Folk songs are widely distributed in northwest China, including Qu Shan in northern Shaanxi Plateau, Hua 'er by Gan Ningqing, Xintianyou in northern Shaanxi and Mountaineering Tune in Inner Mongolia. However, the topography of the plateau mountain area makes folk songs the most important and representative folk genre here, and has formed the characteristics of long tune and high pitch. Due to the harsh climate and land conditions here, people live in poverty, so they can only express their distress with high-pitched "folk songs", and rarely use labor songs and minor tunes. Therefore, the genre of northwest folk songs is mainly folk songs, followed by labor songs and minor. Such as spectrum example 1 "footman tune".
Extended data:
The melody of northwest Han folk songs is often dominated by tonic and upper and lower quartets. This phenomenon is named "double four-tone frame" or "double four-tone structure" In the northwest Han folk songs, this tone composed of double quarts is very common, often appearing at the beginning of the song, forming a large space, even running through the whole song. For example, "Man Servant Tune" written by Xintianyou in northern Shaanxi, except the second beat of the penultimate bar, is composed of three tones, namely Zheng, Gong and Shang, which constitute a double four tone four times.