Art of Uyghur Muqam is a representative name of various kinds for Muqam in the northwest Chinese province of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. This music is constructed from songs, dances, and musical instrumentation. Muqam was not only an artistic creation that has a long history, it is also a record of communication between China and the countries to the west of it in human history. The Uygur Muqam is a fine example of cultural exchange between East and West because of Xinjiang’s strategic location along the ancient Silk Road. It has influences from Asian, African, Persian, and Arabic maqam modal systems, which help enrich the art of music with local culture. It was developed in Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) and has evolved into four main variants, namely, the Twelve Muqam, Dolan Muqam, Turpan Muqam, and Hami Muqam, of which the Twelve Muqam is the most developed.
Uyghur music, which includes songs, dances, folklore, and classical music, has a diverse content and is characterized by the variety of composition, choreography, and instruments used. Songs vary in rhyme and meter and are performed individually or in groups. The lyrics include folk ballads as well as poems by classical Uyghur masters. Hence, there are many styles within the songs, including poetry, proverbs, and folk narratives, which reflect the Uyghur history and contemporary life. Muqam ensembles are composed of several different instruments, and these instruments are either bow-stringed, plucked, or wind instruments. The dancing involves unique steps, rhythms, formations, and figures such as flower-picking-by-mouth, carrying a bowl on one's head, and imitating animals in solo dances. A Muqam is not exclusively performed by professional musicians; historically, it was also played in folk contexts and the courts of local rulers.
Over thousands of years of history, the Uygur Muqam of Xinjiang has mostly been passed down through oral teaching, thus it is difficult and impossible to preserve the complex music art. The tradition had been on the verge of being distinguished by the 1940s when government-organized preservation work was initiated. Since 1950, multiple research centers and publications have appeared, documenting this complex music art form. Textbooks are distributed at the elementary and primary schools of Xinjiang. The Xinjiang University has an entire major dedicated to Muqam studies, and in recent years, community festivals such as meshrep and bezme, in which everyone participates in the Muqam, have become less frequent. The responsibility of transferring the tradition to new generations of practitioners has fallen to folk artists, but interest in Muqam is gradually waning. It should be noted that several Muqam pieces have been abandoned, including elements from the Twelve Muqam, a total of more than 300 pieces spanning more than 20 hours across twelve instrumental and vocal suites.
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