Qin Poetry can be divided into two categories

1. Lyrics that mention qin play or players. These include:
   - Over 500 qin poems in Qinshu Daquan (1590); only a few have been translated;
   - Poems included in various biographies (search by author; a few of the poems are now online);
   - Poems by qin players, including a selection of Zhu Quan's Palace Poems;
   - See also "Other poets", with a variety of connections to qin.

2. Lyrics that were once sung with qin melodies
   - Zha Fuxi's Guide, Section 10 includes almost all such lyrics in surviving handbooks
       (the Index, last column, shows which melodies have lyrics; few are still sung)
   - Yuefu Shiji: Qin Melody Lyrics (many set to music in Taigu Yiyin) and elsewhere
   - In contrast, though there are many references to it, there are very few actual lyrics from Wen Xuan
   - See also Qin Songs, below, and the page Cipai and Qin Melodies.

Qin Songs accompany qin melodies (see Cipai and Qin Melodies, my Comment on qin songs and Zha Fuxi's Differentiating qin songs).
          The songs I myself have reconstructed and sing from Ming handbooks include:

1. Zui Weng Yin, (The Old Toper's Chant, see calligraphy at right)
2. Jiu Kuang, a serious drinking song
3. Feng Qiu Huang, an ardent love song
4. Boya Diao Ziqi, an equally ardent lament for a lost friend
5. Yangguan Sandie, one of the most famous farewell songs
6. Gui Qu Lai Ci, a famous poet enjoys being home
7. Feng Ru Song Ge, a qin song accompanies Wind in the Pines
8. Kongsheng Jing; a musical setting of Confucius' Great Learning
9. Qingjing Jing; a Daoist morning chant
10. Yu Ge Diao; read the transcription and sing along with the recording

Qin melodies with lyrics always have these lyrics paired to the music in a very word intensive manner: for each character in the lyrics the qin player has to make one right hand stroke or left hand pluck. Words are usually not paired to slides, but many qin songs have no left-hand ornaments, with the result that for each character there is only one note. This setting of one character for each note is called a "syllabic setting". It is perhaps due to this syllabic style that some people have argued that qin melodies should be purely instrumental, as singing just gets in the way of the delicate qin tones. (See further comment.)

Two reasons why qin songs contined to be so word intensive, in spite of such criticism, could be as follows.

1. A belief that Confucius always sang as he played qin, combined with a belief that the most ancient melodies had syllabic settings.
2. A belief that the original songs on which Song ci were based had syllabic settings.¹

The first two handbooks with lyrics show very contrasting approaches to the one-character-per-stroke model.

1. Zheyin Shizi Qinpu (<1491; my cd and book) has music which for the most part was originally instrumental, but there are lyrics all the way through (they are linked through its ToC). The lyrics seem to be newly created; but although some of it can be sung, the pairing method means that often there are rather awkward passages, for example, the finger running across the seven strings and so there are seven syllables to be sung. Most of the lyrics were apparently written by the 15th century prince who compiled the book.
2. Taigu Yiyin (1511) has 38 qin songs. The pairing method is the same, but most of the lyrics are well-known old poems, especially from the famous collection Yuefu Shiji. From my understanding, having transcribed and played all of them, these were clearly intended to be sung. The music less ornamented, and seems designed to be played more slowly.

For all the above I have written out transcriptions, but for many of those in the 1511 handbook need more work. I have also reconstructed songs from several later handbooks. One of the most interesting of these is Xilutang Qintong, the only handbook that seems to have songs where the lyrics don't continue from beginning to end.

Later handbooks that consist only of qin songs include,

1. Chongxiu Zhenchuan Zhengzong (1585)
2. Luqi Xinsheng (including Hujia Shibapai; 1589)
3. Sanjiao Tongsheng (Daoist and Confucian hymns; Buddhiast chant; 1592)
4. Yang Lun Taigu Yiyin, part of Zhenchuan Zhengzong Qinpu (<1609)
5. The Jiang Xingchou (Toko Etsu) qin song handbooks preserved in Japan

 
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. Song Ci 宋詞
Each Song dynasty ci was written following the syllabic structure of an earlier ci. Thus, the earliest known lyrics for the song 長相思 Chang Xiang Si had four phrases with the pattern 3,3.7.5; therefore, new ci called Chang Xiang Si would have the same pattern. Some people think that this means the original songs must have had a syllabic setting. (Note that there can be confusion in English from the fact that the spelling of the 詞 ci of 宋詞 Song Ci [see also cipai] is the same as the ci of 楚辭 Chu Ci.)
(Return)

 
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