Sipingdiao (Peking-Opera Tune)
A graceful Peking-opera tune close to erhuang, usually in 2/4 and standing as its own idiom
Related
Sipingdiao is a Peking-opera tune related to erhuang but smoother and more graceful, usually one ban and one yan in 2/4. Less brooding than erhuang, less springy than xipi, it suits unhurried lyricism and narrative; "Hai dao bing lun chu zhuan teng" in "The Drunken Concubine" is sipingdiao.
It is not a metre of erhuang but a tune with its own metres, and not a vocal tradition either — it is one idiom within Peking opera and related genres. To call sipingdiao merely "a metre of erhuang" is to confuse a tune with a metrical pattern.
Read deeper → erhuang
Sources
- 四平调与二黄相近而自成一格、一板一眼的形态及《贵妃醉酒》的用法，参《中国音乐词典》与 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "China" 相关条目；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.