In 2006, Jiahe Wedding Songs were listed as the first batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage. On May 24, 2021, the Jiahe Wedding Songs were included in the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative projects.

 

Jiahe Wedding Songs are deemed as the most distinctive Jiahe folk songs. The traditional Jiahe wedding songs are distributed throughout Jiahe County, which, according to their geographical distribution and local dialects, can be divided into Hedong and Hexi songs. Of the Hexi songs, songs in Zhuquan and Jinping towns have a strong flavor of folk songs and ritual songs, while songs in Guangfa Town and Tanping Town have the style of Huadeng (lanterns) Opera and Yugu Opera.

 

Hedong songs like songs in Longtan Town, Xinglang Town, Puman Township, and Shiqiao Town in Hedong County have the flavor of minor tunes and chanteys as well as dragon dance tunes. In terms of artistic features and styles, Hedong songs are more flexible, while Hexi songs are more delicate. Jiahe Wedding Songs are also widely spread in the surrounding areas including Guiyang, Linwu, Xintian, Lanshan, Ningyuan and other places.

 

Jiahe Wedding Songs are all sung by women in the Jiahe dialect. The melody is feminine and poignant and the structure of the tune is flexible and changeable. The rhythm is relatively rich. In addition to the strong and weak two-beat rhythms, there are also sad and beautiful three-beats. It is worth mentioning that there are also “strong, weak, second-strong, weak, and weak” five-beats.

 

The “Yu tune” is mostly adopted in the tune of the wedding songs. There are more than 1,300 traditional Jiahe Wedding songs, more than 100 new songs and dance songs. There are various singing forms for the songs, including lead singing, unison singing, duet singing, rap singing, and impromptu singing. The melodies can go with multiple lyrics and certain lyrics can be sung with multiple tunes. 

 

In recent years, Jiahe County has carried out many activities for the inheritance and protection of the Wedding Songs. There are more than 50 Wedding Song performance teams, 2 inheritance bases, 4 live inheritance groups, and 7 representative inheritors at provincial, municipal and county levels respectively in the county to pass down and promote the Wedding Songs.