What's the difference between traditional music, national music and folk music?

Generally speaking, China music before 1840 is collectively called China traditional music according to different times. Broadly speaking, all China music that happened before now can be described as China traditional music.

According to the different popularity, China traditional music can be divided into four parts: folk music, court music, literati music and religious music, among which folk music can be divided into folk songs, folk rap, folk opera and folk instrumental music.

Musicology contains many branches, among which China traditional musicology and ethnomusicology are two important branches. There are essential differences between the two kinds of music, but there are some similarities in some aspects.

The two promote each other, learn from each other and make progress together. Among them, ethnomusicology paved the way and laid a certain foundation for the development of traditional musicology in China. This paper mainly analyzes the traditional musicology and ethnomusicology in China, and studies the relationship between them.