Born in the folk community, this genre of music carries within it stories associated with the working life of mountainous people and bears the unique characteristics of each ethnic group. While folk songs are expressed through verbal language, folk dancing is a body language, the language of ethnic music features both high-pitched and low-pitched sounds, containing many levels of emotions: joy, sadness, happiness, and pain.

Ethnic music of 12 ethnic groups living in Son La province is diverse and rich, with a full system of musical instruments classified as percussion, wind and string. Among them, wind instruments are the most diverse with the types of ‘pi’ of the Thai people (pi pap, pi tam lay, pi pot, pi xo lo); lip lute, flute, and panpine of the Mong ethnic group; horn of the Dao ethnic group. Percussion instruments are quite popular among many ethnic groups such as drums, gongs, ‘phach’, and ‘hun may’. As for string instruments in Son La, there is only the gourd lute of the white Thai people in Quynh Nhai, Ngoc Chien and Muong La. In addition to traditional musical instruments passed down from generation to generation, ethnic music also has its own unique features that sometimes come from the daily life. Sometimes with just a leaf plucked from a tree branch, people can blow up a melodious song (leaf flute), or they can also create a symphony through using a pestle to tap on a wooden trough (‘dam duong’ of the Muong people).

The ethnic music of the Mong people has its own unique characteristics. If the sound of the flute is a melodious, high-pitched and resonant sound, the sound of the panpipe is deep like storytelling. Each instrument brings about a different feeling. The panpipe is considered a symbol of Mong ethnic culture. In the past, it was only used to play songs to say goodbye to the deceased, but now it is modified and combined with dancing, or staged into a performance. However, for the panpipe and other Mong ethnic musical instruments, the Mong people still retain the traditional way of making to keep the original sound.

For the Dao people, musical instruments such as drum, gong, ‘phach’ and horn must always be accompanied by bell dance and singing performed in traditional ceremonies such as ‘cap sac’ and funeral. From these rituals, excerpts are staged to serve tourism and the community's culture enjoyment needs.

Traditional ethnic music and instruments have long become unique materials in composing professional art performances. From single instruments, artists have creatively combined them into unique ensemble performances or used them to harmonise and arrange for contemporary musical works with folk resonance. The timbre of ethnic musical instruments or the characteristics of traditional ethnic music, when combined with contemporary music, still do not lose their own colour, creating works that are both close and familiar, and modern and strange. That's how professional artists bring art closer to the public, and contribute to preserving and promoting the traditional values of ethnic groups for today and future generations.