Among the Ming dynasty (1386-1644) collections of aria literature, one kind was the selected type formularies of arias. These selections differ from the ordinary collections in their compilers' motivations, their overall formats, as well as the various comments contained within. The reason why this type of formularies of arias came into being had to do with Wei Liangfu's reform of the Kunshan qiang (the Kunshan Tune) and the emergence of ”clear singing” by scholars. These scholar singers wanted to standardize aria singing, so they compiled and edited these selections of formularies of arias. The extant selections can be categorized into two types according to their use and format. One type was used only for aria singing, and the other was used not only for aria singing but also for tune standards. The former were mostly compiled by scholar singers for the sole purpose of singing, while the latter were compiled as a rule by scholar dramatists who, besides singing, paid equal attention to the standards of aria composing and lyric writing.