Melodigging

shidaiqu

Shidaiqu

Sentimental Romantic Dancing Sad Chill

Your level

0/5

🏆

Listen to this genre to level up

Description

Shidaiqu (时代曲, literally “songs of the era”) is the first modern Chinese popular music style, emerging in cosmopolitan Shanghai during the late 1920s.

It fuses Western dance-band idioms—especially jazz, swing, tango, and other Latin rhythms—with Chinese pentatonic melody, Mandarin lyrics, and the refined vocalism of Chinese opera and folk song.

Arrangements typically feature small jazz combos or studio orchestras with strings and horns, supporting clear, lyrical vocals that favor sentimental themes about urban life, romance, and modernity.

Shidaiqu flourished in 1930s–40s Shanghai film musicals and dance halls, before being suppressed as “yellow music” on the mainland after 1949; its artists and sound then migrated to Hong Kong and later Taiwan, laying the groundwork for Mandopop and subsequent Sinophone pop traditions.

History

How to make a track in this genre

Main artists

Influenced by

Jazz is an improvisation-centered music tradition that emerged from African American communities in the early 20th century. It blends blues feeling, ragtime syncopation, European harmonic practice, and brass band instrumentation into a flexible, conversational art. Defining features include swing rhythm (a triplet-based pulse), call-and-response phrasing, blue notes, and extended harmonies built on 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. Jazz is as much a way of making music—spontaneous interaction, variation, and personal sound—as it is a set of forms and tunes. Across its history, jazz has continually hybridized, from New Orleans ensembles and big-band swing to bebop, cool and hard bop, modal and free jazz, fusion, and contemporary cross-genre experiments. Its influence permeates global popular and art music.

Swing is a jazz style centered on a buoyant, danceable groove created by a walking bass, four-to-the-bar rhythm guitar, a backbeat emphasis on 2 and 4, and a lilted “swung” eighth-note feel. Typically performed by big bands (saxes, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section) as well as small combos, it balances written arrangements with improvised solos. Hallmarks include call-and-response between horn sections, riff-based melodies, shout choruses that build intensity near the end of an arrangement, and rich sectional voicings grounded in blues language and ii–V–I harmonic motion. Tempos range from medium to brisk, serving social dances like the Lindy Hop and Jitterbug. Swing’s expressive phrasing, dance-floor focus, and sophisticated arranging made it the dominant popular music of the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Tango is a music and dance genre that emerged in the Río de la Plata region at the turn of the 20th century, characterized by its dramatic phrasing, bittersweet harmonies, and close-embrace dance. The music typically features an orquesta típica with bandoneóns, violins, piano, and double bass, playing in 2/4 or 4/4 time with a distinctive syncopated pulse derived from the habanera and Afro-Rioplatense rhythms. Its sound blends European salon dances (waltz, polka, mazurka), rural gaucho song (payada, milonga), and Afro-Uruguayan/Argentine candombe. Melodies often lean minor, with chromatic inner lines, lush diminished chords, and expressive rubato. Vocal tangos frequently use lunfardo (Buenos Aires slang) to tell stories of love, loss, and urban life.

Rumba is an Afro‑Cuban, percussion‑driven song‑and‑dance genre that arose in the port neighborhoods and solares of Havana and Matanzas. It features complex interlocking rhythms played on congas (tumbadora, segundo, quinto), claves, and palitos, with the quinto drum improvising over cyclical patterns. The music is built around the rumba clave (in 3‑2 or 2‑3 orientation), call‑and‑response vocals, and a lead singer who declaims verses followed by catchy coros. Three principal styles exist: yambú (slow, playful), guaguancó (medium, flirtatious, with the iconic "vacunao" gesture in the dance), and columbia (fast, virtuosic, traditionally for solo male dancers). Historically performed with cajones (wooden boxes) when drums were restricted, rumba is a secular, community practice whose poetry, dance, and rhythm encode Afro‑Cuban history and identity. It is distinct from ballroom "rhumba" and from Congolese rumba, both of which were influenced by Cuban music rather than being the same style.

Bolero is a romantic Cuban song genre that emerged in the late 19th century in Santiago de Cuba within the trovador tradition. It is characterized by a slow to moderate tempo, lyrical melodies, and intimate, sentimental lyrics centered on love, longing, and heartbreak. Unlike the Spanish dance of the same name, the Cuban bolero is a vocal, guitar-led form that later expanded to trios and orchestras. Its rhythmic backbone often draws on the habanera/tresillo feel, while harmony ranges from simple tonic–dominant motion to lush progressions with secondary dominants and jazz-inflected extensions in later styles. Bolero became a pan–Latin American idiom during the 20th century, shaping the repertoire of trios románticos and crossover stylings in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and beyond, and laying crucial foundations for later romantic currents in Latin pop and ballad traditions.

Chinese opera (xiqu) is a family of traditional Chinese sung-drama forms that merge music, poetic text, stylized speech, dance, mime, and acrobatics into a total theatre. Musically, it is built on pentatonic-centered melodies, heterophonic textures, and a flexible "banqiang" system of tune-types and meter that adapts melodic formulae to changing text and dramatic situations. A small melodic ensemble led by the high-pitched jinghu (or regional equivalents) accompanies the voices, while a percussion battery (bangu drum, gongs, and cymbals) functions as both timekeeper and dramatic cue-giver. Performance is highly codified: role categories (sheng, dan, jing, chou), emblematic makeup and costumes, and conventionalized gesture and movement communicate character, mood, and plot. Staging is minimal and symbolic, placing emphasis on vocal delivery, timing, and physical vocabulary. The tradition encompasses hundreds of regional styles—among them Kunqu, Beijing (Peking) opera, Yue (Shaoxing) opera, Sichuan opera, and Qinqiang—each with distinctive vocal timbres, tune systems, dialects, and orchestration, yet sharing the overarching xiqu aesthetics.

Big band is a large-ensemble style of jazz and popular dance music built around brass, reed, and rhythm sections playing arranged parts. Typical instrumentation includes five saxophones (often doubling clarinet/flute), four trombones, four trumpets, and a rhythm section of piano, guitar, upright bass, and drum set. The music emphasizes swing rhythms, call-and-response between sections, riff-based writing, and dramatic shout choruses, while leaving space for improvised solos. Born in American ballrooms and theaters, big band became the sound of the Swing Era, providing both music for dancing and a platform for sophisticated arranging and orchestration that shaped much of 20th‑century jazz and popular music.

Cabaret is an intimate form of stage entertainment centered on songs, witty monologues, satire, and character pieces, typically presented in small rooms with table seating and a master of ceremonies. Performers address the audience directly, and the atmosphere is conversational, risqué, and often politically or socially pointed. Musically, cabaret blends the French chanson tradition with Weimar-era “Kabarett” and, later, American torch-song and jazz idioms. Arrangements are usually piano-led with small ensembles (accordion, violin, clarinet, upright bass, light percussion), supporting nuanced storytelling and dramatic delivery. Vocal approaches range from parlando (speech-like) delivery to a smoky croon. Common grooves include waltz and musette-inflected 3/4, tango and habanera patterns, foxtrot, and slow blues; harmonies are tonal with chromatic color and expressive rubato. Lyrics favor irony, double entendre, longing, and social commentary.

Jiangnan sizhu (literally “silk-and-bamboo” from the Jiangnan region of China) is a refined chamber tradition centered on string (silk) and flute (bamboo) instruments. Typical ensembles feature dizi (transverse bamboo flute), erhu and other huqin fiddles, pipa (pear-shaped lute), sanxian (three-string lute), yangqin (hammered dulcimer), and sometimes sheng (mouth organ). The music is heterophonic: all players render the same qupai (fixed tune) simultaneously while decorating it with individualized ornaments, resulting in a shimmering, interwoven texture. Performances often unfold in an arch of tempo—from slow, spacious introductions to fluid moderate sections and lively climaxes—suited to intimate venues like teahouses and guild halls. The melodic language is largely pentatonic within traditional Chinese modal systems and cyclical rhythms.

Taoist Ritual Music

Taoist ritual music is the liturgical sound-world of Daoist (Taoist) religion, accompanying rites of invocation, purification, offering, exorcism, and thanksgiving. It combines vocal chant, intoned scripture, and heterophonic instrumental ensembles to shape sacred time and space within temples and processions. Core timbres come from the sheng (mouth organ), guanzi (double-reed), dizi (flute), and occasional suona (shawm) for outdoor or processional moments, supported by a ritual percussion battery: frame and barrel drums, hand gongs, cymbals, clappers, the wooden fish (muyu), and stone or bronze chimes (qing/zhong). Melodies draw on Chinese pentatonic and heptatonic modal practice, are transmitted in gongche (solmization) notation and oral lineage, and are organized into suites that align with the stages of the liturgy.

Rōkyoku (also known as naniwa-bushi) is a Japanese narrative singing tradition in which a solo chanter delivers dramatic tales accompanied by shamisen. The performance alternates between heightened melodic passages and spoken narration, using rich timbral nuance, wide vibrato, and melismatic turns (kobushi) to convey emotion. Originating in the late Meiji era, rōkyoku focuses on morally charged stories—chivalric yakuza epics, tragic romances, and historical dramas—crafted to move audiences through pathos, suspense, and catharsis. Its blend of folk-derived melody, theatrical declamation, and shamisen accompaniment made it a cornerstone of early modern Japanese popular entertainment and a vital ancestor to later song styles such as ryūkōka and enka.

Cantonese Opera

Cantonese opera (Yueju in Cantonese usage) is a major southern Chinese xiqu tradition performed in the Cantonese language. It integrates sung arias, heightened speech, stylized acting, dance, mime, martial arts, and acrobatics into a single theatrical form with codified role types (sheng, dan, jing, chou) and gesture vocabularies. Musically, it features pentatonic and related modal materials, flexible banqiang (aria-tune and metric) systems guided by percussion cues, and a distinctive ensemble led by the gaohu alongside gongs and drums (luogu). Repertoires draw on history, classical literature, and folklore, while the singing style emphasizes nuanced ornamentation, glides, and timbral control aligned with Cantonese tones.

Han folk music (Han minzu min'ge) is the broad body of traditional folk song and instrumental practice of the Han Chinese majority. It encompasses work chants, free‑flowing mountain songs, narrative ballads, children’s rhymes, and festive dance tunes transmitted orally across villages, market towns, and river systems. Musically it favors pentatonic modes (gong, shang, jue, zhi, yu), heterophonic ensemble textures, and flexible rhythm that can be either free‑metered (as in many shan’ge mountain songs) or strongly pulsed (as in haozi work songs). Melodic ornament—portamento, grace notes, and narrow, expressive vibrato—is common, and lyrics draw on local dialects, proverbs, and nature imagery. While many pieces are purely vocal a cappella, others are supported by instruments such as dizi (transverse bamboo flute), erhu, pipa, sanxian, sheng, and yangqin. The style ranges from intimate, lyrical love songs to robust, antiphonal outdoor singing. Over centuries, Han folk strains interacted with literati and theatrical traditions, later inspiring arranged folk styles heard in conservatories, film, and popular “Chinese‑style” (Zhongguo feng) pop.

Has influenced

No genres found

© 2025 Melodigging

Melodding was created as a tribute to Every Noise at Once, which inspired us to help curious minds keep digging into music's ever-evolving genres.