Korean folk songs belong to the East Asian music family. The pentatonic scale without semitones is the basis for all modes. The feather mode is the most commonly used, followed by the zheng mode, and the angle mode and the shang mode are also used. The modal framework of Korean folk songs is a three-note group. By inserting different tones into a certain three-tone frame, various modal tone sequences used in Korean folk songs are formed.

The melody lines of Korean folk songs mainly fall into two categories: descending type and parabolic type, with parabolic type being more common. Taking a certain note as the axis and making up and down waves around it is also very common in Korean folk songs. The axis tone is generally the backbone tone of the mode.

Korean folk songs prefer to use vibrato, and various vibrato singing methods have rich expressive power.

In Korean folk music, the rhythm and meter system are called "long and short". "Length and shortness" include not only beat form and rhythmic form, but also factors such as speed and emotion. Korean traditional folk songs have very rich "long and short combinations". The rhythm of Korean traditional folk songs has a vibrant sense of movement. From the perspective of modern music theory, triple beats and triple beats are the most representative beats of traditional folk songs.