1. Every word has a musical tone. Generally speaking, the tone of a word is not the title of the word, but only a score. In Song Dynasty, in order to express the meaning of words, some poets often added a topic under the tone of words, and the tone of words was separated from the topic by ",",or wrote a small preface. The tone of each word is "the tone has a fixed frame, the sentence has a fixed number, and the word has a fixed tone", and they are different.
2. Words are generally divided into two segments (called upper and lower segments or upper and lower segments), and there are few words that are not divided into two or more segments. Some words are only divided into one paragraph, which is called monotony; Some are divided into two sections, called double tones; Some are divided into three or four sections, which are called three or four sections. Fragmentation is due to the provisions of the score, because the music has been sung once. The relationship between films (or between films) is a pause in music rather than the end of the whole song. A word is divided into several paragraphs, that is, several pieces of music are combined into a complete song.
3. Generally, the number of words and the length of sentences are fixed and have a certain format (generally, the upper and lower pieces are opposite like couplets).
4. The sentence patterns of words are uneven, basically long and short sentences, and long and short sentences are also nicknames of words.
5. The rules of phonology in words are particularly strict, the words should be flat, and the flat tone of each tone is different.
6. Words sometimes don't conform to the above rules, because they were written in music in the early days, so it pays the most attention to the cooperation with music. (In Yuan Dynasty, Ci and Qu were in harmony, because Yuan Qu was similar to Ci, except that Qu had no defects and Ci had defects. )
7. Generally, according to the number of words, words are divided into three types: poem, tenor and long sound, and the poem is within 58 words; 59 to 90 words are alto; Long tune is more than 9 1 word, and the longest is 240 words.
8. Words and sounds are more harmonious. The phonetic organization of words is basically similar to that of modern poetry, but there are many changes, and some tones must distinguish between yin and yang. When writing lyrics, you should judge the pronunciation and words, and the tone of the words should match the tone of the score. In places where music is tense, it is even more necessary to strictly distinguish the sounds of words in order to coordinate the music, which sounds beautiful.
Ci reached its peak in Song Dynasty, declined for more than 300 years in Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and re-entered the development state in Qing Dynasty. In the history of literature, Ci has become a popular literary genre with its unique musical beauty, intricate rhythm, uneven syntax and strong and profound emotional expression. Ci is a new kind of folk song and poem in the late Tang Dynasty, that is, lyrics. In the late Tang Dynasty, Hu music in the western regions, especially Qiuci music, was introduced into the Central Plains through the Silk Road, and it was merged with the musicians of the Han nationality, giving birth to a new kind of music-Le Yan. There are many tunes of Yanle, including dance music and songs. The lyrics of the song are the ancestors of later lyrics, which were called "Quzi Ci" at that time. In the course of its development, the lyrics of Yanle in Tang Dynasty gradually formed a remarkable feature, that is, the lyrics were created in strict accordance with the requirements of music, including segmentation according to the movement structure, sentence making according to the beat, word selection according to the music sound, etc., and its glyph became a form with irregular sentence length and fixed frame. After the middle Tang Dynasty, many literati used this method to create poems, which were later commonly known as "Ci".
Many tunes in Yan music are folk songs, including songs and words, which have different lengths or interlining forms. Many notes and lyrics found in Dunhuang in modern times were written for speeches. The structure of these lyrics is long or short. It can be seen that these lyrics are in line with or changed according to the requirements of music singing, which shows that the lyrics of Yanle written for music are an etymology. Another source of ci is the poetry of literati. The beat of some music in the Tang Dynasty and the lyrics of poems, especially Yang Liuzhi, are not much different from metrical poems. However, there are also some inconsistencies between poetry and music. In order to adapt to the melody format, some changes need to be made, such as sentence breaking and overlapping. According to the explanations of Shen Kuo and Zhu in Song Dynasty, "harmony" and "overtone" should be added to sing these songs to match the uneven beat length. This eventually led the literati to write lyrics directly according to the musical beat. Poetry into music has contributed to the lyrical trend of musical words. Judging from Zeng's poems, most of them are five-character quatrains or seven-character quatrains, and the contents are mostly chanting mountains and rivers, expressing feelings, or reflecting friends' friendship and parting feelings, which gradually forms remarkable artistic characteristics: the content is mainly to express daily life feelings, the artistic conception is more delicate, the expression method is more euphemistic, and the language is more concise and delicate.
Popular folk words in the early Tang Dynasty are the embryonic stage of words. The inflectional characters written by the literati in the prosperous Tang Dynasty are basically neat five-character and seven-language forms, and some are long and short sentences. In the mid-Tang Dynasty, literati began to seriously rely on sound to write lyrics. After the end of Yuan Dynasty, the number of literati ci gradually increased, and ci formally became one. However, at this time, the scope of literati's use of tunes is still relatively narrow. As far as the available materials are concerned, they usually use a limited number of tunes, such as Qi Yiling, Yi Chang 'an, teasing and Santai. But in terms of language, they began to introduce the language of modern poetry, which is exquisite, concise and beautiful. In this way, the language, thoughts and feelings of literati poetry began to penetrate into ci, which gradually broke away from the original pure and sincere, simple and vivid but rough primitive state and formed a formal literary genre of literati. By the end of the Tang Dynasty, literary words described images and psychology with rich colors, gorgeous rhetoric and delicate techniques, forming an artistic style of fragrance, softness, density and concealment. This is a sign that literati ci tends to mature. Since writing, more and more scholars have begun to write ci. In the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, it was even more popular to write lyrics by voice. Xishu and Nantang, which have the most developed economy and culture, have become two bases for poets to gather. Huajian Collection contains most of the words of poets in West Shu. Among the poets in Xishu, Wei Zhuang has the highest achievement; Li Jing, Li Yu and Feng Yansi are the most outstanding poets in the Southern Tang Dynasty.
Ci reached its peak in the Song Dynasty and became a completely independent literary form, competing with poetic style. In the history of literature, Ci is called Song, which reflects the important position of Song Ci as a generation of literature. The mainstream of Ci in the Northern Song Dynasty is still following the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, paying attention to the lyricism and musicality of Ci, such as Er Yan and Zhang Xi 'an. They deliberately refined, making the form of words richer, the language of words more refined, the artistic conception of words more profound, the style of words more delicate, especially the rhythm of words more delicate and harmonious. However, there were other poets in the Northern Song Dynasty, such as Su Shi and Liu Yong, who started with the style of ci and focused on the reform of it. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, Fan Zhongyan's "Fisherman's Passion" and Wang Anshi's "Guizhixiang" were dripping, full of pen and ink, broad and desolate in tone, broad and tragic in realm, and depressed in feelings, which opened the prelude to the bold ci works represented by Su Shi and Xin Qiji. After that, Su Shi deliberately used some characteristics of ci in language form to express all kinds of life interests and feelings freely and smoothly. He not only wrote the content of "expressing ambition" that originally belonged to poetry into his words, but also applied the prose sentence patterns and words that had appeared in poetry to his words, enriching the content of his words and changing the formal skills of his words. In addition, before Su Shi, music was the life of ci, and the characteristics of music were more important than those of literature, so harmony and music were the primary conditions of ci. Su Shi liberated Ci from the framework of attaching importance to music for the first time, and initially separated Ci from music, making Ci become a literary genre first, not just a vassal of music, thus making Ci have an independent position in the history of literature. After Du Nan, poets wrote in different attitudes and ways on their own creative paths, which played different roles in the continued development of Song Ci. Li Qingzhao's Ci is the transition from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty. Li Qingzhao personally experienced social changes from north to south, and her life experience, thoughts and feelings have undergone great changes. Correspondingly, the content, artistic conception, color and voice of her words have also changed, from bright and fresh to melancholy and deep sorrow, but the true colors of her words have never changed. Her creation set an example for poets in the Southern Song Dynasty to express new content in old forms. After the middle period, a generation of heroes Xin Qiji and Jiang Kui formed another prosperous period of Ci in Song Dynasty. Xin Qiji, in particular, not only represents the highest achievement of Ci in the Southern Song Dynasty, but also occupies a very important position in the whole history of China literature. The failure of Kathy's Northern Expedition was a turning point in the Southern Song Ci. At this time, the theme of ci creation is to lament the feelings of daily life and linger in the natural scenery, and the mood turns to sadness. But this is not just a return to tradition. After long-term development and many poets' explorations in many directions, Ci is facing another opportunity to sum up after absorbing the expressive techniques of poetry and prose. Poets in the late Southern Song Dynasty played a great role in this respect. Although they paid more attention to tradition, they also screened and sorted out the techniques of previous poets, and made a new summary in the form and language skills of words. Although their works are not strong enough and the realm is not open enough, they have made important contributions to the development of Ci.