the voices among the mountains

The Dong Grand Song is an unaccompanied, polyphonic choral tradition from the Dong region of China. Its heterophonic structure makes it one of the most representative forms of polyphony in traditional Chinese music.

I grew up in Beijing, and my musical life began at the piano. My ear was shaped by European classical music and its centuries-old harmonic tradition. Through choir and songwriting, I came to see music as more than melody and technique: it is also a way of understanding emotion and the relationships between people. Curious about the musical diversity of China's ethnic groups, I traveled to Mojiang, in Yunnan, where I encountered the traditional music of the Hani and Wa peoples. Their songs are woven into labor, ritual, and communal life, and are largely built on a single vocal line or a clear main melody.

Soon afterward, I visited the Dong region for the first time and heard the Dong Grand Song. As a choir singer, I could sense how intricate its vocal parts were, yet I couldn't explain it with the Western music theory I knew. My question shifted from "How does it sound?" to "Why does it take this shape?" Does this polyphonic form reflect Dong social organization, language, daily life, and natural environment?

To find out, I spent several months researching and conducting fieldwork in Dong villages in Guizhou, including Xiaohuang, Dali, Zaidang, and Zhaoxing, where I interviewed local song masters and national-level intangible cultural heritage bearers. The result was an academic paper bridging ethnomusicology and anthropology: Heterophonic Musical Morphology of Dong Grand Song and Its Indigenous Cultural Context