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| Repertoire of Qin Songs with lyrics in Cipai and in regular lines YFSJ, Qin melody lyrics Pairing words and music | 網站目錄 |
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Cipai and Qin Melodies
1
Ci lyrics as applied to qin melodies 2 |
詞牌和琴曲
A qin setting of ci lyrics (complete)3 |
As will be discussed on this page, very few "qin ci" (or "qinci": qin melodies having ci lyrics) survive from the Ming dynasty. This seems somewhat surprising, perhaps suggesting they were more amenable to an oral tradition. But since the majority of qinci that survive do so from the Qing dynasty, and since the focus of this web site is the Ming dynasty (and to a certain extent earlier), I reconstructed relatively few songs compared to instrumental pieces. Songs that I have done are mostly ones that survive either from one of the handbooks preserved in Japan beginning around 1676
(1676 ci list), or from one of the Songfeng Ge handbooks of 1677-87 (in particular Shuhuai Cao and Songsheng Cao).4
Early qin settings of ci lyrics that I have reconstructed and recorded include:5
- Zui Weng Yin (from 1539; Japan and later: Zui Weng Cao; trace; structure)
- Fenghuang Taishang Yi Chui Xiao (1609 and Japan; same lyrics, different melody)
- Xiang Si Qu; from 1573; Japan version is close to 1618: listen to six versions)
- Lang Tao Sha (1618 (1-string qin) and Japan (same lyrics but different music)
- Li Yun Chun Si (1664;
10 ci poems
(recording is qin only)
Cao Tang Yin (only Japan but its 4 ci poems = the first 4 from Li Yun Chun Si; recording is also qin only) - Dongfeng Qi Zhuo Li (only Japan; complete Japan list))
- Ba Sheng Ganzhou
(only Japan)
- Rui He Xian (only Japan)
- Libie Nan (only Japan)
- Yi Wangsun (only Japan)
- Chang Xiang Si (image at right; Japan; 1682/1687: two different melodies and lyrics)
- Qing Ping Yue (Japan; 1682/1687; 1687: three different melodies and lyrics)
- Tanpo Huan Xi Sha (1682)
- Shui Diao Ge Tou (1687)
- Qiu Feng Ci (秋風詞 [1709 and later], not 秋風辭 Qiu Feng Ci, which is not in a ci form.
In addition, for Jiang Kui ci in popular notation I have re-arranged five for qin accompaniment.
There is data there and below on the structures of the different ci forms.
Qin melodies with Ci lyrics: qin ci
In overly simple terms, ci poems/lyrics might be contrasted with shi poetry/lyrics, which had lines of regular length (most notably 4-, 5-, 7- and sometimes 6-character lines).6 In contrast, ci, one of the forms with lines of irregular length,7 originated during the Tang dynasty as song texts applied to existing melodies. This form reached its fullest development during the Song dynasty, but its popularity continued after that period. Nevertheless, throughout this period, and particularly during the Ming dynasty, their absence from surviving qin handbooks suggests that application of ci patterns to qin melodies/songs was not a major interest amongst qin players of that time.8
A qin melody having the name of a ci pattern does not guarantee that it has either ci lyrics or music that would fit lyrics in that ci pattern.9 In addition, there are almost no melodies from the Ming dynasty that have lyrics that fit any ci pattern.11 Those that do make no mention that their music can be applied to other lyrics in that pattern; in fact, the only such mention is for a melody not in ci form but one piece with lyrics in the basic pattern (7+7) x 2 (further below).
Thus, although one might speculate that during the Ming dynasty there must have been an oral tradition of setting ci lyrics to qin melodies, for examples of how this might have worked one must look to a few surviving handbooks from the early Qing dynasty, specifically the handbooks related to Jiang Xingchou, preserved in Japan, and the Songfeng Ge handbooks (1677-87) of Cheng Xiong (n.d.).
Traditional methods for creating lyrics following the pattern of lost ci songs
Since by the Song dynasty most of the original songs that apparently supplied the ci patterns would have been lost, new ci lyrics had to be patterned largely on two literary aspects of the poems, the number of characters (i.e., syllables) per phrase,12 and the tonal patterns of the individual characters.13 By itself this seems to suggest the original songs had purely syllabic settings; however, I am not familiar with academic discussions of this very important issue.
The most obvious characteristics of ci lyrics is that they generally do not have regular line lengths (e.g., four characters on each line). Ci likewise often have a different number of syllables (i.e., Chinese characters) on each line. Presumably, then, the melodies they originally accompanied would not all have had the same number of notes on each line. But what does this say about the original rhythms?
Unfortunately, in addition to all the original melodies being lost, the original pairing method is not known. Although people seem to assume it was one syllable for each note, as is often thought to have been the case with poems in the Shi Jing (Book of Songs) or with early Yuefu (Music Bureau) lyrics, there seems to be no hard evidence proving such a pairing method was ever used, at least not exclusively used.
Individual ci lyrics are generally given the title of the original song from which they take their pattern. A well-known example of this would be the numerous eight-line ci said to be "to the tune Endless Longing" (Chang Xiang Si; the image above shows part of a typical setting). These generally have the syllabic pattern 3,3.7.5 repeated once. Apparently Chang Xiang Si was originally a song, but long after the melody was lost the lyrics and therefore the syllabic structure remained. The two surviving old qin melodies called Chang Xiang Si both have lyrics with this pattern.14
Qin songs: pairing lyrics and music
15
Qin tablature does not directly indicate rhythm but does give clues about note values. Pairing the tablature with lyrics gives added clues. This is, in part, due to the pairing method. Based on almost all surviving qin tablature from the Ming and Qing dynasties, the traditional method for pairing words and qin music was more or less as follows (there were inconsistencies).
To combine lyrics with an existing melody, qin tablature applied one Chinese character for each right hand stroke or left hand pluck, but usually no characters for slides (always done by the left hand) and with some flexibility on right hand strokes such as glissandi. With simple right hand stroke passages this was quite straightforward: inconsistencies were largely with the slides and multi-stroke techniques. For example, although characters generally were not applied to left hand slides, occasionally they were;16 the tablature generally paired one character to a pluck by the left thumb but some tablature often paired two characters;17 and multi-stroke right hand techniques could be paired even more inconsistently, perhaps particularly when what seems to have been an originally instrumental melody had lyrics added to it.18 In addition, where the tablature includes the instructions "play again" it is not always clear whether the intention was to sing the phrase on the repeat.19 In certain places or times the people writing the tablature or commenting on it may have tried to apply consistent rules to this, but at present such rules can not be determined.21
When it comes to pairing ci poems to existing qin tablature, what additional clues might the ci patterns give regarding possible musical rhythms? Assuming it is true that the lyrics of surviving ci poems follow the structure of ancient songs now lost, using the surviving ci lyrics to reconstruct the rhythms of any of the original melodies would seem to require the original song to have had two specific characteristics:
Generally speaking, neither of these characteristics is true of qin songs (in the latter case, if the length of a note is known it is through oral tradition, as qin tablature does not provide that detail).
Here one might use the terms "dian" and "ju". In actuality, the character to note pairing method for virtually all qin songs published in traditional handbooks followed the pattern of one character (syllable) for each right or left hand stroke/pluck; generally there were no characters assigned to left hand slides or other ornaments.23 However, in some cases characters were assigned to left hand ornaments such as slides, and/or to multi-note right hand strokes such as glissandi (gun and fu), and here the custom was more flexible. Particularly in these latter cases, one might consider that the pairing was based on what might be called "structure points" or "musical accent points" ("dian") within each phrase ("ju").24 Thus, knowing the dian, in a way, finesses the pairing problems, discussed here, of different durations being assigned to individual notes or words: one can pair words and music without knowing the rhythms of the songs. To put it another way, one can pair words and music without knowing the original music; contrariwise, the surviving qin melodies set to Thus, once information about the structure of a melody or a song was known, it was not necessary actually to refer to the original melody or song in order to make a new melody. Indeed, the pairing method that seems actually to have been used in the Ming dynasty suggests that they might have taken a structure such as the 3,3.7.5 mentioned above and treated these numbers as though they represented not numbers of syllables per phrase, but simply as the aforementioned "dian". If one could create rules for determining such accent points within the music or its score, then these accent points might be used in the pairing of any related ci lyrics to that music. But how often did they actually use it in this way?
Looking at this another way, Ming dynasty tablature seems to pair lyrics with qin melodies following a formula that uses such dian to structure the rhythm in a way that allows flexibility: instead of aligning the lyrics to a note pattern, the qin tablature aligns them, as just outlined above, to the places in the tablature where there are certain types of stroke indications. Perhaps this is just a coincidence rather than intentional, but since qin tablature does not directly indicate rhythm, this pairing method really does finesse the issue of rhythm.
This word to note method was also used in reverse: if existing lyrics were to be given a new melody, then for each character a plucked note could be applied; if one wished to have more notes than lyrics, then the extra notes would be in the form of slides or other left hand ornaments.
Although the value of this pairing method was sometimes debated,25 it seems generally to have been followed for the written versions of all guqin songs prior to the modern period. As a result, almost all qin songs seem to have been very word-intensive.
Clearly methods such as this could be used to allow people to apply lyrics to melodies that were "lost" in the sense that tablature existed but no one knew what the actual note values were, since no one had actually ever heard them: here they only had to have copies of the tablature. This may well have been the case for the earliest surviving qin melodies with lyrics, in Zheyin Shizi Qinpu (>1505; see the commentary as well as
lyrics that can be applied to Shen Qi Mi Pu melodies). Someone experienced in writing ci lyrics could easily adapt its method (as described above) to the stroke numbers in old qin tablature.
As for pairing qin tablature to actual ci patterns, one might suspect that this would have been done quite commonly: the resulting melodies that fit a particular ci pattern could then be applied to any poems following that pattern. As yet, however, I have found only two examples of something like this actually being done:
Instead what one usually gets is the pairing of a variety of melodies (over time) to a single a set of lyrics.27
Singing qin songs: appropriate performance practice
(This discussion has been moved under
Qin songs.)
1.
Cipai and Qin Melodies
As an aside, note that the character 詞 ci should not be confused with 辭 ci, as in 楚辭 Chu Ci (Songs of Chu) or 歸去來辭 Gui Qu Lai Ci. As for a possible 辭牌 39539 has no such entry. On the other hand, although ci patterns are called 詞牌 ci pai, the use of the word ci does not guarantee there is/was an associated cipai (e.g., 冷玉詞 Leng Yu Ci.
Online lists of cipai include:
What I have not yet found is one that lists them by structure (e.g., [7-7-7-3] x 2 for one with four phrases of 7+7+7+3 characters, repeated).
2.
琴詞 Qinci: ci lyrics as applied to qin melodies
In this light it is particularly interesting that the Song dynasty's
Yang Zuan, who is of great importance to the qin, was himself also noted for his
ci studies (see in particular this online article [Chinese with English summary at end]).
3.
Image: Setting for qin of the song Chang Xiang Si
4.
Qing dynasty qinci
5.
Structures of qin ci
6.
Poetry with lines of regular length
Examples of qin songs set to lines of poetry with regular length include the following:
Short songs with lyrics of irregular length are listed below, though those that occur within the long melodies in Xilutang Qintong are listed
here.
More could be added. In addition, people can simply create their own melodies for lyrics that inspire them, but melodies such as these also provide essential guidelines to how this was done in the past.
7.
Poetry as lyrics for songs with lines of irregular length
An alphabetical by Romanization list giving phrases counts for qin songs set to ci poetry with lines of regular length includes. This list is limited to melodies I have recorded, and the phrasing as indicated by commas, semicolons and full stops is based on my musical understanding as much as by looking at explanations (and often not understanding them very well) that mostly follow interpretations of tonal patterns and rhyme.
In addition there are these 10 ci used for the 10 sections of the melody Li Yun Chun Ci, in the order as it given there (the first four are also in
Cao Tang Yin).
Short songs with lyrics of irregular length also occur within the long melodies in Xilutang Qintong. These are listed
here.
To my knowledge none of the patterns in these Chinese poems corresponds with any of the popular patterns found in such sources of early Japanese poetry as the 和漢朗詠集 Wakan Roei Shu (Wiki; see also 和歌 Waka). Thus nothing is 5-7-5-7-7. Also no 4-6-3-7-7, etc.
8.
Apparent rarity of qin melodies/songs using ci patterns
To my knowledge the largest collection of ci melodies in any qin handbook are the ones in the
Shu Huai Cao of 1682 and
Song Sheng Cao of 1687. Their contents are listed in this table of contents.
9.
Qin melodies with the names of ci patterns but that do not fit the pattern
Such qin melodies are not all songs. Note also that it seems to have been more common, at least in publications, to have different melodies set to the same lyrics; see, for example,
Xiang Si Qu.
11.
Finding poems that use specific ci patterns
12.
Syllable counts in ci poetry
13.
Tonal patterns in ci poetry
Most important to the present discussion is first whether these tones can help in trying to reconstruct the early melodies, and then whether the nature of this system sheds any light on whether or not the original songs had syllabic settings.
As yet I have been unable to find answers to these questions. In addition to qin melodies that have the names of ci patterns, and follow them, there are a few melodies can be fit into ci syllabic counts if one considers dian rather than notes, but I have not yet found examples showing that qin songs actually reflect ci tonal patterns. Thus, one can read of people praising the use ping ze in a particular poem, but this passage from the novel Hong Lou Meng suggests that the use of ping ze can or should be quite subjective.
Emphasizing this, in a 2015 article Joseph Lam wrote,"Jiang Kui himself had only a 63 percent rate of following linguistic tones 'accurately.'" (Songs from the Song Dynasty, ref. p.65: Yang Yinliu and Yin Falu, Nansong Jiang Baishi Chuangzuo Gequ Yanjiu 楊蔭瀏、陰法魯：南宋姜白石創作歌曲研究， 74. Beijing, 1957). Unfortunately, I am not clear about what this is actually referring.
14.
Everlasting Longing (長相思 Chang Xiang Si): qin melody and ci pattern
15.
Pairing words and music
16.
Inconsistencies when pairing left hand slides
17.
Inconsistencies within left hand strokes
The left hand stroke meaning "covering"
(罨 yan) may or may not have a character paired to it; to play it you bring the left thumb down on a string while keeping the ring finger in place.
"Yan" is often combined with the left hand pluck called 搯起 taoqi (sometimes 掐起 qiaqi): to play it, while holding down a position with the left ring finger, pluck up or in with the thumb.
Generally taoqi/qiaqi seem to be identical to the one called 對起 dui qi (earlier called duian) except that duiqi is usually not associated with a yan. In addition, though, the >1505 handbook (again see the commentary) generally attached one normal character to taoqi but two meaningless characters to duiqi. Perhaps because duiqi (like taoqi) seems by itself to consist only of one action (the left hand pluck) it is unclear why two characters were attached. And in fact, later tablature was more inconsistent here, with the meaningless syllables used less and generally either one or no characters applied either to duiqi or taoqi.
As for genuine multiple stroke techniques such as
搯撮三聲 taocuo sansheng (most commonly played as 罨搯撮, 罨搯罨搯撮), these could be assigned a widely varying number of characters, while sometimes there is only a vague indication that one should repeat syllables just sung; rarely are no characters at all assigned.
18.
Inconsistencies within right hand strokes
19.
Inconsistences in repeats
21.
In tablature for the period I have studied, i.e., until the end of Ming dynasty, left hand plucks generally are assigned characters but slides generally are not. However, both of the two surviving examples from before the Song dynasty, Gu Yuan and
Huang Ying Yin are syllabic settings, with the former adding characters to slides, and the latter having no slides.
22.
Note values in the original melodies
23.
Srokes, plucks and slides
24.
Dian 點 and Ju 句
Within this context, what are the "dian" in qin tablature? The ju (though sometimes omitted in early tablature) are clearly the phrase markings, but how does one determine the dian? The following suggests that, even if they were not written into the tablature, one can make hypotheses about what and where they are.
Although 49060 點 does not include a discussion of dian with regard to ci poems, it seems to be the case that ci poets assumed the musical settings of the original poems on which they based theirs were done one note per syllable; in this case there would be no need for a concept/term such as dian to show how the words fit to the notes of the melody. On the other hand, if, as suggested above, the original melodies might have had more than one note per syllable, would not such a term have been necessary? The lack of such a term then seems to suggest either that the original melodies did set one note per syllable, or that by the time the ci forms were set the original melodies were lost.
With qin songs each character can be considered as a sort of point in the melody. And in at least one qin handbook, Yingyang Qinpu (which has no melodies with lyrics), the phrasing is emphasized by putting the beginning of each phrase on a separate line, and stating at the beginning of each section of every melody how many ju and how many dian 25.
Debating the one character per stroke pairing
(see also Zha Fuxi's Differentiating Qin Songs)
It should be emphasized that I have not made a thorough study of this and so the present analysis, including this listing of articles, is clearly very much incomplete. (Is this discussion of Saishang Hong and Kunqu relevant?)
Perhaps the most notable Ming dynasty criticism of this method for pairing lyrics to music was the one by Yan Cheng listed here and discussed in QSCM, Chapter 7a2. In spite of such criticism, though, I have not yet found a handbook that pairs multiple stroke techniques to each syllable, or any other specific evidence that it ever happened (though I am sure it must have at least been tried). The closest I can find to an exceptions are some melodies in
Xilutang Qintong. This handbook uses the same pairing method, but for a number of melodies it has lyrics with only one or two sections of a longer melody instead of with all the sections.
26.
Existing melodies intended for use with specific poetic meters or patterns
27.
Melodies that have been used for more than one set of lyrics
To my knowledge these two handbooks have the largest collection of ci melodies in any existing qin handbooks
Return to Qin Poetry and Song
or to the Guqin ToC.
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a
separate page)
"詞牌 Cipai" means "patterns/styles of ci", ci
(Wiki) being songs, or more specifically the lyrics of songs. Many of these songs originated in the Tang dynasty but, in contrast to classical verse, the lyrics of these ci songs rarely had a line structure in which all their lines had fixed length (Wiki). The pattern of the lyrics in a number of such early ci songs were later copied, perhaps so that they could be sung to the same melodies, but this continued even after the original melody was lost. One might thus say that the term "cipai" refers to the differing patterns of these old songs.
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Although an internet search for "琴詞" (qinci) yields a number of results, I have not yet found any published studies on this subject. It is my own belief that short qin songs such as qinci must have an ancient history, but that perhaps their nature or milieu made them more compatible with oral tradition.
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This setting, discussed further
separately, is from Hewen Zhuyin Qinpu, published in Japan before 1676, probably having been brought there from China. The symbols by the Chinese characters tell Japanese how to pronounce the characters in Chinese. In these first two double lines the setting has one character for each qin note except for the slides on the fourth cluster of each line of tablature.
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Although a number ci songs set for qin emerged in the early Ming dynasty, after this very few seem to have been published.
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In this list, "Japan" collectively refers to the handbooks surviving from Japan (ca. 1676), which have the first substantial collection of ci settings for qin (see
complete list). The list arranges the melodies into three groups:
- those first surviving from handbooks predating those from Japan;
- those only in Japanese handbooks and later;
- those only from handbooks after 1676.
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A general study of Chinese poetic forms is beyond the scope of this website. Extenstive collections of Tang poems can be found on the internet, and there is a good introduction in Cai Zongqi, How to Read Chinese Poetry, New York: Columbia University Press, 2008; see in particular Chapter 12, Recent-Stye Shi Poetry ("recent" means since the Tang dynasty). Of particular note here are the comments on regulated verse (近體詩 jintishi;
Wiki), in particular
quatrains called 絕句 jueju
(again Wiki), which mostly have either pairs of doubled five character lines (五絕 wujue: [5+5] x 2) or doubled seven-character lines (七絕 qijue: [7+7] x 2). These quatrains (couplets) may then be multipied.
- (at present no distinction is made between strict jueju and the other five- or seven-syllable paired couplets.)
Guan Ju Qu (1511; sets first five Shi Jing poems; first four are multiples of 4+4)
Qi Shan Cao
(1511; Han Yu; [4+4]x6)
Wen Wang Cao
(1511; anonymous; [4+4]x6)
Wen Wang Qu
(1511; three long Shi Jing poems all 4+4 multiples
Lü Shuang Cao
(1511; Han Yu; [4+4]x8)
Ba Gong Cao
(1511; Han Yu; [4+4]x8)
Bie Gu Cao
(1511; Han Yu; [5+5]x4)
Caishi Wunong
(1511; numerous [5+5]x2 and [5+5]x4)
Zheng Qi Ge
(1511; Wen Tianxiang; [5+5]x30)
Zi Ye Wu Ge
(1676; sets one of several (5+5)x3 Li Bai poems (also use for
[5+5]x4?)
No complete poems yet identified
(Gui Qu Lai Ci has partial examples)
Caishi Wunong
(1511; two [7+7]x2 and one [7+7]x4)
Shi Yin (1573; [7+7]x4) and
Qin Shi
(1590; [7+7]x2)
-both are intended for use with (7+7)x2 lyrics and multiples thereof
Huangzhong Diao
(1511; anonymous; [7+7]x4)
Yang Guan Qu
(1511; Wang Wei; [{7+7}x4]x13; compare
sung version)
Le Ji Yin
(1609; Liu Zongyuan; [7+7]x3; same as various
Yu Ge Diao, etc. but without "的那")
Zao Zhao Yin
(1664; three poets, each [7+7]x4)
Fei Qiong Yin
(1676; Lin Bu; [7+7]x4)
Mei Hua
(1676; Lin Bu; [7+7]x4)
Ou Cheng
(1676; Cheng Hao; [7+7]x4)
Zhu Zhi Ci
(1676; Liu Yuxi; [7+7]x2)
Si Qin Yin
(1676; Anonymous; [7+7]x2)
Feng Wu Ming Pei
(1676; Anonymous; [7+7]x2)
Xiu Zhu Yin Feng
(1676; Anonymous; paired with previous, but last phrase repeated [7+7]x2 +7)
Xing Tan Yin
(1573 & 1585; anonymous; [7+7]x2)
Kang Qu Yao (1525):
Section 6 begins with
a song having the pattern (4+4)x2.
Gu Jiao Xing (1525):
Section 8 ends with
a song having the pattern (5+5)x2.
Xing Tan (1525):
Section 10 is
a song having the pattern (4+4)x4.
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Besides the 詞 ci there are also 賦 fu (as in
Qian Chibi Fu, etc.)
and 騷 sao (as in Li Sao). However, these were not considered as patterns.
2, 2, 2; 3, 5; 7; 4.
3 3, 7 5; 3 3, 7 5.
4 4 6, 5 6; 6 3 4, 3 4 4. 2. 4 5 4, 5 4; 6 7, 3 4 4.
4 3 4, 3 4, 3 5; 3 4 4 4, 3 6 5.
3 3, 3 4, 7 8; 3 4 4 4, 3 6 5.
or: same, as paired to Liu Yong lyrics: change opening "4 3 4" to "6 5".
(5 4; 7 7; 4) x 2.
4 3, 5 3; 4 3, 4 3; 4 3, 4 3; 4 3, 4 3; //5 3// 5 3
4 5, 7 6; 6 6, 6 6.
4 5 4, 5 5 4; 4 3 4; 5 4 4. 2, 4 4 4, 4 6; 5 4 6, 3 4 4. (There are many variants.)
4 5, 6 5; 6 6 5, 5 5. 3 3 3, 4 2 5; 6 6 5, 5 5.
7 7, 7 3; 7 7, 7 3.
3 3 3, 3 3 3; 4 3, 3 4. 8, 7, 7, 4 4 4. (There are many small variations in text.)
4 5, 2 7; 2 4 3, 5 7. 4 4, 4 4 2; 6 6, 5; 5 5, 7. (Compare
1539 and
1571)
4 4 6, 7 7; 4 4 6, 6 7.
4 7, 4 5; 4 5, 3.
5 6, 6 5; 7 5, 6 5.
7 6, 7 4; 6 6, 7 4 4.
7 5, 4 4 5; 7 5, 4 4 5.
1 4 4 3 4, 6 4 4 3; 4 6 4 3; 3 3 4, 3 4.
3 6, 7 5; 6 3 3, 7 5.
7 6, 5 4 5; 7 5, 5 4 5
7 4 4, 7 4 4; 7 4 4, 7 4 4. (i.e., [7 4 4] x 4)
4 5, 3 3; 5 5, 3 7.
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It is also possible that such pairing was common in informal gatherings or other events where the results were not written down.
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These include the following:
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The most convenient way I have found so far of finding other poems that use these ci forms is to go the to McGill/Harvard-Yenching Ming Qing Women's Writings website - I don't know of a comparable site for all writings that include male writers. To do the search, go to the search page, then under Section II "Browse a List" select "Poem Title" and then type in the ci pattern name, e.g., feng ru song (quotation marks are not necessary and it does not seem to be case sensitive, but it seems to be important that each syllable be written as a separate word.
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The Wiki entry mentions about 800 ci patterns including tonal variations (see next footnote), but does not say how many patterns can be identified purely by syllabic count.
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This is now explained in terms of the 平仄 ping ze (or pingze; 9371.37; 2/922), the level (平 ping) and oblique (changing; (仄 ze, of which there are three: 上 shang, 去 qu and 入 ru) tones that formed the patterns of much traditional Chinese poetry. The origin of this system is not clear (the earliest reference in 2/922 is from 陳鵠 Chen Hu of the Southern Song dynasty (9371.37 concerns the late Ming 嘨餘譜 Xiao Yu Pu). After the Song dynasty, ce took on other meanings and only ping ze was used for the tones.
In particular, what could this mean in cases where Jiang Kui himself is credited with having created the pattern?
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Zha Guide 35/--/510 lists this title in five handbooks, but within this there are basically two surviving qin songs. These are discussed in more detail
separarately.
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As discussed here (with specifics), lyrics are paired by the method of one character for each dian, apparently defined as any right hand and certain left hand strokes. This pairing method seems to have led to a rather odd situation where lyrics can be paired following this formula but there is no apparent relationship between the lyrics and the musical phrases. Some examples of this are discussed in connection with the earliest handbook to pair lyrics and music (Zheyin Shizi Qinpu; see also the related
footnote).
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There are no right-hand slides. Left hand slides include simple up, simple down, multiple up (which could be indicated, e.g., as from the 7th position [hui; stud] go to the 8th then 9th positions, or from the 7th position do a double slide to the 7th position), multiple up, up and down (shang xia), up-down (e.g., zhuang), etc. In some tablature none of these slides have characters paired. Occasionally all do (a note plucked followed by two slides up will be given three characters). Often this is inconsistent. Inconsistency here might suggest that the lyrics and music were once independent of each other, then matched later.
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Adding characters on left hand strokes is complicated by the fact that sometimes they seem to call for meaningless syllables such as "of that" (的那 de na) or the equally meaningless "your that" (你那 ni na); other times one might see 那 na by itself or in combination with a meaningful symbol, or even two characters with normal meanings.
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These are mainly with the symbols that represent multiple notes, such as a 滾拂 gunfu. A gunfu consisted of a
gun downward over several strings, usually all the way to the 1st, then a
fu from the 1st or 2nd string back up to the original string. The most common gunfu began at the 7th string, so it would consist of a total of 13 or 14 notes played in rapid succession. These were often paired inconsistently. For example, they might be assigned just one character for the whole gunfu, two characters (one for gun and one for fu), but sometimes it was three, four or even more. There are somes guns to which seven characters are applied (here usually the tablature usually, instead of "gun 7 to 1", says "gun 7 6 5 4 3 2 1). In my opinion this usually suggests that someone was taking a purely instrumental melody and applying lyrics.
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A major characteristic of many qin songs is not only that when there is the instruction "repeat" (再作 zai zuo) there is no indication of whether the lyrics should be repeated, in many cases there are no instructions saying where the repeat begins. In the absence of specific commentary on this, one can only speculate as to whether this suggested flexibility within the qin song idiom, or siply confusion on the part of the transcriber.
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As for what the ci structures might say about musical structures, unfortunately I do not have a deep familiarity with this subject and so do not know if anyone has ever tried to analyze it. For example, I have not seen any arguments actually made that the pairing assumed that each syllable had one note of equal or fixed length, that each syllable had a fixed number of notes, or any other permutation on such structured pairing. Nor have I seen arguments that stated simply that if a poetic structure such as 3,3,7,5 fit a certain melody, any poem with that structure should fit that melody, acknowledging that nevertheless this told us nothing about the actual structure of the melody.
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Here "strokes" refers to fingers moving outwards (away from the player) and "plucks" refers to the fingers moving inwards. The right hand both strokes and plucks; the left hand, in addition to sliding, rarely strokes though it may pluck (and also "cover" [罨 yan]). Many qin songs either do not have these left hand movements or do not pair characters to them, but some do. I do not know whether some people might have criticized these latter pairings.
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In the same way that early Chinese literary texts often had no punctuation, early qin tablature quite likely also had none. For example, there was no punctuation for many of the melodies in the earliest surviving edition of Shen Qi Mi Pu, Folio 1. I do not know what term might have been used for such musical punctuation. "Dianju 點句" (12/1350: dots that stop the continuation of "ju", phrases) is a Chinese term for punctuation that seems to date from the Song dynasty. A more common term is "biaodian 標點" (4/1269: put up marks [dots] to indicate phrases), also with references dating from the Song dynasty.
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Considering the significance of this issue, there does not seem to be a lot of debate about qin songs. Comments worthy of mention include the following:
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These two melodies are unrelated to each other. Their structures do not fit any named ci pattern but are common for classical poetry.
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Although the common custom was to pair a variety of melodies (over time) to a single a set of lyrics, and as yet I have found only the two mentioned examples (from 1573
1590) of melodies designed to be used with many sets of lyrics, I have also found at least one occurrence where an old melody is re-fitted with new lyrics. The handbook Kumuchan Qinpu (1893) has a version of the melody Gui Qu Lai Ci in which for the original lyrics the handbook has substituted Buddhist lyrics; it calls the piece
Lianshe Yin.
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Appendix: Content of
Shu Huai Cao (1682) and
Song Sheng Cao (1687)