Jingyun Drum was produced in the late Qing Dynasty. Its predecessor was the wooden drum and Qingyin Zishushu. The wooden drum is also called "wooden drum" because it is accompanied by knocking on the wooden board. Later, it was added with three strings, which was popular in Hejianfu, Hebei Province. The tune was relatively simple, and it was sung with Hejian voice. People also called it "timid drum". Early actors included Hu Shi, Song Wu and Huo Mingliang. Song Wu, a blind man, often sang The Grand West Chamber, Ma On Shan, Sitting in the Building and Listening to the Qin in the Mid-term, sometimes adding tunes of "Anti-Erhuang" and "Xipi" to his singing. Hu Shi has a loud voice and is good at singing "Blue Bridge Club" and "Sister Wang's Enfu". It is said that there is a "Daxi Huangzhuang" in the old New Year pictures, on which an artist who sings drums is Hu Shi. Huo Mingliang is good at singing jokes about the Three Kingdoms and water swimming, such as "Fighting Changsha" and "Single Knife Meeting". Around 1894, performers of "Afraid Drum" began to enter Tianjin, Beijing and other cities, and performed with crosstalk, acrobatics and Dan Xian in Quyi Garden. At that time, there were many "afraid of drums" actors, such as Liu big braid, Liu Zengyuan, Wang Qinghe and their apprentices, all from the countryside.
Qingyin Zidishu is a kind of music sung by children of the Eight Banners during Yongzheng and Qianlong periods in Qing Dynasty. They are all non-professional actors, and people call them "children's fans". Their lyrics are elegant and carved, and their tunes are based on Kunqu Opera and Gaoqiang, with slow lines and few words and many cavities. Most of the tracks are rewritten from the novels, legends and Kunqu operas of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The songs were high and few, so they didn't spread widely, so they declined at the end of Qing Dynasty, but a few of them were absorbed by other kinds of songs, such as Jingyun Drum.
In Beijing, wooden drum artists absorbed nutrition from children's books, Peking Opera and folk ditties, and carried out reforms, gradually forming a new rap form, namely, Jingyun Drum, also known as "Jingyin Drum" and "Beijing Tune Drum", which was later widely popular in northern China.
The aria of Jingyun Drum belongs to the board cavity structure, which consists of a rising board, a flat board, a picking board, a stacking board, an allegro, a sorrowful cavity and a swinging cavity (falling board). Lyrics can be divided into seven sentences, eight sentences, cross sentences and twelve sentences. What kind of aria to use depends on the content of the lyrics and the number of words, that is, artists say that they should follow the words, and sometimes some interlining is added to facilitate the lines. During the performance, the singer mastered the rhythm by playing the drums. The main accompaniment instruments were Sanxian and Sihu, and sometimes erhu and pipa were added.
Liu Baoquan (1869-1942), a modern artist, made great contributions to the creation of Jingyun Drum. He is a native of Shenxian County, Hebei Province. In his early years, he had a relationship with Tan Xinpei, a famous Peking Opera actor. Tan pointed out that his singing accent was too strong for Beijingers to understand, and artists should pay attention to do as the Romans do in order to be popular. So he got rid of his timidity and changed it to Beijing accent. At the same time, he also observed and learned from many famous Peking Opera actors, such as Sun Juxian, Gong Yunfu, Yang Xiaolou and Wang Yaoqing. He absorbed the performances of singing, doing and reading in Beijing opera, hung his voice with jinghu, and widely absorbed the tones of Beijing opera and other folk arts, forming his own unique style.