The singing art genres and vocal music theories of the Song and Yuan Dynasties as a whole inherited the essence of their predecessors and developed in new and comprehensive ways, especially in various singing genres such as lyrics songs, narrative songs, and opera singing. The emergence of vocal music greatly enriched the expression style of vocal art in the Song and Yuan Dynasties.

The number of cities in the Song Dynasty increased greatly compared with previous dynasties. Many trading centers began to spring up across the country. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the urban economy became increasingly prosperous. As well as the growing citizen class, in order to meet the people's economic and cultural requirements, there was the rise of citizen art. Citizens began to build their own entertainment venues.

Wazi Goulan was the main music and entertainment venue for citizens in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Such places are generally found in cities, where they can not only carry out trade operations, but also display civilian art performances.

Compared with the dynasties before the Song Dynasty, most music performances were performed in the palace. After the Song Dynasty, the venues for music and culture performances were Wa Market, Goulan Theater, and later teahouses. and other places frequented by civilians. For that era, court music was coming to an end for the time being, and its status was no longer so important.

Therefore, the history of music before the Song Dynasty was basically represented by court music, while the music culture after the Song Dynasty was popularized among the common people. Therefore, the development history of citizen music was popularized in the Song Dynasty. Therefore, it has a leap-forward significance. It is the transition from court music to citizen music.

The main forms of songs in the Song Dynasty:

During the Song Dynasty, the performance venues for music activities began to change. It began to shift from the former palace to the folk. At this time, the songs, operas, etc. that emerged in the Song Dynasty began to replace the song, dance, music and art of the Tang Dynasty. Most of these musical arts are a combination of secular modalities. With the vigorous development of the commercial economy in the Song Dynasty, the city became increasingly prosperous, so citizen music became more professional. At this time, the art of song has achieved unprecedented development.

The development of tunes in the Song Dynasty can be said to have reached its peak, showing an unprecedented prosperity. "Ququs" are also called Song lyrics. The lyrics part of this kind of song is called "quci" or "ci", the music part is called "qu", and the people of Song Dynasty call it "ci tune".