The music of Yunnan lanterns is very rich, and some of the existing lantern tunes are small songs since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, such as "Hanging Branch", "Playing Jujube Pole", "Stacking Broken Bridges", "The Beauty of Yu", "Silver Nuance", etc. The main source of the music of Yunnan lanterns is the local folk songs of the province, which are mainly absorbed from other provinces.
The main source of the music of Yunnan lanterns is the local music of the province, which is mainly based on the local songs and ditties from other provinces.
The lantern tune "Sending a Sage" belongs to the same song as the Yunnan folk song "Rain Does Not Sprinkle Flowers Without Red". The melodies of these two songs are very similar, and the tunes are all in the Shang mode, which is processed and embellished by countless unknown folk artists, and a lyrical Yunnan folk song is transformed into a danced Yunnan lantern tune.
Floral Lantern Song and Dance "Tour of Spring" Selection: The melody of "Flower Picking Song" sung by the old man and his granddaughter is similar to the above two songs, but it is more choreographed. The rhythm of "Cai Hua Tunes" is elastic, the structure of the piece is square, and it combines closely with the movement of the dance "Wei Wei", which is a good piece of music to be used as a training piece for "Xiao Wei".
Some of the provincial folk songs have been absorbed and fused into the lantern tune, but the lantern tune combined with the local language and folk music to Yunnanize the provincial folk songs. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, music workers have created some Yunnan lantern song and dance music, such as "Ten Thousand Red Lanterns", "Tour of Spring", "Ten Big Sisters", "The Great Tea Mountain", "Zhanhua Fan" and so on.
The structure of Yunnan lantern music is short and small, mostly consisting of single phrases with upper and lower sentences or four musical phrases. The rhythm of the music is distinctive and fluid, and there are few large pauses between phrases, mostly starting from the "board" and ending on the "eye". The beat is mostly 2/4 or 4/4, and 3/4 is rare. The tempo is generally medium or fast, and the mood is bright, lively, dashing, and melodious.
The modes of Yunnan lantern music are mostly the levy mode and the feather mode, followed by the Gong mode and the Shang mode. The music is mainly in five tones.
The accompanying instruments of Yunnan lanterns are Huqin, Yueqin, Sanxian, flute, etc. Later on, ethnic instruments such as Pipa and Yangqin were added, and some minority instruments were also used in some places.