Eight Tone

The term "Eight Tone" comes from the eight different materials used to make Chinese musical instruments: Metal, stone, silk, bamboo, fullhouse, pottery, leather and woods.

Eight different material:

Ground	skin	silk	fullhous	stone	wood	matel	tree

Although the term "Eight-Tone" comes from the eight materials, the music itself has its own origin. During their centuries of wandering throughout the Chinese mainland, the Hakka managed to preserve their original customs, yet in their travels from the north of the Chinese mainland to the south, they absorbed the folk music of each region. This gradually became a distinctive type of music, known as the Hakka Eight Tones.

This is some exaple of the Eight Tone Music:

sin-yi-jin

Qing-Bu-She
It is performed by So-Na. It imitates the song sung by a man and a woman when they are leaving each other.

Huai-Tai-Qu
It is from Old Mountain Song. It describes the difficulties a woman faced when she is pregnant.

Children Song

This is the example of children song:

Long Me Me Ship Pat Se

The picture on the left side is a famous Hakka dish called "Chhi-Pa". It is made from rice. "Iong Me Me Ship Pat Se" means a lamp which is 18 years old. The song is about a married girl. She takes the train to return to her home. She has made some Chhi-Pa, but she is so poor that she has no sugar to put on it. So she can only eat Chhi-Pa with dirt.

Ngiu Chhia Kia

There is an uphill road in Tungshih called "Ngiu Chhia Kia", meaning a "cow-wagon hill". Becuase this road is steep, people often rest in the middle.

Thien Kung Lok Shiui

"Thien Kung Lok Shiui" means it is raining now. This song is about a rainy day.

Popular Music

Mountain Song Rock'n Roll
This song is one of the pricipal cuts from the album Remembrance of Winter That Year.From Luo Kuo-li .

Divination Song
It is the first modern Hakka song released in the Taiwan area sung in the Hailu subdialect of Hakka. From Hsieh Yu-wei.

The Spirit of Hakka
This is a very famous song. It is usually sung in rallies. It is written by a famous Hakka composer Tu Min-heng who died in May, 2000 becuase of a car accident. This song first tells the difficulties the ancestors of Hakka people met when they first came to Taiwan, then it asks the Hakka people now not to forget their own language and good spirits.