Chapter 5 The relationship between words and music

This is a question that must be clarified first. Words are more closely related to music than poetry.Theoretically speaking, there are poems that cannot be sung, but there are no words that cannot be sung.Ci is originally a new poetry form with different sentence patterns and large or small systems because the four-, five-, and seven-character poetry forms are too uniform and cannot adapt to the increasingly colorful music, and form different forms of poetry. 's Ci Pai. What is "Ci Pai"? If you have read a book on poetry and meter, it will tell you, "Ci Pai", that is, the form requirements of a poem.It includes the number of sentences, the number of words in each sentence, the level of each sentence, the rules for using rhyme, and whether it is divided into pieces.For example, "Qing Ping Le" is a Ci Pai, which contains the following contents: eight sentences, divided into upper and lower parts, each with four sentences.The sentence structure is four, five, seven, six, six, six, six, six.The sentences in the first part rhyme with oblique tones, while the first, second and fourth sentences in the next part rhyme with flat tones.Coupled with the requirements of flatness and obliqueness of each sentence, it will be the following meter (Take Xin Qiji's "Qing Ping Le Village Dwelling" as an example. The italics indicate that it can be flat or narrow, and the rhyme is bolded.):

Qing Ping Le (Double-tone 46 characters) flat mediocre mediocre mediocre mediocre mediocre mediocre mediocre mediocre mediocre Pingping, I like children rascals the most, mediocre mediocre If we think that it is just like writing modern poetry, as long as it meets the above requirements such as level, oblique, rhyme, etc., then it is a big mistake.Because this ignores another very important factor of Cipai-the tune. Each lyric is actually a song, the melody rhythm is fixed (a few lyric have variants, there may be two or more different singing styles), and the words can be filled in countless.Unfortunately, most of these scores have not been handed down.Zhang Yan's "Etymology" said: "The rhythm should be studied, the words and chapters should be carefully thought out first, and the sentence should be smooth, and then the sound spectrum." He also said: "The word is based on the consonant sound. What is the sound? The spectrum is also That is to say, the process of writing lyrics is to conceive first, then write the manuscript, and then check whether it fits the score, that is, the tune, and see if it is songable. Only in this way can the creation of the lyrics be considered complete.

We often see people in the Song Dynasty singing, dancing, having banquets or gathering with friends, the poets write impromptu lyrics, and immediately order the kabuki to sing.Kabukis don’t need to prepare and study at all, they can sing immediately as soon as they get the manuscript. The reason is that they are familiar with the music of each lyric, and they just need to put the lyrics into it and sing according to the fixed tune. We all know that music has strong emotional factors. Different melodies can express different emotions such as joy, anger, sorrow, and joy.In other words, different lyrics have different requirements for emotional expression because of the different tunes.Generally speaking, the tunes of Song Ci are soft and charming, which is suitable for expressing the mood of romance, love between men and women.Liu Kezhuang of the Song Dynasty said in "Ti Liulan Yuefu" that "cis should be the law of the leaves, so that Xueer and Chunying can sing, and you can't use your breath as color", which refers to this.Therefore, it is obviously inappropriate to use lyrics with more cheerful tunes to fill in sad and resentful words, or to use lyrics with more beautiful and lyrical tunes to fill in bold and unrestrained words.

Therefore, the creation of Ci pays attention to "filling lyrics with sound". What is "relying on sound to fill in lyrics"?Each word card has a fixed format and fixed music.In order to cooperate well with the music and facilitate singing, there are very strict regulations on the number of sentences, word count, flatness, and duality of each Cipai, and the poets then create according to the sentence length and flatness required by the Cipai.The "sound" here does not only refer to the four tones, but more importantly, it refers to the melody and tune. "Yisheng", one is to choose ci cards that are similar to the emotional expression of the words, and the other is to pay attention to the rhyme in plain tones so that the singer will not "stumble".Ye Mengde's "Summer Records" said that Liu Yong "when he was a son, he often traveled to narrow and evil. He was good at singing and singing. Every time the musicians in the teaching workshop got a new tune, they must ask for the singing forever. It was first practiced in the world, so it spread for a while." .The so-called "get a new tune" is to get a new lyric, strictly speaking, to get the music and format of this new lyric, but it has no lyrics (or contains an original folk song), so they asked Liu Yong, who is "good at writing lyrics", "composes lyrics based on sound".

Is it also the case that there are lyrics first, and then the music is composed for it?There are also.Volume 194 "Tang Ji" contains the sixth year of Taizong's Zhenguan: "September, Jiyou, fortunately Xingqing Palace, the former residence of Shangsheng. Because of banquets with nobles and poems. The daily living Lang Qingping Lu was orchestrated by him, The order is "Gong Cheng Celebrates Good Music", so that the boy Baqi will perform "Nine Gong Zhi Dance", a big banquet, and "Broken Array Dance" in the court." Hu Sansheng's "Notes" said: "Only by ingenuity, Therefore, it is ordered that the poems inscribed be orchestrated as music." This is an example of Tang poems having words first, and then composing music for them.In Song Ci, it is called "Zidu Qu".

"Zi Du Qu" is to create a new Ci Pai, which is not as simple as creating a new style of poetry in the past, because it needs to formulate rules such as the number of words, the number of sentences, the number of pieces, the level and rhyme, and more importantly, , is to create a tune for it, making it a custom, other people, including himself, must write lyrics according to the requirements of this new lyrics, such as "Dark Fragrance", "Sparse Shadow", "Pale Yellow Willow" ", "Desolate Prisoner", "Plum Yellow Shiyu", "Cherish Autumn Flowers", "Xizizhuang", "Dream Furong", "Jade Jingqiu" and so on.This is why only a few people who have a deep understanding of the rhythm, such as Zhou Bangyan, Jiang Kui, Zhang Yan, Wu Wenying, and Zhou Mi, can have "self-duqu".