Dong folk songs are dominated by the pentatonic scale. The southern dialect area mostly adopts the feather modal mode, with three three-tone modal backbone frameworks: [La Do Mi], [La Re Mi] and [la Do Mi]. Works in Shang mode often end with a slightly elevated Shang tone.

The style of Dong folk songs is relatively free and easy, with a preference for non-square shaped phrases, with varying sentence lengths and an even number of sentences.