'Record of the Little Stone Pool West of the Hill': The Clearest Water Reveals the Deepest Solitude
Grandevity Studio presents Record of the Little Stone Pool West of the Hill, a Modern C-Pop and neo-traditional Chinese setting of Liu Zongyuan’s complete Tang-dynasty prose text, using the original classical Chinese without expansion or rewriting.
Some landscapes do not allow us to escape the world.
They become so clear that we can no longer hide from ourselves.
Record of the Little Stone Pool West of the Hill is a Mandarin male-vocal work composed entirely from Liu Zongyuan’s Tang-dynasty prose masterpiece commonly known as “The Little Stone Pool.”
The lyrics use 100% of the original classical Chinese text. Nothing has been expanded, rewritten or modernised.
Through Modern C-Pop, neo-traditional Chinese instrumentation, acoustic guitar, gentle guzheng and cinematic production, the song reopens the emotional world of the essay: bamboo concealing the path, water ringing like jade pendants, a clear and cold pool, fish suspended in transparent water, interlocking stone banks and a silence that gradually reaches the bones.
Everything eventually descends into one of the most haunting lines in classical Chinese prose:
The scene chilled the spirit and penetrated the bones—silent, sorrowful, secluded and deep.
On its surface, the text records the discovery of a small mountain pool.
At its deepest level, it is about exile, momentary joy, emotional projection, enclosure and a place whose purity becomes too cold to endure.
Its central question remains quietly urgent:
When the world outside becomes completely transparent, what part of ourselves may be reflected back from within it?
Watch the MV: 🎬 Record of the Little Stone Pool West of the Hill — Official Music Video
Headphones recommended. Follow the distant sound of water through a Tang-dynasty bamboo forest in Yongzhou, and hear a moment of wonder gradually become a landscape of profound solitude.
The Pool Is First Heard, Not Seen
Liu Zongyuan does not begin by showing the reader the water.
He begins with sound:
Beyond a screen of bamboo, I heard water ringing like jade pendants, and my heart delighted in it.
The bamboo blocks the line of sight. The pool is still invisible, yet its presence has already entered the scene through sound.
The comparison to jade pendants gives the unseen water a bright, delicate and almost ceremonial resonance.
It also creates the first emotional movement in the essay.
During Liu Zongyuan’s years of exile in Yongzhou, an unidentified sound from beyond the bamboo is enough to bring him joy.
The joy is gentle.
It is also brief.
That brevity is precisely what makes it precious.
The MV begins on a wet stone path beneath early-morning mist. Liu Zongyuan walks with three fellow scholars and two young attendants through dense bamboo. Before the pool is revealed, trembling leaves, reflected light and distant water guide the audience toward it.
“The Water Was Exceptionally Clear and Cold”
After opening a path through the bamboo, the travellers finally see the pool:
Below appeared a small pool, its water exceptionally clear and cold.
The word “clear” belongs to sight.
The word “cold” belongs to the body.
Liu Zongyuan joins them, making the water something that can be seen through and physically felt at the same time.
He then describes the natural rock beneath and around it:
The entire bottom was stone. Near the shore, the stone bed curled upward and emerged, forming rock ledges, islets, crags and cliffs.
Nothing here has been shaped into an ornamental garden.
The rocks rise in irregular, unarranged forms. Their beauty comes from remaining outside human order.
In the music, acoustic guitar provides a clear contemporary framework, while the guzheng moves like glimmers of water across stone, answering the droplets, reflections and shifting bamboo shadows.
Green Trees and Emerald Vines
Liu Zongyuan next lifts his gaze from the pool bed to the surrounding vegetation:
Green trees and emerald vines covered, entwined, swayed and trailed, unevenly brushing in the breeze.
The verbs create continuous movement.
Branches overlap. Vines wind around rock and bamboo. Leaves tremble in the damp air.
Yet this abundance does not make the scene feel lively or social.
The trees, bamboo, vines and stone gradually enclose the water, turning the pool into a natural chamber separated from the outer world.
The MV uses cool green, blue-grey and transparent water tones. The vegetation retains the wet vitality of early autumn while quietly preparing the emotional enclosure of the later line: “bamboo and trees closed around on every side.”
Fish in Empty Space: The Briefest Moment of Light
The most luminous passage of the essay belongs to the fish:
There were perhaps a hundred fish in the pool, all seeming to swim through empty air, with nothing to support them.
The water is so clear that it almost disappears.
The fish remain visible, but the medium through which they move appears absent.
Rather than simply announcing the transparency of the pool, Liu Zongyuan allows the fish to reveal it.
Sunlight then reaches the stone floor:
Sunlight penetrated to the bottom, and their shadows lay upon the stone. They remained perfectly still.
Light, fish shadows, bamboo shadows and stone textures meet in the same transparent space.
For a moment, the fish seem suspended.
Then stillness abruptly becomes motion:
Suddenly they darted far away, moving back and forth with astonishing speed, as though rejoicing with the visitors.
This transition from stillness to rapid movement gives the prose an almost musical rhythm.
“As though rejoicing with the visitors” is also one of the gentlest lines in the essay.
Liu Zongyuan does not claim that the fish understand him. Instead, his own momentary happiness is projected into their movement.
For an instant, traveller, fish and landscape appear to share the same delight.
The moment is moving because it cannot last.
Bending Like the Dipper, Winding Like a Snake
After the lightness of the fish, Liu Zongyuan looks southwest:
Looking southwest from the pool, the stream bent like the Northern Dipper and wound like a snake, appearing and disappearing from view.
The watercourse turns among stone and bamboo.
Some sections catch the light. Others vanish beneath shadow and rock.
It can be followed, but never completely grasped.
The banks become increasingly irregular:
The shapes of the banks interlocked like a dog’s teeth, and the source could not be known.
The water disappears into forest, mist and stone.
“The source could not be known” is more than a geographical observation.
The essay has moved from the clearly visible surface of the pool toward something that cannot be traced to its beginning.
During the musical bridge, the rhythm and instrumentation draw inward. The bright transparency of the earlier passages darkens into blue-black water and deepening mist.
The path ahead is no longer merely scenery.
It begins to resemble an inner road that cannot be fully understood.
When Purity Becomes Too Cold to Endure
The central emotional turn arrives when Liu Zongyuan sits beside the pool:
Sitting beside the pool, I found bamboo and trees closing around on every side. It was silent and empty of people.
The companions seem to withdraw beyond the frame.
Only one person, one pool and an almost motionless silence remain.
At this point, the purity that first brought delight changes its nature:
The scene chilled the spirit and penetrated the bones—silent, sorrowful, secluded and deep.
The landscape is no longer simply elegant, transparent or peaceful.
Its coldness enters the mind and body.
The mountains and water have not suddenly changed.
What changes is the person who continues to look at them.
Liu Zongyuan concludes:
Because the place was excessively pure and austere, it was impossible to remain for long. I therefore recorded it and departed.
The phrase “excessively pure” is one of the deepest emotional keys in the entire work.
The place is too clear, too quiet and too cold.
It stands too close to the loneliness of exile that the writer cannot dismiss.
He does not leave because the landscape lacks beauty.
He leaves because its beauty has become unbearably transparent.
Modern C-Pop Without Rewriting the Classical Text
The original work is a highly compressed piece of classical prose whose rhythm depends upon syntax, parallel movement, sound and pause.
This musical setting does not transform it into modern lyrics.
Instead, it preserves the complete original text and uses melody, phrasing, tempo and emotional contrast to reorganise the listening experience.
The song is built in 4/4 time at approximately 72 BPM, combining:
- Acoustic guitar, providing a clear contemporary C-Pop foundation.
- Gentle guzheng, answering water, fish and trembling bamboo light.
- Restrained rhythm, preserving the breath and intelligibility of the classical Chinese.
- An emotionally rising chorus, carrying the sudden movement of the fish and the brief warmth of shared delight.
- Cinematic atmosphere, leading the second half toward isolation, coldness and depth.
The production avoids both oversized historical spectacle and theatrical recitation.
Its purpose is to let Liu Zongyuan’s language remain lucid, restrained and lonely, so that each classical phrase can be clearly heard within the music.
The MV: Discovery and Departure in Tang-Dynasty Yongzhou
The music video remains entirely within the Tang dynasty.
There is no modern timeline and no transition into the present.
The visual setting is an imagined early-autumn day in the damp mountains outside Yongzhou, moving from morning mist through afternoon light to evening and approaching night.
Liu Zongyuan wears a blue-grey Tang scholar’s robe. He is presented as handsome, slender, composed and emotionally restrained.
His sorrow is not expressed through exaggerated gestures. It emerges through pauses, listening, watching the water, a brief smile, the tightening of his robe against the cold and his eventual departure.
His companions are Wu Wuling, Gong Gu and his younger brother Zongxuan.
The two young attendants, Shuji and Fengyi, carry the travelling packs and follow the scholars through the bamboo.
The visual journey passes through:
the hidden sound of water, the opening of a path, the discovery of the pool, the stone floor, green trees and vines, fish appearing to swim in empty space, the stream appearing and disappearing, enclosing bamboo and the final chill of the secluded landscape.
Liu Zongyuan records what he has seen and leaves along the wet stone path with his companions.
The camera, however, remains behind.
Fish return to the empty pool.
Bamboo shadows fall across the water once more.
It is as though the human voices had never truly disturbed the mountain silence.
📜 Complete Original Text and Lyrics
[Liu Zongyuan, “Record of the Little Stone Pool West of the Hill” — Tang Dynasty]
從小丘西行百二十步，隔篁竹，聞水聲，如鳴佩環，心樂之。
Travelling one hundred and twenty paces west from the small hill, beyond a screen of bamboo, I heard water ringing like jade pendants, and my heart delighted in it.
伐竹取道，下見小潭，水尤清冽。
We opened a path through the bamboo and descended, where a small pool appeared, its water exceptionally clear and cold.
全石以為底，近岸，卷石底以出，為坻，為嶼，為嵁，為岩。
The entire bottom was stone. Near the shore, the stone bed curled upward and emerged, forming rock ledges, islets, crags and cliffs.
青樹翠蔓，蒙絡搖綴，參差披拂。
Green trees and emerald vines covered, entwined, swayed and trailed, unevenly brushing in the breeze.
潭中魚可百許頭，皆若空游無所依。
There were perhaps a hundred fish in the pool, all seeming to swim through empty air, with nothing to support them.
日光下澈，影布石上，佁然不動；
Sunlight penetrated to the bottom, and their shadows lay upon the stone. They remained perfectly still.
俶爾遠逝，往來翕忽，似與遊者相樂。
Suddenly they darted far away, moving back and forth with astonishing speed, as though rejoicing with the visitors.
潭西南而望，斗折蛇行，明滅可見。
Looking southwest from the pool, the stream bent like the Northern Dipper and wound like a snake, appearing and disappearing from view.
其岸勢犬牙差互，不可知其源。
The shapes of the banks interlocked like a dog’s teeth, and the source could not be known.
坐潭上，四面竹樹環合，寂寥無人，淒神寒骨，悄愴幽邃。
Sitting beside the pool, I found bamboo and trees closing around on every side. It was silent and empty of people, chilling the spirit and penetrating the bones—sorrowful, secluded and deep.
以其境過清，不可久居，乃記之而去。
Because the place was excessively pure and austere, it was impossible to remain for long. I therefore recorded it and departed.
同遊者：吳武陵，龔古，余弟宗玄。
Those travelling with me were Wu Wuling, Gong Gu and my younger brother Zongxuan.
隸而從者，崔氏二小生：曰恕己，曰奉壹。
Also following as attendants were two young men of the Cui family, named Shuji and Fengyi.
Not Merely an Essay About a Pool
Record of the Little Stone Pool West of the Hill has endured for more than a thousand years not only because of the precision of its landscape writing.
Its deeper power lies in the absence of any real separation between scenery and emotion.
The sound of water creates a moment of delight.
The fish briefly release the traveller from solitude.
The winding stream draws the gaze toward the unknown.
When bamboo and trees finally close around the pool, the original purity becomes an “excessive purity” that can no longer be endured.
Liu Zongyuan does not directly narrate his political disappointment.
He does not loudly describe the bitterness of exile.
He writes only of a small pool.
Yet within its excessively clear water, the loneliness of a human life remains visible.
The water continues to be clear and cold.
The fish continue to move through it.
The traveller cannot remain.
He can only record the place and leave.
The moment preserved by his words, however, has never truly departed.
💿 Credits
- Song Title: Record of the Little Stone Pool West of the Hill
- Chinese Title: 至小丘西小石潭記
- Common Chinese Title: 小石潭記
- Classical Source: Liu Zongyuan, “Zhi Xiaoqiu Xi Xiaoshitan Ji”
- Literary Period: Tang Dynasty
- Original Text / Complete Lyrics: Liu Zongyuan
- Lyrics Format: 100% original prose set to music, with no expansion or rewriting
- Composition / Arrangement: Suno AI v5.5 / Grandevity Studio
- Vocals: Suno AI v5.5
- Music Production: Grandevity Studio
- AI-Assisted Visuals: ChatGPT Images
- Video Editing / Art Direction / Creative Production: Grandevity Studio
- Released by: Grandevity Limited
- Production Year: 2026
Music Style and Mood:
Modern C-Pop / Neo-Traditional Chinese / Acoustic Chinese Fusion / Cinematic Guofeng, featuring a 4/4 pulse at approximately 72 BPM, soft melancholic Mandarin male vocals, acoustic guitar, gentle guzheng and cinematic atmosphere. The arrangement moves from hidden water and momentary wonder toward suspended fish, winding streams, isolation and the penetrating cold of the secluded pool.
⚖️ Copyright Notice
Liu Zongyuan’s classical prose work “Record of the Little Stone Pool West of the Hill” is a public-domain literary text.
The music production, sound recording, arrangement, mixing, mastering, MV visuals, cover artwork, video editing, subtitles, copywriting, storyboard design, art direction and overall creative concept of this project were produced or lawfully licensed by Grandevity Limited / Grandevity Studio and are protected by copyright and related rights to the extent permitted by applicable law.
Unauthorized re-uploading, redistribution, reproduction, editing, sampling, commercial use, public broadcasting, platform distribution, AI training, dataset use, remixing, or use in any other audiovisual work is strictly prohibited.
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About the Project
Record of the Little Stone Pool West of the Hill is part of Grandevity Studio’s Classical Literature Reimagined in Music series.
The project seeks to bring classical Chinese prose beyond textbooks, annotations, recitation and memorisation, allowing it to re-enter contemporary melody, sound, imagery and emotional life.
More than a thousand years ago, Liu Zongyuan wrote in the mountains of Yongzhou:
Because the place was excessively pure and austere, it was impossible to remain for long. I therefore recorded it and departed.
More than a thousand years later, we may still enter a landscape so quiet that its clarity becomes cold.
The traveller eventually leaves.
But a landscape that has truly been seen, heard and recorded may continue to live through language and music.