The difference between expressionist music and traditional music lies in their nature, form and characteristics.

1. Essential difference.

Expressionist music is completely contrary to the old tradition. It completely ignores the tonal laws of the past. Give equal value to the twelve semitones in the octave and abandon the traditional concepts of tonic and dominant tones, thus giving atonality an absolute advantage.

Because the old melody trajectory is destroyed, the melody has neither balance nor repetition, and is therefore just a series of unique sounds. Furthermore, the rhythm is elusive and the time signature is ignored.

2. Differences in form.

In terms of form, expressionist music appears to be very free because it ignores the traditional bandhas, repetitions and balance. But its form based on new theories has the wonderful characteristics of being unique, flowing, and infinitely developing. In terms of counterpoint, there is a feeling of leaving traditional harmony and becoming a complex free progression of melody lines, which is the so-called linear free counterpoint.

3. Differences in characteristics.

Traditional music refers to music created by the Chinese using their own nation’s inherent methods, adopting their own nation’s inherent forms, and having their own nation’s inherent morphological characteristics. It includes not only ancient works produced in history and passed down to the present, but also Includes contemporary works.

The characteristic of expressionist music is the direct expression of human spirit and experience. The representative work "Pierrot Le Luna" is completely contrary to the old tradition. It completely ignores the tonal laws of the past and opposes impressions. It believes that art should neither be "described" nor "symbolized", but should directly express human spirit and experience.

Extended information:

Traditional music has lasted for thousands of years and contains many aesthetic qualities. It is a concentrated expression of the special nature of certain musical thoughts and the crystallization of musical ideology. The thinking habits of a country or a nation play an important role in the formation and development of its aesthetic consciousness that cannot be underestimated.

Chinese traditional music refers to music created by the Chinese people using their own nation’s inherent methods, adopting their own nation’s inherent forms, and having their own nation’s inherent morphological characteristics. It not only includes ancient works produced in history and passed down to this day, but also Also includes contemporary works. It can be seen that traditional music includes "Chinese music" but not "new music", but they are all "Chinese music".

In fact, "ethnic music", "traditional music" and "folk music" are three different concepts: "ethnic music" includes traditional music and new music; while "folk music" is just traditional music A category of music. Moreover, our country’s national music is very rich. In addition to folk music, it also includes court music, religious music and literati music.

Reference materials:

Baidu Encyclopedia - Traditional Music

Baidu Encyclopedia - Expressionist Music