This collection incorporates a variety of ways in the creation of guqin music. Some are centuries-old pieces passed on to me from the earlier masters in person; some are self-learned from the printed sheets, following specific rhythmic interpretations and fingering refinements of previous players as recorded in both audio forms and modern scores in staff or numbered musical notations; some are the author’s own reinterpretation – a process called dapu – of jianzipu scores preserved in ancient guqin manuals; and some are entirely new compositions. The different modes generating the sound of each piece are indicated in the parentheses on the fourth page of the front cover. The final suite is an on-going project based upon the poems from the Classic of Poetry, or Shijing, a collection of odes largely from the Western Zhou dynasty (11th-8th centuries BCE). The first part of Shijing, known as the “Airs of the States,” is adopted to name the suite. The composition here is neither a melody intended to go with the lyrics, nor a musical expression of the original meaning of each song. Rather, they can be considered as exercises exploring the possibility of new sound from this ancient instrument, inspired by the vivid images and powerful emotions pictured among the lines. Sometimes fingering types are deliberately limited in order to strengthen the musical character, for instance Odes of Cao·Ephemera. One of the pieces, Odes of Yong·Amid the Mulberries, uses a famous melody from Yunnan province. The adoption reflects no geographical or cultural affinity of the two works, only the composer’s love for that folk song. The longing sentiments in both the ancient poem and the vernacular tune are product of the same universal humanity. As an instrument with arguably an unbroken tradition from antiquity, it is important to keep reviving the guqin music with fresh voices in each generation while observing the link with the heritage and spirit of the past. The guqin from Tang dynasty are still being played, just like the ancient verses still rippling in modern hearts. As Wang Xizhi wrote more than sixteen hundred years ago, “Reading the past compositions, I can recognize the same melancholy from the ancients,” and people of any region and time must all have a “Peach Blossom Spring” to return to.