Classification of Chinese folk music and its main features

Chinese folk music is divided into: folk songs, folk song and dance music, folk instrumental music, folk rap music and folk opera music.

First of all, in terms of the composition of music, Chinese music is based on the five-tone modulation. The so-called pentatonic modulation is a modulation consisting of five tones: Gong, Shang, Horn, Zheng and Feather, which is similar to the "1, 2, 3, 5, 6" in the present day's simplified musical notation. The six-tone and seven-tone modes in folk music were developed on the basis of the five-tone mode.

Secondly, in terms of musical expression, Chinese music emphasizes the horizontal progression of music, i.e. the expressive nature of melody. Like Chinese calligraphy, painting and other arts, in terms of artistic style, Chinese music pays attention to the rhythmic treatment of melody, emphasizing that the form is scattered and the spirit is not broken. Traditional Chinese musical works often have a single melodic progression, with less use of harmony.

Once again, traditional Chinese music has a close relationship with sister arts such as dance and poetry. In ancient times, music was generally inseparable from dance, such as the Six Dynasties of Music and Dance in the ancient times, the songs and dances of the Tang Dynasty and the opera music that emerged after the Tang and Song dynasties all reflected the combination of music and dance Ancient poetry was generally divided into three categories: poems, lyrics, and tunes, which were all used for singing at the beginning, but only later the function of the poems was differentiated. From a modern musical point of view, most of the lyrics of the songs are rhymed, a good lyrics itself is also a good poem.