Popular in Hankou and along the Yangtze River and the Han River, there are two kinds of Xiaoqu in Hantan and Tianshin. The Hanban Xiaoqu (also known as the Outer River Xiaoqu) popularized in Wuhan is mainly a sitting and singing opera, with music similar to that of the local Han Opera, and is mostly of a plate-cavity tune; the Tianshin Xiaoqu is similar to the Tianshin folk songs, and its plate-cavity tune is the same as that of the Jingzhou Flower Drum Opera. The two schools of Tianshen and Hantan, which have been practicing in Wuhan for a long time, borrowed from each other and sang in the Hankou dialect, gradually merging.
In 1985, when the Xiaoqu took part in the first national performance of Chinese opera as a local opera, it was named Hubei Xiaoqu after Hantan and Tianshin Xiaoqu. The song is categorized into two types, one is the plate-cavity song, which has the head of Nanqu, the main plate of Nanqu, the tail of Nanqu, and the western cavity, etc.; and the other is the minor-key song, which has the falling money, the four major scenarios, the ten cups of wine, the stacking of broken bridges, the silver new silk, and the gripping of cucumbers. The traditional form of singing is based on sitting and singing, divided into single singing, double sitting singing and multiple sitting singing 3 kinds, with double sitting singing as common. The main accompanying instrument is the sihu, and when there are many people, it is accompanied by the "eight tones" (sihu, erhu, jing erhu, pipa, yangqin, yueqin, sanxin and danban).
In 1959, Wuhan City Opera Team, Hubei Provincial Folk Song and Dance Troupe began to recruit and cultivate students of Xiaoqu. 60's, the young performers of the Xiaoqu performed a large number of new programs, music innovation changes, singing in a variety of forms, there are one person to sing, two people sing, collective chorus, sitting singing, standing singing, singing, singing, singing, singing, and other performance singing.