On an autumn riverbank, boat trackers strain on a rope to haul a laden cargo boat, the leader calling out with hand cupped to his mouth. Above, farmers harvest terraced fields as a woman and a man call across the slopes.
Music centred on the singing voice: the Book of Songs, yuefu, qin songs and ci tunes; regional folk songs such as work chants, mountain songs, ditties, hua'er, long songs and the Kam grand songs; and the art songs of the twentieth century, recording work, love and local life.
1000 BCE · OriginThe earliest pieces of the Classic of Poetry date from the Western Zhou; all 305 were sung to music, and the Airs of the States are mostly regional folk songs.112 BCE · EvolutionUnder Emperor Wu of Han the Music Bureau began collecting, writing and performing folk songs and ballads, and yuefu songs have come down from it.1610 · EvolutionIn the late Ming, Feng Menglong compiled Guazhi'er and Shan'ge, collections of popular tunes and mountain songs from the Wu region and beyond.1926 · ImpactIn 1926 Yuen Ren Chao set Liu Bannong's new poem How Can I Not Think of Her to music, a landmark of Chinese art song.
In China, poetry and song were long the same thing. The Book of Documents says "poetry states intent, song draws out the words," meaning that a poem expresses the heart and singing stretches the words into melody. The Airs, Odes and Hymns of the Book of Songs are regional folk songs, court songs and temple hymns. Later yuefu poems, Tang quatrains and Song ci were often first written to be sung; a ci pattern name is the name of a tune.
Folk song makes up a large part of song. Work chants are sung on the job: boatmen, haulers and porters pull together to a leader's call and the group's reply. Mountain songs are sung out in the open, with free rhythm and often about love. Ditties circulate in towns, with regular tunes and often instrumental accompaniment. The hua'er of the northwest are sung in exchange at hua'er festivals, Mongolian long songs are slow and drawn out, and the Kam grand songs are unaccompanied part-singing. Because the languages differ from region to region, so do the melodies.
Literati song took another path. Qin songs are sung to the qin, such as Three Variations on Yangguan. In the Song, Jiang Kui set his own ci to music and left songs with notation beside the text, precious material for the study of Song singing. In the Ming and Qing, scholars began to collect folk songs systematically; Feng Menglong's Guazhi'er and Shan'ge show that many accepted the idea that "true poetry lives among the people."
In the early twentieth century, school songs brought new-style songs into the classroom. Composers such as Yuen Ren Chao and Huang Tzu set new poetry to music with piano accompaniment, creating Chinese art song. From the mid-twentieth century many folk songs were recorded and edited, and hua'er, Mongolian long song and the Kam grand songs were inscribed on UNESCO's intangible heritage lists.
Chinese song is music centred on the singing voice. Its source is the Book of Songs, all 305 pieces of which were sung. After it came Han yuefu, the Wu songs and Western songs of the Southern Dynasties, the qin songs and ci tunes of the Tang and Song, and the folk songs passed down for generations in fields, mountains and on rivers: work chants, mountain songs, ditties, hua'er, long songs and the Kam grand songs. In the twentieth century poets and composers together wrote art songs. Song ties poetry, dialect and melody together and stays close to daily life.
The line begins with the Book of Songs. It collects 305 songs from the Western Zhou to the mid-Spring and Autumn period; the 160 Airs of the States are mostly regional folk songs, which were sung to music at the royal court, though their scores and dances are lost. In the Warring States, the Nine Songs of Chu preserve the shape of songs for the gods, and Qu Yuan's Summons of the Soul mentions the songs of Wu.
Under Emperor Wu of Han, from 112 BCE, the Music Bureau became the official body for collecting, writing and performing folk songs, "to observe customs and learn how people fare." Yuefu songs such as Mulberry on the Path and At Fifteen I Went to War survive because of it. In the Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, the south produced the Wu songs, led by the Midnight Songs, and the Western songs centred on Jingchu, while the north had songs such as the Chile Song and the Ballad of Mulan. In the Song, Guo Maoqian gathered the yuefu of all periods into the Yuefu shiji.
Tang poems were often sung by courtesan singers, and Wang Wei's farewell poem to Yuan Er later became the qin song Three Variations on Yangguan. Song ci were lyrics to banquet-music tunes; Jiang Kui wrote down notation for his own tunes, so some Song melodies survive. In the Yuan, Ming and Qing, sanqu and popular ditties spread in the cities. In the late Ming, Feng Menglong compiled Guazhi'er and Shan'ge from the folk songs of Wu and elsewhere, and Qing gazetteers and scholars' notes often record mountain songs, hua'er and other folk songs.
In the early twentieth century school songs spread. In 1920 Liu Bannong wrote the new poem How Can I Not Think of Her in London, and in 1926 Yuen Ren Chao set it to music, a landmark of Chinese art song; Huang Tzu, He Luting and others followed. In the mid-twentieth century musicians recorded folk songs across the country on a large scale and compiled them into anthologies. Mongolian long song (2005), the Kam grand songs (2009) and hua'er (2009) were inscribed by UNESCO, and Wu songs and other folk songs entered the first national intangible heritage list in 2006. Today these songs are still sung in villages and on stage.
Qin-Accompanied Singing
The qin player and surrounding singers on the central terrace form the core scene of teaching and performing music-poetry.
Sedan Procession
The sedan chair and welcoming group at right center extend the scene into travel and ceremony linked with yuefu culture.
Lower-Left Consultation
The seated figures talking in and around the lower-left room suggest recording and discussing collected songs.
Street-Corner Gathering
The small groups talking around the lower-right stalls show how songs circulate through everyday urban spaces.
In the Music Bureau office, officials teach from songbooks while folk singers perform and a scribe transcribes the lyrics onto bamboo slips, collecting poetry from the people for the imperial repertoire. An imperial auditory registry collecting folk songs to break noble cultural monopolies.
Song is like a wind blowing across the fields: the Airs of the States in the Book of Songs are a gust that rose early, yuefu and ci tunes are the sound of the wind that followed, and the folk songs of every region are the fields it passes over. Wherever the wind blows it picks up the smell of the soil and the local accent.
People may not remember where the wind rose, or who wrote a song, but they remember the tune and keep singing it, generation after generation.
An old boatman lived by the Yellow River. As a young man he had hauled boats upstream, singing work chants all the way. His grandson studied music in the city and came home one day with a tape recorder.
"Grandpa, sing me a chant and I'll record it."
The old man waved him off. "A chant isn't sung by one person. One leads and everyone answers; that's how the rope gets pulled together."
So the grandson invited several old men from the village. The boatman gave the first call, the others answered line by line, and the voices grew louder and louder. When they finished, one of them wiped his eyes and said he hadn't sung like that in years.
Back in the city, the grandson played the recording for his teacher. The teacher said, "Many of the Airs of the States in the Book of Songs were regional folk songs, sung just like this. Later someone wrote them down, and that is how they reached us."
Many Chinese songs have their roots among ordinary people. From the Airs of the States and Han yuefu to Ming-Qing folk-song collections and today's recordings, each generation has sung its work, love and longing, and others have collected and written the songs down. A song belongs both to those who sing it and to those who record it. (This is an illustrative story, not a historical account.)
Sung Shijing and Chu VersePre-Qin song: the Shijing as sung music and the songs of Chu, still heard in the Hejian singing of the Odes
Work Chants (Haozi)Call-and-response songs of boatmen, fishermen, dockers, carriers and rammers at work
Yuefu SongsThe xianghe songs, qingshang music and horn-and-drum songs sung by the Music Bureau tradition from Han to early Tang
Tang–Song Sung LyricsTang poems and Song ci sung to the tunes of banquet music
Mountain Songs (Shan'ge)Han songs sung out loud in hills, fields and on the water: xintianyou, Hakka mountain songs, Wu songs and fishermen's songs
Songs of Tibet and the Northwest PeoplesTibetan mountain songs, layi and drinking songs, the folk songs of Xinjiang's peoples, and the Uyghur muqam
Songs of the Southern PeoplesHill songs, love songs and antiphonal singing of the Miao, Zhuang, Yi, Yao, She, Bai and other southern peoples
Qin Songs and ChantingSongs sung to one's own qin, with the chanting of classical verse
Mongolian and Northern Peoples' SongsMongolian long song and khoomei, with the songs of the Oroqen, Daur, Hezhen and other northern peoples
Ditties and Popular Tunes (Xiaodiao)Town and village ditties and the Ming–Qing popular tunes, from Guazhi'er to Jasmine Flower
Hua'erMountain songs sung in local Chinese dialects by many peoples of the northwest, and their song festivals
Grand Song of the DongDong multi-part choral singing without leader or accompaniment, with the other multi-part folk songs
Chinese Art SongFrom school songs to piano-accompanied settings of poetry