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). 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.³

Logic suggests that the belief that a ci structure could give some clue about the rhythms of the original melody was most likely based on an assumption that the original song had two specific characteristics: not just one note for each syllable, but also a known length for each note.⁴ On the other hand, the pairing method actually used in the Ming dynasty suggests that one 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 numbers of what might be called "musical accent points". 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 ci lyrics to music.

Pairing lyrics and music

Ming dynasty tablature pairs lyrics with qin melodies following a formula that in a way finesses the issue of rhythm: instead of aligning the lyrics to a note pattern, the qin tablature aligns them to the points (dian?⁵) in the tablature where there are the stroke indications. Perhaps this is just a coincidence rather than intentional, but since qin tablature does not directly indicate rhythm, this pairing method finesses the issue of rhythm.⁶

The system worked more or less as follows (there were inconsistencies). For pre-existing lyrics, qin tablature applied one right hand stroke for each Chinese character. Left hand plucks generally were also assigned a character, but here the method was not used systematically. For example, although characters generally were not applied to left hand slides, occasionally they were.⁷ And there was even more inconsistency in determining what was considered as a left hand pluck.⁸ In certain places or times there may have been rules about this, but at present such rules can not be determined.⁹

Although this pairing method was sometimes criticised,¹⁰ it seems generally to have been followed for all qin songs prior to the modern period. As a result, almost all qin songs were very word-intensive.

This word to note method was also used in reverse: if tablature for the melody came first, then for each plucked note one character could be applied. Thus the fact that this method could serve to allow people to apply lyrics to melodies that were lost meant that it could also be used for melodies they had never heard: 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 (<1491; 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 actual ci, one might suspect that qin melodies would have been composed following ci patterns. The resulting melodies could then be applied to any poems following that pattern. As yet, however, I have found no evidence to corroborate a belief that this was actually done. Instead what one gets is the pairing of a variety of melodies (over time) to a single a set of lyrics.

Some qin melodies that have the names of ci patterns (not all of the melodies are songs) are listed below.¹¹

1. Feng Ru Song (surviving ci of this name have a different structure)
2. Zui Weng Yin (surviving ci of this name seem to have the same structure as here)

Qin songs with the name of ci patterns seem to have been most common in Japan. Examples include:

1. Qing Ping Yue (also in China, but different melody and lyrics)
2. Langtao Sha
3. Dongfeng Qi Zhuo Li
4. Fenghuang Taishang Yi Chui Xiao
5. Libie Nan
6. Yi Wangsun
7. Chang Xiang Si

1. 詞 ci vs. 辭 ci
The character 詞 ci is not the same as 辭 ci, as in 楚辭 Chu Ci (Songs of Chu). Ci patterns are called 詞牌 ci pai.
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2. I know of no published studies on this subject.
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3. Everlasting Longing (長相思 Chang Xiang Si): Ci pattern and qin melody
A study of this one cipai and the qin songs that use it shows some of the difficulties of trying to understand how ci might have been set to qin melodies. To start with basics, 42022.324/3 長相思 first discusses Chang Xiang Si as a section of Yuefu Shiji (Folio 69; pp. 990-995) having numerous poems of this name, including one by Bai Juyi (九月西風興....). However, none has the present cipai structure, the most common one being 3,3,7,3,3,5,5,5,5. The one by Bai Juyi is (5+5) x 11.

After this, 42022.324/4 discusses Chang Xiang Si as 詞牌名 the name of a cipai, saying that its pattern came from a poem by Bai Juyi named 汴水流 Bianshui Liu (17525.1 Bianshui river in Henan). This poem is as follows:

The structure here, 3,3,7,5 repeated once, is generally used for later poems called Chang Xiang Si. This includes the two surviving early qin melodies of this name. Zha Guide 35/--/510 lists these in five handbooks: three identical ones in handbooks published in China in 1677 (XII/364), 1677 (XII/380) and 1802 (XVII/545); and two identical ones from late 17th century Japan (XII/216 and XII/251). The latter are generally considered to be earlier, brought to Japan from China at the beginning of the Qing dynasty by the monk Jiang Xingchou (Shin-Etsu). However, it is also possible that Shin-Etsu created these melodies after he arrived in Japan.

In both Japanese publications the melody has the subtitle Chun Gui (春閨 14146.568 Spring Day in the Boudoir, commonly used as a metaphor for a woman). The lyrics (see Hewen Zhuyin Qinpu) are by 馮延巳 Feng Yansi (903? - 960; ICTCL):

Both the lyrics and music of the version in the three handbooks published in China are completely different from the version preserved in Japan. In the editions from China the lyrics are said to have been added by 王丹麓 Wang Danlu (王晫 Wang Zhuo, 21295.1340: Qing dynasty Hangzhou poet):

As can be seen, both sets of lyrics follow the common Chang Xiang Si pattern, here arranged as two lines to show their parallel nature. Although each line is patterned 3,3,7,5 repeated, each has different music. A question that must be asked in reconstruction is whether to try to give each line a parallel musical rhythm in accord with the parallel ci pattern. My own inclination, especially given the style of the first two short phrases of each line, is to see not only whether there is a single rhythm that will fit both lines of one poem, but whether there is one that will fit both lines of both poems. This was not done in the reconstructions I have seen by others (i.e., Wang Di, Qin Ge, p.61 [which has the Japanese melody but changes the lyrics to those of Bai Juyi]; and Wu Wenguang, Yushan Wushi Qinpu, p.445 [a reconstruction of the melody published in China]), but neither one of those includes a discussion giving reasons why or why not.

As mentioned above, almost all qin songs pair words to music by a nearly syllabic method using one character for each right hand stroke and certain left hand plucks. With this as a constant, as any particular melody title continues in the repertoire, several types appear. With long melodies that have lyrics the melodies usually change somewhat from version to version, as do the lyrics, but often it is not clear that these were ever intended to be sung. Most short qin songs of one title are different from this: although the melody may change, or even be completely different in some versions, the lyrics seldom change. Chang Xiang Si is different from both of the above in that both the words and melody are completely different between the two versions. And all of the above types differ from the common ci type, wherein the ci pattern ("melody") remains the same but the words change. Perhaps there was once an oral tradition of creating (perhaps spontaneously) new lyrics for an existing qin song melody, or even of matching existing ci lyrics to a melody that already has different lyrics in the same pattern, but I have not yet found specific evidence for this.

Excluded from the above analysis is the other Chang Xiang Si for qin, but it should be mentioned in case it causes confusion. This is the Chang Xiang Si by 李祥霆 Li Xiangting in Chapter 7 of his 古琴實用教程 Guqin Shiyong Jiaocheng (Guqin Foundation Course). The commentary there says that it comes from the Japanese handbook and that Li 訂指法 drew up the fingering. However, the melody is completely different from that in any of the above handbooks, there are no lyrics, and Li's melody cannot be used for any lyrics that have the ci pattern called Chang Xiang Xi. It is thus somewhat puzzling how he selected the title and why he mentioned the Japanese handbook.
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4. Note values in the original melodies
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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5. Dian 點 and Ju 句
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 it has. These dian seem to correspond to the points on old tablature at which lyrics could be paired, but the aim seemed to be only to help the student learn the melodies correctly. If the aim had been to show how lyrics could be paired, then it would have been more helpful to say how many dian there were in each ju.

Speaking more generally with regard to punctuation of qin melodies, in the same way that early Chinese literary text often had no punctuation, early qin tablature quite likely also had none. Thus, 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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6. Pairing words and music
As discussed above, 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 apparently relationship between the lyrics and the musical phrases. Some examples of this are discussed here (see also the related footnote).
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7. There are no right-hand slides. The right hand equivalent of a slide would be a symbol that represented multiple notes, such as a 袞拂 gunfu. A gunfu could go from the 7th string to the 1st and back, a total of 13 or 14 notes played in rapid succession. These could be paired inconsistently. Often they were assigned two characters (one for gun and one for fu), but sometimes it was three, four or even more.
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8. Inconsistencies within left hand plucks
One common inconsistency in applying lyrics to left hand plucks can be seen with 對起 dui qi; this was usually assigned one character, but the <1491 handbook (again see the commentary) generally attached to it two meaningless syllables such as 的那 de na. And multiple stroke techniques such as 搯撮三聲 taocuo sansheng 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.
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9. 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.
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10. Criticism of one character per stroke pairing
Perhaps the most notable Ming dynasty criticism of this method for pairing lyrics to music was that by Yan Cheng, 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.
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11. Finding poems that use specific ci patterns
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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