Two Directions of the Development of the tones Rules in Chinese Ancient Southern Songs

Abstract

The opera music in the South of the Yuan Dynasty in China did not have perfect tone rules. After the Ming Dynasty, many literati participated in the creation of the South Opera, so that its musical rules were gradually established. In terms of the use of vocabulary in the lyrics, the literati also put forward a series of requirements. At first, the tonal rules of the folk southern lyrics were mixed. Some lyrics can use any tone at will, and some lyrics learned from literati poetry, using fixed tone rules. After the Ming Dynasty musicians participated in the improvement, the Southern Lyric Rules were quickly regulated by the influence of the Northern Lyrics Rules, forming the rule of “Music determines the tone of the lyrics”. Each song was stipulated by the tones of the Chinese character in the lyrics and recorded in the dictionary of songs. Then, the Southern music has undergone a great change from “fixed melody to sing different lyrics” to “the lyrics determine the melody direction”. The Southern music lyrics rules break free from the shackles of music, forming a kind of “poem” with the ancient Chinese poetry rules as an important reference. The development of the rules for the creation of ancient southern lyrics was developed in both directions of “text-based” and “music-based”. These two contradictory rules of creation have had a huge and long-term impact in the history of ancient Chinese music.