The content of social life reflected in the ditty is extremely wide. It is not subject to a particular social class and specific labor environment, it reflects not only farmers, but also urban small craftsmen and other laborers, merchants, citizens, and even kanghu geisha, peddlers, monks and nuns, wandering beggars and other classes of love and marriage, parting love, local conditions, entertainment and games, natural knowledge, folk stories, etc., almost everything, such as "playing the cherry", "embroidered purse", "selling groceries", "small New Year", "grinding tofu", "grinding", "grinding", "grinding", "grinding", "grinding", "grinding", "grinding", "grinding", "grinding", "grinding", "grinding", "grinding", "grinding" and "grinding". Cherry-playing", "embroidered purse", "selling groceries", "small New Year's greeting", "grinding tofu", "watching the lamp", "mending the tank", "tea-picking", "spring", "kite-flying", "playing the swings", "cutting leeks", "rushing to the temple", "touring the lamps", and so on, all of them cover the scenes of the folk customs and life. Among them, the lyrics of many ditties often touched upon all aspects of social life with a high degree of generalization and a sharp critical edge, thus giving the theme a wide social significance. Some of them were influenced by the corrupted exploiting class ideology and low-grade vulgarity. Especially, some of the city ditties sung in the environment of teahouses and restaurants, green houses and bookstores were often tampered with by some boring literati and dilettantes, making them pretentious, frivolous and coquettish. They are the dregs of the ditty.
The ditties are divided into three categories: chants, ballads, and time tunes.
Chanting tunes such as children's songs, lullabies and hawking tunes belong to this category. This is a more practical type of minstrelsy, often sung in some practical needs of daily life.
Ballads are more mature in art form than chants, with a small length, a complete musical structure, and a standardized beat. They can be categorized into songs of complaint, love songs, songs of life, and songs of hip-hop.
The time tune is the most standardized and mature art form in the minor key. Its structure is rigorous, melodic development standardized, singing words exquisite. Often with instrumental accompaniment, and because it has a changeable development of the "elasticity" of the performance function, often absorbed by the local opera or song for the song. The ten major tunes of the time are: Meng Jiangnu, Cutting Indigo Flowers, Fresh Flowers, Silver Nuance, Wuxi Jing, Mother's Muddle, Embroidered Lotus, Pair of Flowers, Stacking Broken Bridges, and Yang Liuqing.
Small tunes, also known as "small tunes", "slang tunes", "time tunes", etc., are folk songs that people use to express their feelings and entertain themselves after labor, in daily life, and during weddings, funerals and festivals. They are folk songs used by people to express their feelings and entertain themselves after labor, in daily life, and during weddings and funerals. Because there are professional artists and semi-professional artists singing, and and the song, opera have inextricably linked, and therefore more processing and refining of the ingredients, words, songs less improvisation, more stereotypes, art is more mature and perfect. Therefore, the ditties are relatively widespread, spreading to cities and towns, and their contents are widely related to the lives of people of all social strata. Rural ditties reflect the daily life in the countryside, especially reflecting the love of rural women, the majority of married life; urban ditties are involved in towns and cities, small craftsmen, merchants, citizens and prostitutes in the lower strata of society, beggars and other life, as well as entertainment and play, natural scenery, knowledge of life, folk stories. Minor performance feelings delicate twists and turns, the plot of the heart-stopping, the form is more regular, rich and varied methods of expression. According to the different contents, ditties can be divided into four categories: lyrical songs, witty songs, children's songs and customary songs. The repertoire of ditties is very rich. According to its historical origin, singing occasions and musical character, it can be roughly divided into three categories: the ditties evolved from Ming and Qing dynasty popular songs. For example, "Hillside Goat", "Parasitic Grass", "Haunted Five Nights", "Playing with Children", "Silver Nuance", "Stacking Broken Bridges", "Playing Jujube Pole"; and those of the Qing Dynasty, such as "Cutting Indigo Flowers", "Yu'e Lang", "Backwards Wrenching Paddle", "Fresh Flower Tune", "Hunan and Guangdong Tune", etc. Among them, some of them still retained their original songs and songs. Among them, some still retain the original song name, some tunes are more or less the same, but the song name has changed, such as "cut indigo flowers" tune, using it a lot of repertoire, such as "kite flying", "throw the ring", "December lantern", "four seasons song", "the great trekking", "picking cotton", "small incense play", "embroidery five", "sighing five" and so on no less than dozens of kinds. This kind of ditty is widely spread, and some of them are spread all over the country. Local ditties. It refers to a part of ditties which are made up and sung by the people in different places and gradually stabilized and spread out. They are characterized by simplicity, simplicity, sincerity of sentiment, and lack of decoration. They are not widely circulated and are mostly limited to a certain region, and the local characteristics of the tunes are more prominent. For example, "Long Worker's Song" and "Women's Complaint Song", part of "Pair of Flowers" and "Little Cabbage", etc., which are popular in various places. Songs and dances. Refers to folk festivals around the song and dance activities sung in a part of the ditty songs, such as the northern rice-planting song tune, the southern lights tune, tea song.