This skill answers one question: what constraints does the Chinese language add to lyric writing that other languages do not have. The thirteen rhyme categories, level and oblique tones, character count and pauses, and singability are all here. ★ The judgment and correction of inverted characters is not here—that is
lw-tone-check, and this skill only covers itslinguistic principles and consequences。
Which sections to read depending on the task
| Task | Read |
|---|---|
| What exactly is the difference between writing lyrics in Chinese and in English | §1 |
| What the thirteen rhyme categories are | §2.1 ＋ reference.md §1 |
| Which rhyme category this song should rhyme with | ★ §2.3–§2.5 |
| Writing an aria for a character in an opera, how to choose the rhyme category | §2.5 end ＋ reference.md §7 |
| How the thirteen rhyme categories of theatrical singing and opera passages differ from those of Mandarin | reference.md §1.5 |
| Wanting to change rhyme category midway | §2.6 |
| The rhyme is slightly off, can it still count as rhyming | §2.7 shared rhymes |
| Why it is not okay to keep rhyming with just those few categories | ★ §2.8 |
| Do level and oblique tones need to be managed | §3 |
| How many characters to write in a line and how to break it | §4 |
| Cannot sing it high enough / tongue-twisting | §5 |
| Where to put the title, and how colloquial it should be | §6 |
Boundaries
| Does not belong here | Where it belongs |
|---|---|
| How to judge inverted characters and five ways to fix them | ★ lw-tone-check(this skill only covers the principles and language constraints) |
| Cantonese tone-matching and the nine tones | ★ lw-cantonese（Do not substitute this Mandarin system for it—Cantonese is a hard constraint and the writing order is reversed) |
| General principles of rhyming: rhyme schemes, family rhymes, surprise factor, deliberate non-rhyming | lw-rhyme（This skill only covers the Chinese rhyme tables themselves） |
| Chinese-style vocabulary, allusions, imagery | lw-chinese-style |
| What this song is trying to say | lw-song-intent |
| Section function, and which line the hook and title go in | lw-structure(★ §6 only gives the conventions on the Chinese side) |
| How the melody itself is written and changed | Composition and arrangement |
| How those characters should be sung (breathy voice, dynamics, diction recording) | Voice(recording and vocal performance direction) |
| The tune-title prosody and metrical line patterns of operatic lyrics | Dramatic writing(opera playwrighting). This skill only borrows rhyme: for the reading of the thirteen rhyme categories in opera, see reference.md §1.5, for the three benefits of choosing rhymes for lyrics see reference.md §7; for composing melody according to characters see lw-tone-check §1 |
1. ★ The fundamental difference between Chinese lyric writing and English lyric writing
1.1 Character tone is phonemic—changing the tone equals changing the character
English stress only changes "whether it sounds natural"; Chinese tone changes "which character it is."
Mandarin has four tones plus the neutral tone, and tone ismeaning-distinguishing: the example given by Li Zhongyong p0103 is "小鸡" and "消极", "保卫" and "包围"— without the difference in tone the meaning cannot be distinguished。
Consequence: melody in Chinese is not purely decorative. It gives each character a pitch direction, and that direction willclash with the character's own tone， If you sing it wrong, what the audience hears is a different word. This is倒字。
★ For judgment and correction, always go to lw-tone-check。 This skill is only responsible for letting you knowwhy this thing exists。
Practical preventive action(not detection, but saving yourself trouble when writing): Li Zhongyong p0103's suggestion is — when writing strophic songs,at important pauses and caesuras, rhymes, and final characters in the same position in each stanza, try to use characters with the same tone, "this can make things convenient when composing the melody, and avoid prominent '倒字' phenomena after composition" (Li Zhongyong p0103).
Failure condition: when the melody comes first and the lyrics after, the melody is already fixed, so this does not apply; go directly to
lw-tone-check. It is only effective whenlyrics come first and melody after, or when writing multiple stanzas of lyrics for one melody used in multiple ways.
1.2 One character, one syllable — the number of characters is the number of syllables
One Chinese character is one syllable,counting characters is equivalent to counting syllables, and there is no need to first look up syllable divisions in a dictionary as in English.
So prosody.sections[].syllables in Chinese can be counted directly from the lyric draft.
★ Cost: Chinese does not have the flexibility of English where "one word spans two beats."
One extra character in a line means one extra note, and changing the number of characters means changing the melody.
This is the reason for "when lyrics come first and melody after, the character count and line pattern can in turn constrain the number of measures form[].bars".
Self-check action: count each line character by character, and align it with prosody.sections[].syllables ;
Filler syllables ("ai" "ya" "yo")must be counted in, because they also take up notes.
1.3 Three constraints derived from these two points
| # | Constraint | Why | Where to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Characters in the three types of positions: the highest note of each section, the first character of each sentence, and the landing point of a large leaprequire tone selection | This is where 倒字 is most likely to occur | lw-tone-check §2.3 |
| 2 | Rhyme-foot characters and prolonged charactersrequire final selection(open vowels are easier to sing) | Long notes and high notes landing on closed vowels do not sound resonant | §5.1 |
| 3 | The whole song's辙must be decided first, because it in turn determines which words you can use | After choosing the 辙, "suitable words will jump out before you one by one" (Wu Songjin p0092–p0093) | §2.5 |
2. 辙口 and rhyme categories
2.1 What the Thirteen 辙 are
Rhyming: placing characters of the same rhyme at the end of a sentence, so as to produce a harmonious sense of sound recurrence; because they are placed at the end of the sentence, they are called韵脚(Wu Songjin p0087). It is related only to the final and not to the initial(Wu Songjin p0087).
辙originally refers to the tracks left by a cart wheel; "合辙 is a metaphor for rhyming as if classified according to cart tracks. 合辙 and 押韵 have the same meaning,辙 is the colloquial term for rhyme" (Li Zhongyong p0089). Grouping characters in Putonghua with the same or similar finals into thirteen categories is十三辙, and in opera, quyi sung lyrics, and lyric writing it is also called "十三道辙" or "十三韵目" (Li Zhongyong p0090).
The smallest example where a difference can be heard(Li Zhongyong p0090): For the same four lines, the version whose line-ending finals are respectively o/a/ou/i "does not read smoothly, does not sound good, and is not easy to remember"; when the line-ending characters of lines one, two, and four are all changed to characters rhyming with an, "it reads in a more harmonious and pleasant way."
★ The complete table of the thirteen rhymes (rhyme name, finals, example characters) is in reference.md §1。
The two authors' transcriptions are placed side by side,and wherever the names and classifications differ, the source is marked, so do not rely on only one author.
2.2 The names of the thirteen rhymes
Fahua, Suobo (Suopo), Miexie, Yiqi, Huidui, Huailai, Gusu, Youqiu (Youqiu), Yaotiao, Yanqian, Renchen, Jiangyang, Zhongdong. There is alsothe erhua minor rhyme(er), "rarely seen in lyric writing" (Li Zhongyong p0092).
Mnemonic rhymes(Wu Songjin p0089, p0244):
- "Hongqi wuhui xinye xiu, hua'er wanduo zhaoyang kai" — each character corresponds to one rhyme (Dang Yong'an)
- "Zhonghua duo qicai, chuang weiye, hanxiao pu chunqiu" (Wu Dawei)
- "Yuexia yi shaobing zhenshou zai shangang duo weiwu" "Xiao jiaren niunie chu fang lai dong xi nan bei zuo" (Wu Songjin p0099, p0244)
★ What the mnemonic rhymes are for: when writing lyrics, you must be able tocall to mind at any time which rhymes are still unused. If you cannot remember all thirteen, you will forever circle among the three or four smoothest ones — that is exactly the matter discussed in §2.8.
2.3 Broad rhymes and narrow rhymes
- Broad rhymes: contain many characters and many words, so rhyming is easy (Li Zhongyong p0098)
- Narrow rhymes: the opposite, "there are relatively few rhyming characters, the usable vocabulary is not much, and writing is relatively difficult" (Wu Songjin p0094)
| Examples given by Wu Songjin p0090, p0094 | Examples given by Li Zhongyong p0097 | |
|---|---|---|
| Broad | Zhongdong, Jiangyang, Yanqian, Renchen | Jiangyang, Zhongdong, Yanqian, Renchen, Fahua, Yaotiao, Huailai (few characters but commonly used), Suopo, Yiqi |
| Narrow | Miexie, Suobo, Huidui | Huidui, Miexie, Gusu (many characters but not commonly used), Youqiu |
⚠ The two authors are inconsistent, and it is not a minor disagreement: the Suobo rhyme, Yiqi rhyme, and Youqiu rhyme are exactly opposite between the two authors. Keep them side by side: the criteria for "broad and narrow" in the tradition of poetic meter and in the practice of popular lyrics were different to begin with, Practical usage: base it on "how many usable content words this rhyme has for the subject matter of your song," and do not memorize the table.
2.4 Loudness and emotion
Both authors divide the rhymes into three levels by degree of phonetic loudness,but the divisions differ：
| Level | Wu Songjin p0089 | Li Zhongyong p0097 |
|---|---|---|
| Resonant | Jiangyang, Zhongdong, Fahua, Renchen, Yanqian | Jiangyang, Zhongdong, Yanqian, Renchen, Fahua |
| Soft | Youqiu, Huailai, Yaotiao, Suobo | Yaotiao, Huailai, Suopo, Youqiu |
| Subtle | Miexie, Huidui, Gusu, Yiqi | Huidui, Miexie, Gusu, Yiqi |
Wu Songjin p0089 gives one adjective for each of the thirteen rhymes(Jiangyang = loud and resonant, Zhongdong = high and soaring, Yanqian = broad, Renchen = clear and rising, Fahua = joyful...),
the complete list is in reference.md §2。
⚠ Li Zhongyong p0098 raised a contrary warning, more important than the table above: "The sonority level of each type of rhyme is an objective existence, but in themselvesthey have no expressive meaning whatsoever, only when they are used in lyrics, used to express thoughts and feelings, do they take on expressive meaning."
★ How to use this pair of contradictions: loudness is a physical fact,emotion is what you assign. "Jiangyang = heroic" is only a statistical habit, not a rule. Self-check action: if your only reason for choosing a rhyme is "this rhyme sounds more robust," switch to a rhyme of the same loudness and write two more lines, and see whether it works just as well—if it does, it means you haven't really chosen yet.
2.5 How to choose a rhyme: four operable paths
| # | Method | Source and examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Choose by content and emotion: for passionate and unrestrained use the firm and resonant rhymes, for delicate and subtle use the fine and soft rhymes | Wu Songjin p0093: passionate, bright, majestic → Jiangyang, Zhongdong, Fahua; soft and gentle → Yaotiao; lingering and delicate → Huidui, Gusu |
| 2 | ★ Choose by the rhyme of the keyword | Wu Songjin p0094: "The Grapes of Turpan Are Ripe" seizes the "tao" of "putao" → Yaotiao rhyme; "The Fifteenth Moon" seizes the "nian" of "sinian" → Yanqian rhyme |
| 3 | ★ Choose by the rhyme of the last character of the title | Wu Songjin p0094: "The Beauty of Taihu" rhymes on Huidui, "The East Is Red" rhymes on Zhongdong, "Little Grass" rhymes on Yaotiao, "My Chinese Heart" rhymes on Renchen |
| 4 | Choose by the characters and words that appear most in the subject matter | Li Zhongyong p0096: "Usually one should proceed from the content of the work and choose the characters and words used most in this subject matter as the rhyme scheme of the lyrics" |
★ Items 2 and 3 are the two least troublesome, because they letthe very word you most want to writenaturally fall on the rhyme foot, without having to sacrifice it for the sake of rhyming.
Failure condition: when the title character falls on a narrow rhyme (Miexie, Huidui), item 3 will lock you in. At this point switch to item 2, and seize the word in the chorus that absolutely must appear.
★ When writing arias for characters in an opera, there are two other paths: set the rhyme by the character's personality, set the rhyme by the key line; plus how to choose between broad rhymes and risky rhymes, and when same-character rhymes hold—
Lu Jun's "three excellences of sung lyrics," see reference.md §7。
2.6 Changing rhyme (rhyme shift)
Definition: changing from one rhyme to another is calledrhyme shiftorrhyme change(Li Zhongyong p0098). "It is seen more oftenbetween lyric sections or between the stanzas of a divided lyric" (Li Zhongyong p0098).
The technique of changing rhyme (this one is hard): "To make the boundary between the old and new rhymes clear, usually one must, atthe last character of the first line of the rhyme-shift section, clearly introduce the chosen new rhyme, forminga new starting rhyme" (Li Zhongyong p0099).
Timing of rhyme change：
| Timing | Basis |
|---|---|
| Between sections, between stanzas | Li Zhongyong p0098 |
| The words are too long and there is too much content; a single rhyme category cannot find that many suitable characters. | Wu Songjin p0095 |
| The emotion clearly shifts a gear (narrative → lyrical, suppressed → released). | Li Zhongyong p0100 comments on "Guerrilla Song": "The rhyme change is natural... effectively matching the lyrics' content." |
| In strophic songs, one change per stanza (common in folk songs,continuous rhyme change） | Li Zhongyong p0099; "Shan Dan Dan Blossoms Bright Red" changes once per section: Hui Dui → Jiang Yang → Huai Lai → Suo Bo → Yan Qian (Wu Songjin p0095–p0096) |
How much changing counts as too much: Two examples recorded by Li Zhongyong p0100— "Guerrilla Song" uses five sections in sixteen lines: Ren Chen → Yi Qi → Yan Qian → Yao Tiao → Yi Qi; another song of sixteen lines uses five rhymes (Hui Dui → Jiang Yang → Huai Lai → Suo Po → Yan Qian). ★ Changing four or five times in sixteen lines has precedent, and is not a mistake.
Self-check action: After changing rhyme categories,does the final character of the new section's first line immediately reveal the new rhyme. If it is not revealed, listeners will think you simply failed to rhyme.
2.7 Tongyun: Does being just a little off count as rhyming
Definition: Among the thirteen rhyme categories, some can communicate with and borrow from one another, calledtongyun(Li Zhongyong p0101). "Tongyun brings much convenience to rhyming, word grouping, and sentence construction" (Li Zhongyong p0101).
Three situations(Li Zhongyong p0102, examples see reference.md §3）：
- Same or similar main vowel, different ending: Ren Chen (in/en) ⇄ Zhong Dong (ing/eng)—"jin" and "jing", "shen" and "sheng"
- Close places of articulation, same ending: Yi Qi (i) ⇄ Hui Dui (ei); You Qiu (ou) ⇄ Gu Su (u). Li Zhongyong p0102 notes that "the former is more common than the latter"
- Dialect influence: Huai Lai often incorporates characters from Nie Xie (such as "jie"); many southern provinces pronounce "jie, jie, xie" into Huai Lai; Nie Xie's "yue, le, jiao, que" are also often incorporated into Suo Bo
★ Tongyun is a right, not an excuse. Its use is to let you keep writing even in a narrow rhyme category; Failure condition: If every section of yours can only rhyme by relying on tongyun, it means you chose the wrong rhyme category; return to §2.5 and choose again.
2.8 ★★ Why "only picking the smoothest rhyme category" is an AI fingerprint
This section is this skill's explanation of LYR-LINT item 8.
Wu Songjin p0094's original words are "For ease of writing,one may choose relatively broad rhymes more often"— this is advice for humans, because humans expend effort writing lyrics. But machines do not expend effort. The result of a machine carrying this advice to the end is thatevery song rhymes in Jiang Yang, Zhong Dong, Yan Qian, Ren Chen。
Symptoms: A whole song has only one or two rhyme categories, and they are certainly those four broadest ones; rhyme changes never happen; narrow rhyme categories never appear even once.
Three countermeasures：
- After writing, list the rhyme category of each section, fill into
rhyme.che。Only one or two → this is the number that lint item 8 should report. - ★ Let at least one section fall on a non-broadest rhyme category—Yao Tiao, Huai Lai, Suo Bo, Yi Qi are all fine. Narrow is not a flaw; narrow isTurning point in sound。
- Check the rhyming words themselves: they are all the highest-frequency rhyme words like "guang/liang/chang/xiang/wang", which belong to
lw-rhyme's "unexpectedness" control, so look at them together.
⚠ This one is not "you must change rhyme categories more". Using one rhyme throughout is a valid way to write—Huang Zhan: "My own consistent way of writing isone rhyme throughout, rhyme whenever you can" (Wu Songjin p0088); The whole of "Conquest" rhymes throughout in the gu-su rhyme (Wu Songjin p0093). ★ The key is whether "you chose it" or "it was the easiest one". Using one rhyme throughout while choosing anarrow rhyme categoryis precisely the strongest choice.
2.9 The four taboos of rhyming
| # | Taboo | Source | Condition under which it fails |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Do not let rhyme harm meaning: reversing the order of common words or coining words for the sake of rhyming | Wu Songjin p0096 ("shen yi xin kuang" and "gua du qian chang" are reversed, "it sounds very awkward"); Li Zhongyong p0093 ("yao suan" changed to "suan yao" to rhyme with "shuan yao",causing mishearing） | ★ Changing word orderdoes not affect the meaning of the wordsis legal when it does not affect the meaning: "guang rong" as "rong guang", "shan he" as "he shan" (Li Zhongyong p0093) |
| 2 | Do not rhyme with neutral-tone words and function words: ne, ma, la, le, a | Wu Songjin p0096: the sound of the character is light, "appearing weak and powerless" | It is another matter when the same function word is consciously repeated for a humorous effect (the character "le" in Wu Songjin p0097's "Northeasterners Are All Live Lei Feng") |
| 3 | Avoid repeated rhymes: the same character rhyming repeatedly | Wu Songjin p0097: "it makes people feel the author's vocabulary is poor" | The exception is when it is deliberately repeated for a specific artistic effect (same as above) |
| 4 | Not rhyming must be intentional | Wu Songjin p0097: "The premise of not rhyming is that you have already completely mastered the techniques and methods of rhyming"; "March of the Broadsword" is not very particular about rhyming throughout yet does not lose its power to move | — |
★ Item 4 and lw-rhyme 's deliberate_breaks、asymmetry.unrhymed are two ends of the same thing:
Deliberately not rhyming must be written into the field; if you cannot write out a reason, it is not deliberate.
3. Level and oblique tones
3.1 What level and oblique tones are
"Poets divide the four tones into two major categories, level and oblique,level is the level tone, oblique is the three tones rising, departing, and entering"; "Oblique, explained by the meaning of the character, isnot level" (Wang Li, "Rules and Forms of Classical Poetry" p0023).
The basis of the classification isthe shape of the sound(Wang Li p0023):
| Which ones | shapes | |
|---|---|---|
| Level | level tone (the modern yin-ping and yang-ping) | no rise or fall, relatively long |
| Oblique | rising, departing, entering | has rise and fall(the entering tone may also rise or fall slightly),relatively short |
Why divide them: "Let these two types of tones interweave with each other, and the tones can be diversified instead of monotonous... Without level and oblique tones there is no poetic meter” (Wang Li p0206).
Two interlocking rules(Wang Li p0023):
- Level and oblique tones inthe current linearealternatingof
- Level and oblique tones inthe matching lineareopposedof
The rhythmic points fall oneven positionsso there is the mnemonic “the first, third, and fifth need not be considered; the second, fourth, and sixth must be distinct” (Wang Li p0127). ⚠ Wang Li p0141 cites Wang Fuzhi’s rebuttal: this mnemonic “cannot be relied on as a canonical rule”—change the level or oblique tone of the third character, and the line becomes “halting in speech and harsh to the ear.”
3.2 Modern pronunciation and ancient pronunciation: the difference lies in one entering tone
The four ancient tones are level, rising, departing, and entering; Mandarin has the high-level, rising, low-rising, and departing tones (Wang Li p0021, p0206). The difference lies entirely in the entering tone: in northern and southwestern speechthe entering tone has already disappearedand was distributed into the new four tones.
| What sound do entering-tone characters have today? | Wang Li p0021 |
|---|---|
| changedto the departing tonethe most numerous | |
| next isthe rising tone | |
| changedto the low-rising tonethe fewest | |
| Southwestern dialects (Hubei to Yunnan)uniformly changed to the rising tone |
★ As for the consequence for writing lyrics in Mandarin, there is only one sentence： Just handle it according to the four tones of modern pronunciation. Because the parts of the entering tone distributed into the low-rising and departing tonesare still oblique, they do not affect the judgment; onlythe part distributed into the high-level and rising toneswill make you mistake oblique for level— and that matters only when you want to write ancient-style poetry or parallel couplets according to ancient rhymes (→
lw-chinese-style）。
Two effortless methods of identification(Wang Li p0025):
- “Anycharacter whose rhyme ending is -n or -ng ,will not be an entering-tone character」
- “The entering-tone problem is thesole obstacleto distinguishing level and oblique tones”—just consult a table; for a table of common entering-tone characters, see
reference.md§5.4
3.3 ★ One character, two readings: when writing lyrics, the pronunciation must first be fixed
When the same character has two meanings and often also different parts of speech, it will have two pronunciations (Wang Li p0022):
| Character | When level tone | When oblique tone |
|---|---|---|
| for | verb | preposition (departing tone) |
| thought | verb, to long for | noun, thought and feeling (departing tone) |
| ride | verb, to ride a horse | noun, cavalry (departing tone) |
| teach, order | verb, to make, to let | noun, instruction/command (departing tone) |
| look, gaze, sigh | originally read in the level tone | later changed to the departing tone,with meaning and part of speech unchanged(Wang Li p0023) |
★ This is not textual criticism; this is the prerequisite for checking misplaced tones：
The same character read in the yinping tone or the qusheng tone has completely opposite tonal contours.
In lyrics, whether you write 「思」 as a noun or a verb determines what kind of melodic direction it should be paired with.
Self-check action: when such characters appear in the lyrics, indicate the pronunciation in note ; if not indicated,lw-tone-check will judge it incorrectly.
3.4 ★★ How loose are the tonal patterns in lyrics
This section is where this skill most needs two sets of statements side by side.
| Classical poetry prosody (Wang Li) | Practical pop lyrics writing (Wu Songjin, Li Zhongyong, You Jingbo) | |
|---|---|---|
| Tonal patterns | There are fixed patterns: each of the five-character and seven-character regulated verse has four forms, and the rules of nian-dui, isolated ping, and ao-jiu all apply (Wang Li p0037–p0049) | ★ No patterns. None of the three textbooks provides a tonal template for lyrics |
| Rhyme | Modern-style poetrylimited to level-tone rhymes, according to the Pingshui rhyme scheme (Wang Li p0196) | According to the thirteen rhymes,both level and oblique tones can rhyme（§2） |
| Parallelism | In regulated verse, the two middle couplets must be parallel (Wang Li p0026) | 「Many modern lyric masterpiecesdo not rigidly adhere to rhyme or parallelism」 (Wu Songjin p0098) |
| Degree of strictness | 「If a ci poem is not written according to the rules of level and oblique tones,it cannot be considered a ci poem」 (Wang Li p0139) | 「The requirements of modern lyrics writing regarding prosodyare not strictly prescribed and are relatively free」 (You Jingbo p0071) |
★ But both sides share one common foundation—Wang Li's original words on p0138:
「Prosody serves the poet; one must not反过来 become a slave to prosody.」
The example he gives is 「成吉思汗」 in Mao Zedong's 《沁园春·雪》—「吉」 is an entering tone (oblique), 「汗」 is read in the level tone, and neither fits the template, 「it is a personal name, an integral whole,why insist on level and oblique tones」 (Wang Li p0138); 《念奴娇·昆仑》 stacks three 「一截」, and 「thenit is permissible to slightly break through the form」 (Wang Li p0139).
So when writing pop lyrics, the correct use of level and oblique tones is: do not arrange a template, and use it in only two places—the line endings in §3.5, and the strophic alignment in §1.1.
Invalidation condition: when writingancient-style poetrylyrics (listed by Wu Songjin p0076 as one of five styles, 「mostly composed in classical Chinese」, emphasizing prosody, parallelism, and level/oblique tones), this section is void; follow reference.md the foot types, isolated ping, and ao-jiu in §6, and go to lw-chinese-style。
3.5 ★ Line-ending characters' level/oblique tones and melodic closure
This is the only hard, operational use of level and oblique tones in pop lyrics.
Li Zhongyong p0103 gives only one rule:
「In paired lines of lyrics, level-tone characters are used in the lower line, and oblique-tone characters are used in the upper line.」
Why it holds(Following Wang Li's definition on p0023): Level toneno rise or fall, relatively long → suitable for holding and closing off; Oblique tonehas rise or fall, relatively short(Departing tone "哀远道", entering tone "短促急收藏", from the mnemonic verse "分四声法", Wang Li p0022) → suitable for hanging and urging on the next line.
| Position | Use | Aural impression |
|---|---|---|
| End of the preceding line(question, opening, unfinished) | Oblique | hanging, needs the next line to pick it up |
| End of the following line(answer, closure, end of paragraph) | Level | settled, can be drawn out |
★ Use together with §5.1： The optimal solution for the last character of a paragraph = level tone + open-mouth sound. (It can both be held and sung loudly.)
Conditions under which it fails：
- Music first, lyrics laterWhen the melodic closing shape is already fixed, this can only be used tochoose characters, not to change lines
- Ineffective in Cantonese（→
lw-cantonese）- Paragraphs that deliberately want to "stop in discomfort" (
narrative.withholding），the oblique-tone ending of the preceding line is correct, do not close on a level tone
Self-check action: mark thelast two line-ending charactersof each paragraph for level/oblique tone. If the following line's ending is oblique and this paragraph is also a closing paragraph → read it aloud, and listen to whether it fails to land; if so, change the character.
3.6 ★ When inverted tones are not a problem: the five lenient rules
lw-tone-check After identifying risks, you need a basis for "letting it pass"; otherwise every risk will be changed, and the lyrics will be flattened.
Xue Fan gave eight rules; three strict ones are in lw-tone-check §3，the five lenient ones are here(Huang Zhihua, "Text Prosody and Cantonese Songwriting", appendix p0107–0108):
| # | Lenient | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Particles, function words, and lightly read characters on weak beats | Listeners are not distinguishing characters there in the first place |
| 2 | Those with short, urgent rhythm and a steady or stepwise melody; or those with relaxed rhythm and a drawn-out lyrical melisma | In the former, the characters pass too quickly; in the latter, the long note can sing the character's tone back (→ lw-tone-check §5.3） |
| 3 | single character, i.e. not a two-character phrase, not a four-character idiom | There are no surrounding characters to set its tone, so the room for mishearing is small |
| 4 | Words repeated in singing, as long as one occurrence has the correct character | Listeners have already memorized it earlier |
| 5 | Individual places in strophic songs(one melody set to two or more stanzas of lyrics) | It is enough for the vast majority to achieve correct characters; handle individual places leniently (→ §1.1 strophic song alignment) |
Usage: first follow lw-tone-check to mark risk positions, then ask about each one using these five rules.Those falling within the five rules are let pass with a one-sentence reason recorded, and those falling within the three strict rules must be changed.
In conjunction with reference.md §5, use that direction table to choose characters.
4. Chinese syntax: character count, pauses, long and short lines
4.1 How many characters can one line have
"Each line runs from one character toabout ten characters, no more" (Wu Songjin p0053). The most common areodd-numbered lines: three-character, five-character, seven-character (Wu Songjin p0054); Li Zhongyong p0034 puts it more bluntly: "the common lyric line patterns are mostlyseven-character and five-character lines...all other kinds are often variants of the basic seven-character and five-character patterns."
4.2 ★ Dun (sound groups) — the real rhythmic unit of Chinese sentences
"The pauses caused by the length and strength of pronunciation are generally calledsound groups(also called feet or dun dou)" (Li Zhongyong p0033).
★★ This is the most important point in this section： Two lines with the same number of characters but different dun have completely different rhythms. "One should understand not only the number of syllables, but also the characteristics of line rhythm formed bythe division into sound groups" (Li Zhongyong p0034).
The dun in Chinese are basically two-character dun and three-character dun, and the standard segmentation of a seven-character line is 2+2+3(line head, line waist, line tail), "this line pattern is used most widely in lyrics, clapper talk, and sung verse" (Li Zhongyong p0035).
A list of common segmentations for each character count is in reference.md §4, and here only the most commonly used ones are kept:
| Character count | Common sound groups |
|---|---|
| Five characters | 2+3 (standard) / 3+2 |
| Six characters | 2+2+2／3+3 |
| Seven characters | 2+2+3 (standard)／3+2+2／2+3+2 |
| Eight characters | 2+2+2+2／3+2+3 |
★ Eight-character lines are often just expansions of seven-character lines: of the three eight-character lines cited in Li Zhongyong p0039, "if the second character of each line is removed, they are 2+2+3 seven-character lines."
Self-check action: draw vertical lines through each line according to dun.
If every line of the whole song is segmented at the same position, that is asymmetry where you should act（lw-structure）。
4.3 Long and short lines and equal-length lines
Line-pattern combinations fall into two categories (Wu Songjin p0055):
- Equal-length lines: each line has the same number of characters, such as regulated verse and quatrains
- Long and short lines: each line has a different number of characters and is full of variation, such as Song ci, Yuan qu, and operatic cipai
When to use which(Li Zhongyong p0046):
| Style | Line pattern | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Strongly combative, march-like | Mostly use short lines | Concise, bright, flexible, powerful |
| Narrative, rap style | Mostly use long lines | Precise and clear, momentum flowing smoothly |
★ Mixed use is more common than a single line pattern(Li Zhongyong p0043): "Using too much of a single line pattern in one lyric easily makes the lyric rhythmbecome flat and monotonous," mixed line patterns "can achieve rhythmic diversity on the basis of balance and symmetry."
Failure condition: strophic song (one tune set to multiple stanzas of words)Conversely—— "Each stanza should usethe phonetic groups are basically consistent, write with sentence patterns where the syllables are roughly equal" (Li Zhongyong p0047); Wu Songjin p0059 added a third one: the corresponding positions in each section'swords and phrases should have a relatively unified emotional coloring, "try to avoid antonyms or opposing emotions appearing in the same position." ★ This does not conflict with LYR-LINT rule 3, "the number of characters in each section must not be exactly the same": lint checks between the verse and the chorus, and between all sections of the whole song; what is meant here isthe first and second renditions of the same section of melody。
4.4 Stacked phrases: the move that breaks the neatness
Definition: breaking the basic format of a lyric and inserting into it a series of two-character, three-character, four-character words or short clauses to form a varied sentence pattern is calledstacked phrases(Li Zhongyong p0041), in folk music also called "jia gun," "gan ju," "yi chuan ling" (Li Zhongyong p0041); Wu Songjin p0054 calls themstacked-character phrases。
Function：「break through the balance and symmetry of the basic sentence pattern, bringing the possibility of extension and variation to the musical rhythm and melody" (Li Zhongyong p0041), "strong in momentum, very suitable for expressing urgent, tense, intense, or witty, light, lively content and emotions" (Li Zhongyong p0041).
★ This is a ready-made anti-symmetry device in Chinese lyrics, and can be directly filled into the opposite of asymmetry.short_line ——
a line suddenly becoming longer is rarer than a line suddenly becoming shorter, and also more effective.
4.5 Function words and filler words: should "de, di, de" be sung
Filler words: supporting characters, words, or even whole sentences inserted outside the basic content, which may be used before, within, or at the end of a sentence (Li Zhongyong p0083). They include tone/labor/call types (ah, hey, yo, ai), onomatopoeic types, and those with clear meaning,filler sentences(Li Zhongyong p0084).
The way to determine whether a character is a filler character(Li Zhongyong p0036): remove it, and the content is unaffected → it is a filler character, and the sentence pattern should be counted according to the number of characters after removing it.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Do function words occupy notes | ★ Yes. They still have to be sung, and still enter syllables |
| Can function words improve a sentence | Yes. Adding function words "can make the lyric languagecloser to colloquial speech, and bring rhythmic variation to each phonetic group" (Li Zhongyong p0036) |
| Can function words rhyme | ★ No(§2.9 rule 2) |
| What happens if there are too many function words | "One must not fail to distinguish primary from secondary,letting the secondary overwhelm the primaryin using filler words" (Li Zhongyong p0085) |
Self-check action: cross out "的, 地, 得, 着, 了" in each sentence one by one and read it through. If it reads more smoothly after crossing it out, delete it; only if the sentence cannot stand after crossing it out should it be kept.
5. Singability
5.1 ★ Open-mouth sounds and closed-mouth sounds: determining whether high notes and long notes can be sung resonantly
- Open-mouth rhymes: when pronounced, the mouth opens and the sound is relatively loud, such as Jiangyang, Fahua, Zhongdong. Suitable for bold, majestic, and cheerful (Wu Songjin p0090)
- Closed-mouth rhyme: when pronounced, the mouth does not open fully and the sound is not so loud, e.g. hui dui, mie xie, gu su. Suitable for delicate, lingering (Wu Songjin p0090)
★★ The most practical one comes from the singer's side(Wu Songjin p0098, lyricist chat, "Bateng"):
"I generally considerthe last character of each line...because in many cases, the last character needs tohave its duration extended, so usingopen-mouth soundsfor the characters is better for singing. Likewise,where high notes occurthis issue must also be noted."
This directly matches prosody.sections[].peak_syllable：
| the position | what should be used |
|---|---|
| each section'shighest notethe character it falls on | open-mouth sound(a/ang/ai/ao and the like) |
| each line'sdrawn-outfinal character | open-mouth sound |
| breathy voice, soft singing, endings | closed-mouth sounds are instead right |
Failure condition: if the whole song picks open-mouth sounds, it becomes another kind of monotony (and also locks the rhyme category to the widest few, see §2.8). Check only the characters at high notes and long notes, the rest need not be considered.
5.2 Tongue-twisting: consecutive same initials/same finals
Tongue-twisting in Chinese comes fromthe initials or finals of adjacent characters forming a string("forty-four stone lions" is an extreme example). The criterion given at the textbook level is auditory: lyrics must be "understandable on first hearing" (Wu Songjin p0030, Li Zhongyong p0056), "words must not usetongue-twistingphrases" (Wu Songjin p0098, "wandering singer").
Self-check action(three steps, no tools needed):
- At normal speaking speedreadthe whole lyric once—where you get stuck is where it is tongue-twisting, no need to analyze the reason
- At the stuck place, see whether three or more adjacent characters share the same initial (z/c/s, zh/ch/sh, j/q/x are easiest) or the same final
- Change the word. Chinese has extremely many synonyms,changing the word is always the first option(the same principle as
lw-tone-check§6 item 1)
★ Another kind of tongue-twisting is mishearing from homophones, which is more dangerous than purely physiological tongue-twisting: Li Zhongyong p0093's "sour waist" and "tethered waist"—when sung they areanother word。 Self-check action: take each lineand read it to someone who has not seen the lyrics, and have them repeat it back. If they repeat it wrong, it is mishearing.
5.3 Entering-tone characters
In Mandarin, the entering tone has alreadybeen distributed into the four tones, with no independent tone category. When writing Mandarin lyrics, handle it according tothe four tones of modern pronunciation; for level and oblique tones see §3.
★ Exception: when writingCantoneselyrics, the entering tone is alive (→ lw-cantonese);
when writingclassical-stylelyrics and needing to match parallelism according to ancient rhymes, see §3 and lw-chinese-style。
6. Practical conventions of Chinese pop lyrics
6.1 Length: Chinese lyrics have a hard upper limit
| Item | Number | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Length of a song | Three or four minutes, "six minutes is the limit; any longer and the song can't be sung" | Wu Songjin p0024, p0064 |
| Total number of lines in the lyrics | ★ About ten to twenty linesor so | Wu Songjin p0064 |
| Number of lines per section | Two to ten lines | Wu Songjin p0035 |
| Number of sections in a one-part strophic song | "If it can be sung in two sections, don't write it as three"; more than three sections "is just too long" | Wu Songjin p0059 |
★ Why it must be short: "Don't write lyrics too 'full' or too 'solid'; you shouldleave ample room for the music to supplement and develop" (Wu Songjin p0065).
Self-check action: Count the total number of lines.If it exceeds twenty lines, first ask which section can be deleted entirely, then ask which word to change.
6.2 How colloquial should it be
Lyrics arean auditory art, and must be "understood on first hearing," resonating instantly (Wu Songjin p0025); the language must be "more colloquial, more accessible," "more plain and direct, fluent and natural" (Wu Songjin p0025). Huang Zhan: "When writing pop lyrics, the audience is young people, sothe first priority is being plain, absolutely not deep... everything should takebeing understood clearly and sung clearlyas the criterion" (Wu Songjin p0033).
Eight differences that distinguish it from poetry(Wu Songjin p0024–p0026): genre, subjective consciousness, function of use, length, paragraph structure, language style, literary flavor, thematic expression. ★ The most important is item 8: poetry hides its theme between the lines, while the theme of lyrics "is generallystated directlyand clearly sung out," because "when listeners are listening to a performance, their thoughts can only flow along with the singing,they simply have no time to ponder and reflect" (Wu Songjin p0026).
⚠ Being colloquial does not mean being plain water. Wu Songjin p0023 also requires "not writing the lyrics into a cup of 'plain water'"; Li Zhongyong p0011's formulation is "few but refined"—"use as few words as possible to explain rich content... strenuously avoidredundant words and cumbersome sentencesandfancy words and ornate phrasespiled up." Both extremes must be avoided: avoid obscurity, and also avoid piling up rhetoric.
Conditions under which it fails: classical poetry style and Chinese-style lyrics do not apply to this rule (→ lw-chinese-style);
Wu Songjin p0076 listsclassical poetry styleseparately as a form, "mostly composed in classical Chinese," emphasizing mood and subtlety.
6.3 Title and chorus
- The chorus "is often where the climax of the song lies, directly singing out the work's theme; in many songs thetitle, memory point, and popular phrases are often located in the chorus" (Wu Songjin p0060)
- ★ Some lyricists are accustomed to starting with the chorus, "often achieving gratifying success" (Wu Songjin p0060)
- The last character of the title is often the rhyme of the whole song(§2.5 clause 3)
- The chorus is the most repeated section: "Repetition or varied repetition is one of the most important factors in the spread of pop songsone of the most important factors" (Wu Songjin p0060)
★ The three linked together form a set of actions： First decide the title → the last character of the title determines the rhyme → write the chorus first → the title lands in the chorus.
⚠ But Article 10 of LYR-LINT requires each iteration of the chorusthe text must not be completely identical—— "repetition" refers tomelody and sentence patternrepetition, not requiring you to copy the three verses of lyrics verbatim.
6.4 The verse and chorus must divide the work
"The contrast between verse and chorus is very obvious,they absolutely must not be written the same way. In terms of content arrangement, the verse and chorus must havea division of labor, interpreting the theme from different angles" (Wu Songjin p0061). Li Zhongyong p0048 says: the verse has a "subdescription" nature, and the chorus has a "summary" nature.
★ The specific division of labor on the Chinese side：The verse is concrete, the chorus is general. The verse "is good at vivid and colorful concrete description, detailed description with flesh and blood" (Wu Songjin p0060); the chorus "concentrates and summarizes the central idea of the whole song" (Wu Songjin p0060).
⚠ and
lw-imageryconflict must be watched out for: "the chorus summarizes" can easily be written as "the chorus is all abstract words". The correct reading: what the chorus summarizes ismeaning, not replacing all concrete nouns with "dream/distant place/time". The lower limit of concrete nouns is governed by Article 2 of LYR-LINT.
6.5 Chinese conventions for rhyme positions
The first line starts the rhyme, rhyme on even lines(Wu Songjin p0091; Li Zhongyong p0094): The first line sets the rhyme first, then the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth lines rhyme, "the first, third, and fifth are not restricted, the second, fourth, and sixth rhyme" (Wu Songjin p0092).
★ Wu Songjin p0091 uses qi-cheng-zhuan-he to explain the rhyming of a four-line stanza: the qi line sets the rhyme → the cheng line continues the rhyme → the zhuan line may not rhyme → the he line rhymes back, "bringing a paragraph to a satisfactory conclusion".
| Variants | Explanation |
|---|---|
| All line endings rhyme throughout | Suitable forshortlyrics (Li Zhongyong p0093) |
| Rhyme every other line (odd lines do not rhyme, even lines rhyme) | most common (Li Zhongyong p0094) |
| The first line does not rhyme, all odd lines do not rhyme, every even line rhymes | "The Shadow of the Fence Wall" (Wu Songjin p0092) |
| Stanzas with odd-numbered lines | "the last line repeats the rhyme of the previous even line" (Li Zhongyong p0095) |
| Multiple verses | "It is best for two verses of lyrics to rhyme with the same rhyme" (Wu Songjin p0092) |
★ The third line (the zhuan line) not rhyming is the natural blank space of a Chinese four-line stanza,
can directly be filled with asymmetry.unrhymed——and it has a source, not destruction for the sake of destruction。
7. Correspondence with LYR-SPEC fields
| Field | Which section of this skill |
|---|---|
rhyme.che |
★ All of §2.For rhyme names, write the Chinese rhyme name directly(e.g. "言前"), and for rhyme changes write the segmentation clearly |
rhyme.deliberate_breaks |
The turning line in §6.5 is not rhymed; the criterion is in lw-rhyme |
prosody.sections[].syllables |
§1.2、§4.1——Chinese is counted by character count, padding characters count |
prosody.sections[].peak_syllable |
★ §5.1 open-mouth sound ＋ lw-tone-check tone pattern |
asymmetry.short_line |
§4.4 pile-up lines (used in reverse: suddenly lengthening) |
asymmetry.unrhymed |
Turning line in §6.5 |
checks.computed distribution of rhyme openings in |
★ §2.8——LYR-LINT rule 8 only reports counts, it does not judge pass/fail |
8. All must pass after use
-
rhyme.cheis filled in witha specific rhyme name, not "it rhymes" - ★ The rhyme of the whole songcan be listed out, andit is not just one or two of the broadest ones（§2.8）
- The reason for choosing the rhyme can be stated: content／keywords／last character of the title／high-frequency characters in the subject matter (§2.5)
- Where the rhyme changes,the last character of the first line of the new section reveals the new rhyme（§2.6）
- In the rhyme feetthere are no neutral-tone characters or function words, and no repeated rhymes (§2.9)
- No reversal for the sake of rhymingof the word order of idioms(§2.9 rule 1)
- Each line is bypausemarked with vertical lines, and not every line is cut at the same place (§4.2)
- ★ The highest note and the prolonged final character are open-mouth sounds（§5.1）
- The full lyricshave been read through once, with no places where it gets stuck; it has been read aloud to someone, and nothing was misheard (§5.2)
- "的地得" have been tried crossing out one by one, and what remains is necessary (§4.5)
- The total number of lines is inthe teens to twenties（§6.1）
- ★ Tone mismatches have been checked with
lw-tone-checkchecked—this skill is not responsible for that - ★ If it is Cantonese, all of the above about rhymes and the four tones is void, go to
lw-cantonese
Appendix: Sources
- Wu Songjin, "Eighteen Lectures on Lyric Writing"—the thirteen rhyme table and mnemonic rhymes (p0088–p0089), nine methods of rhyming (p0091–p0097), sentence patterns and syllables (p0053–p0056), the eight differences between lyrics and poetry (p0024–p0026), length and musical form (p0057–p0065)
- Li Zhongyong and He Fuqiong, "Common Knowledge of Lyric Writing"—Mandarin thirteen rhyme finals table (p0091–p0092), loudness and broad/narrow classification (p0097–p0098), rhyme shifting (p0098–p0099), common rhymes (p0101–p0102), tones and the four tones (p0102–p0103), sound groups and sentence patterns (p0033–p0045), stanza patterns (p0047–p0053), padding words (p0083–p0085)
- ⚠ The two sources differ in rhyme names and classification(梭波/梭坡, 由求/油求; the broad/narrow and loudness classifications are inconsistent),
and the main text and
reference.mdare preserved side by side with sources marked for each, without merging. - Liu Jidian, "Introduction to Peking Opera Music"—the differences between the thirteen rhymes of Peking Opera and the Mandarin thirteen rhymes (p0169–p0171), see
reference.md§1.5 - Lu Jun, "Playwriting Theory and Techniques"—the three excellences of opera lyrics: rhyme selection, structural weaving, layout (p0315–p0328), see
reference.md§7 - The old version of the same problem in opera (依字行腔) is written in
lw-tone-check§1。