Language/Music Contacts and Exchanges: Nomadic Mongolian Music Transformations in Ordos Area in the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

Language, as an important cultural element, is the main index of regional cultural geography. The folk music influenced by local language is also one of the elements to study regional cultural changes. By analyzing the basic features of Mongolian music in Ordos region of China in the early twentieth century, this chapter finds that the local Mongolian music is deeply influenced by Han immigrant culture in this period. Although the long-tune music, a traditional main narrative form, remained in daily life and festival activities, it began to show a decline, while the short-tune music with lively rhythm was very popular under deep influence of the Han folk music. At the same time, under the introduction of Catholicism, the folk music from Belgium also began to be a part of the Mongolian folk music. The change of Mongolian music in Ordos reflects the originally single Mongolian soundscape of Ordos began to present complex and diverse regional features made by cultural contact and communication in the process of social great changes.