Folksongs form a heterogeneous group of songs or poems, sung in all current languages of Badakhshan in the non-specific performance genre of ghazalxânî/folksinging, performed at important events like weddings and birth festivities, or at more private merry gatherings.
The stanzaic poems function in the same way, although not all of them are necessarily appropriate to be sung during a feast. The subdued or sad stanzaic poems can be sung in the family circle or at informal musical gatherings in the neighbourhood, in combination with other stanzaic poems, ghazals, quatrains and folksongs.
In general, folksongs do not have a metre nor a fixed formal structure, but nevertheless some kind of structure and rhyme can be perceived in most of them. The length of each folksong is different, but usually they are quite short. It appears that many folksongs are built up by strophes, that is groups of short, rhyming lines, interlinked by refrains
The structure of a number of folksongs reminds of ghazals.
Folksongs and stanzaic poems are performed in ghazalxânî/folksinging and in dafsâz . They are often sung near the end of a performance of dafsâz.
Folksongs are often performed with an accordion and a daf. In a wedding ceremony, the performance of folksongs is particularly popular. Other (stringed) instruments are also used, but the loud accordion and daf are the only instruments that remain audible over the yelling and noise of the audience.