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Ancient Chinese poetry used to be literature coupled with music, namely, lyrics of songs. As time went by, however, the transfer of the melody to the next generation phased out, and only lyrics were handed down to descendants. The case was likewise with Ci, whose musical aspects had already started to grow weak in its heyday during the Northern Song period. One reason was that the composition of Ci was too complicated. In addition, younger generations of Ci poets increasingly made little use of Ci's musical aspects as they were more inspired by the masterpieces of Sushi, a great Ci poet who was not obsessed with musical accomplishments. In the last days of the Song Dynasty, meanwhile, two volumes of theoretical books on Ci were published: ≪Yuefuzhimi≫ by Shen Yifu and ≪Ciyuan≫ by ZhangYan. Living in the final days of the Song Dynasty, Shen and Zhang were able to take a broad overview of past Ci studies and pay attention to musical aspects peculiar to Ci. Accordingly, their books tried to resuscitate the musical originality of Ci by emphasizing certain elements. Although Ci music became extinct amid the flourishing of Beiqu, the northern music, in the Yuan Dynasty, records on the musical value of Ci are well documented in those two books, which serve as important materials for contemporary Ci studies.