Music - A Loyal Companion of Chinese Poetry

Similar to Chinese painting, traditional Chinese music is also a comprehensive art. Apart from being the best “sister or brother” to the art of dance, most of the time, it also works with poetry. Almost all vocal musical setting were written to accompany poetry.

Even though we cannot hear the original music in remote antiquity, we can still find voluminous poems that had been sung by our ancestors.

For example:

—The 305 poems that were collected into the first collection of poems in China: Shi Jing—The Book of Poetry（edited in 722 B. C.-481 B. C.)could be sung.
Shi Jing means the Book of Songs, its three sections: Feng was folk songs / ballads ( 160 poems);Ya was festal songs sung at court during banquets and entertainment of guests (105 poems) and Song was the songs in praise of the imperial ancestors and sung on sacrificial occasion (40 poems).

—The first great poet of China—Qu Yuan (340   B. C.-278   B. C.) in Chinese poetry history and his followers created new poetry style Chu Ci which means Songs of Chu or Songs of the South, and it could be sung.

—Yue Fu in the Han Dynasty—Folk Music in Han Dynasty and could be sung. Because it was collected written by the official music organization in the folk and it should be sung with music together.

Yue Fu in the Han Dynasty (206   B. C.-220   A.D.)—the name of a music organization in the Han Dynasty, also the name of the folk songs that the organization collected.

The main duties of the music office in the Han Dynasty were: To create the music for the poems by the literati, to play the music of the poems, and to collect the folk songs and ballads in the country.The latter was just the poetry that was sung in folk style, this part of poetry and music was the most valuable and was called Han Yufu.

—The Tang poetry could be sung.

—The Ci (lyric poem) in the Song Dynasty had more than 1,000 Ci Pai (names of the tunes to which Ci /Lyric poems are composed). They could certainly sing.
The Yuan Dynasty's Qu was some non dramatic songs— a type of verse for singing, which emerged in the Southern Song and Jin Dynasties and become popular in the Yuan Dynasty. It was somewhat a kin to but freer than the Ci (Lyric), used for lyric songs written to express the poet's own feelings and observations…

So, in a sense，the history of ancient Chinese vocal music is in fact also the history of Chinese poetry.

Music is the most loyal companion of Chinese poetry.
Since it is easier to remember something by singing it rather than speaking it, and since many people enjoy remembering something through music, I have created more than 130 pieces of music to sing Chinese classical poems since 2005 and I have used 12 of them in this publication.

I really hope that my effort will be of some help for you in learning Chinese culture and language more naturally, artistically and easily.

If you have any questions and comments, you are welcome to contact me via www.ebridge.cn or write to shirley@ebridge.cn directly. I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Shirley Yiping Zhang
April, 2013