The connotations and extensions of traditional Chinese music, new music, Chinese music, and Chinese traditional music are different.

Chinese traditional music can be divided into five categories. We can see the word "national music" in many folk music CDs. This "national music" refers to the music that has been handed down from ancient times and has developed in modern times and is the "quintessence of the country". It can be seen that the meaning of "national music" The creation time refers to ancient times;

"New music" refers to music written by those who have studied Western music, such as school music. It can be seen that the creation time of new music was in 1840. After the war.

"Chinese music" refers not only to the music passed down from ancient times, but also to the music created and adapted by the Chinese according to Western theories.

"Traditional Chinese 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. works, including contemporary works. It can be seen that traditional music includes "Chinese music" but not "new music", but they are all "Chinese music".

Traditional music is an extremely important part of my country's national music. The difference between traditional music and new music does not lie in the order of the sounds when they were created, but in its form of expression and stylistic characteristics. For example, the erhu solos "Moon Reflected on Two Springs" and "Fishing Boats Sing Evening" are modern music works, but their performance forms are unique to the Chinese nation, so they are also traditional music. On the contrary, the school songs and the piano solo "Shepherd Boy Piccolo" are not traditional music because their musical form characteristics are borrowed from Western music.

The classification of traditional music was first seen in the "Introduction to National Music" compiled by the China Music Research Institute, and is divided into five major categories: songs, song and dance music, rap music, opera and instrumental music. However, most colleges and universities do not use it in teaching. Song and dance music was merged into folk songs, so it became four major categories: folk songs, national instrumental music, folk art (i.e. "rap") music, and opera 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.

Mr. Du Yaxiong classified Chinese traditional music as follows: folk music, literati music, religious music, and court music; folk music includes folk songs, folk instrumental music, folk songs and dances, opera music, and rap music; literati music Including guqin music, poetry recitation, and literati's own music;