The Book of Songs is China's first collection of poems. Among them, "National Wind" was a folk song in 15 northern regions at that time. They reflect the complicated social life, class struggle and various living conditions of working people that lasted for more than 500 years from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the mid-Spring and Autumn Period (BC 1 1 century to the 6th century BC). Many excellent works, such as "Vatan", "Storytelling", "Decline" and "Jiang Zhongzi", are not only ideological, but also have outstanding artistic achievements. They created many vivid and touching images with clever metaphors. These folk songs vividly reflect the mental outlook and creative ability of the working people in ancient China. Their high popularity and realistic spirit have become a fine tradition of China folk songs.
After The Book of Songs, The Songs of Chu appeared in the 4th century BC. Chu ci includes two kinds of works: one is the poems written by Chu poets such as Qu Yuan, a great poet, according to the tunes of Chu folk songs; One is the lyrics of Chu folk songs compiled by them. The greatest feature of Chu Ci is full of fantasy and enthusiasm, which laid the initial cornerstone for the romantic tradition of China folk songs.
Yuefu folk songs and Xianghe songs in the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties further inherited and developed their fine traditions. "The Battle of the South of the City" and "Joining the Army in the Tenth Five-Year Plan" are excellent folk songs that profoundly reflected the social reality at that time. Due to the need of content, they broke through the four-character poetic style of The Book of Songs in form, developed different sentence patterns and five-seven-character poetic style, and enriched the expressive force of folk songs. This new form is called. "Yuefu Style" has brought great influence to the creation of folk songs and poets in the future. ? The emergence of "harmony songs" has broken through? In the form of "apprentice song", the accompaniment was added. From the songs of the Tang Dynasty to today's rap operas, there is a continuous relationship with them, such as the long narrative "Peacock Flying Southeast", which fully shows the great discovery of song creation.
Although there are not many preserved folk songs in the Tang Dynasty, they were excavated from Dunhuang? It can be seen from the data of Quzi and the records of music words and essays that the creation and dissemination of folk songs in the Tang Dynasty were quite prosperous. Due to the need to reflect the content of life, the folk songs in the Tang Dynasty have been continuously processed by many people, and they have developed in tune style and singing form. ? The emergence of "Quzi" is not only used for solo oratorio, but also widely used in rap, song and dance, which is loved by the people and becomes a bridge for folk songs to move towards more complex art forms. This kind? Qu Zi had a beneficial influence on the development of Song Ci and Yuan Qu.
In the modern period of Ming and Qing dynasties, with the emergence of new capitalist economic factors, a considerable number of excellent folk songs with strong people's nature were produced in the extremely sharp struggle between class contradictions and ethnic contradictions. The folk songs of this period are not only extensive in content, fresh and lively in language, but also more free and lively in form than before. From the songs such as Water and Dragon included in Wei's Qupu, and the traditional brand song Shanmen Liufu in Ming and Qing Dynasties, it has been greatly enriched in terms of lyrics, musical structure and the expressive force of tunes.