kwan Cheung 區均祥 and Tong Kin Woon 唐健垣. Kam has passed away but the other two are still active.
12 A video recording is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v = h05doA5FUsE; accessed September 17, 2014; and an audio recording is available on the CD Guojia fei wuzhi wenhua shiniang qiang nanyin chuancheng ren Wu Yongmei nanyin jingxuan 國家非物質文化師娘腔南音承傳人吳詠梅南音精選 (Highlights of naamyam from the national intangible cultural heritage tradition bearer of the blind female singing style of naamyam Ng Wing Mui [Mui Yee]; Hong Kong: Kwan Fong Cultural Studies and Development Department, Lingnan University, 2014).
13 The following is only an initial reconstruction of Mui Yee’s life history. Some of the information still needs to be verified. Mui Yee purposefully kept the names of some people secret, in order to protect their privacy.
14 Her children recalled that Mui Yee might have been born in Shun Tak 順德 of Guangdong Province. Recently found documents reveal that she may have started her career in Faat Shan 佛山, the county next to Shun Tak.
15 There is apparently a 1948 movie using Tsui’s song as the theme song. Tsui was the one who sang for the soundtrack. The song “Long Gwai Maan” was used in two movies (made in 1947 and 1955), but Mui Yee was not involved with them.
16 The CD, which was published in 2013 by the Aomen chuban xiehui 澳門出版協會 (Publishing Association of Macao), has recordings by three other singers but takes its title from this song.
17 I started to work on Mui Yee’s biography in 2011. Subsequently, Chan Chi Chun, Ho Kang Ming, and Elly Leung Hoi Lee joined me to work on Mui Yee’s collection of music, tapes, photos, and her early life.
18 The musical analysis presented in this section is based on work done for my “Chinese Music Does Not Rely on Notation, is Always Pentatonic and in Unison: A Reality Check,” a keynote paper at “Retrospect and Prospect: Chinese Composers in the Age of Globalization,” December 4, 2013, in Hong Kong.
19 The Chinese text of the ballad and a translation of it can be found in the supplemental material for this article available at www.maneyonline.com/doi/suppl/10·1179/0193777414Z.00000000023.
20 A recording of his version is available in the first of the sets of CDs of his music mentioned above. It has the English title of Naamyam Songs of Love and Longing: Live Recordings of the Legendary Blind Naamyam Singer Dou Wun at the Fu Long Tea House in 1975, Hong Kong and the Chinese title of Su zhongqing: Du Huan gushi dishui nanyin jingxuan 訴衷情: 杜煥瞽師地水南音精選, and was published in 2007.
21 The staff notation transcriptions of the three musical examples, as well as files with recordings of the two versions of “Sighing,” are available in the supplemental material for this article available at www.maneyonline.com/doi/suppl/10.1179/0193777414Z.00000000023.
22 For more on the musical form and structure of naamyam music and the use of “repetition” in it, see Bell Yung, “Reconstructing a Lost Performance Context” and my Yue zai diancuo zhong: Xianggang yasu yinyue wenhua 樂在顛錯中: 香港雅俗音樂文化 (English title: Out of Chaos and Coincidence: Hong Kong Music Culture; Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 246–68.
23 Dou Wun, however, delays his shift to yifan until the last line of the section on the second watch. From there he remains in the yifan mode for two more watches (the third and the fourth). It is only in the section on the fifth and final watch that he returns to the proper mode. Dou’s delivery of this piece is much faster and shorter than either Yunsum’s or Mei Yee’s. Like Yunsum, he employs a tripartite structure delineated by mode (i.e., opening in proper mode, middle in yifan mode, final section in proper mode). Their two shifts in mode contrasts sharply with Mui Yee’s four shifts. In terms of tempo changes, unlike Yunsum and Mui Yee, Dou does not employ moderate tempo at all.
24 I have access to three different recordings of Mui Yee singing “Sighing,” one commercial and two non-commercial. The transcription posted in the supplemental material and used in the discussion in this paper is based on the commercial recording, which was included in Dishui nanyin Zheng Guanying chuanqi zhi Shengshi weiyan 地水南音鄭觀應傳奇之盛世危言 (The legend of Cheng Goon Ying’s Words of Warning to a Prosperous Age in naamyan style; Macau: Ao’men chuban xiehui, 2011).
25 Yunsum’s version, of course, was already quite different than that of the male blind singer Dou Yun.