Unaccompanied Songs

In premodern Chinese musical terminology, the term yao 謡 referred specifically to unaccompanied songs. The Mao Commentary ( Mao zhuan 毛傳) points out, “A song with instrumental accompaniment is called ge , and a song without instrumental accompaniment is called yao ” (曲合樂曰歌，徒歌曰謡). 1 Similarly, the Approaching Correctness defines yao as “a song without instrumental accompaniment” (徒歌謂之謡). 2 The Notes to First Learning ( Chuxue ji 初學記) cites a commentator from the Han dynasty: “ Yao refers to singing without strings or bamboo instruments” (謡，謂無絲竹之類，獨歌之). 3 Both the Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters ( Shuowen jiezi 説文解字) and Duan Yucai’s 段玉裁 (1735–1815) annotations explain that the term yao originated from the notion of the “naked voice,” designating it as the counterpart to instrumentally accompanied songs.