Voicing Intangible Cultural Heritage: Dialect, Moral Narrative and Musical Continuity in Liangzhou Xianxiao, North-West China

Liangzhou Xianxiao is a narrative–singing tradition of north-west China recognised as intangible cultural heritage. This study asks which recurrent performance procedures constitute transmissible heritage knowledge and how they are reconfigured across contrasting narrative contexts. A purposive maximum-contrast corpus of six pieces drawn from public–historical, family–ethical and mixed/contemporary repertory is examined using post-approval interviews and observations, consent-based audio-visual documentation, local audio and score collections, and analytical transcription. A three-layer procedure links textual–narrative action, musicological detail and situated interpretation. Five recurrent procedures were identified: dialectal prosody, tonal stability, leap–descent contrast, rhythmic density and vocal–instrumental dialogue. Their recurrence is not a fixed sonic code: the same procedure acquires different functions as narrative context changes. We describe this bounded pattern as procedural heritage continuity—the maintenance of recognisability through the transmission and reconfiguration of practical relations among voice, dialect, timing, melodic return and sanxian rather than through exact replication of musical texts. This case-specific formulation adds an operational level to heritage analysis by specifying what performance knowledge can be compared and documented. Safeguarding should therefore document not only repertory but also the relational procedures through which performers make it transmissible and adaptable.