Yangge originated from ancient agricultural labor. The working people of the Han nationality work hard to transplant rice seedlings and cultivate fields, beating gongs and drums for entertainment. In fact, as early as the Song Dynasty, there was a record of singing yangko during farming. Later, people continued to enrich and develop, and the form of farmers' self-entertainment after work-song and dance-was collectively called yangko. There are roughly three kinds of yangko in a broad sense today:

Singing and dancing. In a narrow sense, yangko only refers to yangko. Since then, yangko has developed into a kind of song and dance, but due to the differences in geographical environment and people's feelings, it shows different styles and characteristics. For example, northern Shaanxi Yangko is rough and clear, free and unrestrained, northeastern Yangko is lively and humorous, and Shandong Yangko is bold and unconstrained.

Nowadays, Yangko not only retains the traditional yangko dance, stilts, waist drum, Hua Gun and dry boat, but also adds modern dance, ski dance, fan dance and lantern dance. The music of yangko has developed from traditional folk music, such as suona, gong, drum and cymbal, to electronic music and various high-tech musical instruments. The melody of music is not only the original yangko melody, but also folk music ensemble and rock music.