Introduction
  Shirley Created Music
  Chinese Songs
     Folk Songs
     Art Songs
     Popular Songs
  Bilingual Songs
  Foreign Songs
  Instrumental Music
 

Music -- A Loyal Companion of Chinese Poetry   

In a similar way 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 settings were written to accompany poetry.

Even though we cannot hear the original music from remote antiquity, we can still find voluminous poems which have been sung by our ancestors.

For example:

The 305 poems that were collected into the first collection of poems in China: Shi JingThe Book of Poetry鐚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 occasions (40 poems).

The first great poet of ChinaQu Yuan (340 B.C.-278 B. C.) and his followers created a new poetry style called Chu Ci, which means Songs of Chu or Songs of the South, and the poems of Chu Ci could be sung.

Yue Fu was Folk Music in Han Dynasty and could be sung.Because it was collected (from around the country..?) and written down by the official music organization it should be sung with music.

Yue Fu in the Han Dynasty (206 B. C.-220 A.D.) was the name of a music organization in the Han Dynasty and 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 for the poems, and to go into the country to collect folk songs and ballads. The latter was just poetry that was sung in folk style, this part of the poetry and music was the most valuable and was called Han Yufu.

Tang poetry could be sung.

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 be sung.

The Yuan Dynasty's Qu was a dramatic song. It is 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 akin to but freer than the Ci (Lyric), and used for lyric songs written to express the poet's own feelings and observations.

So, in a sense鐚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 to since 2005 and 14 of them have been published in this publication series.

I really hope that my effort will be of some help to 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
Dec 3, 2017 in China
Nov 15, 2016 in the USA