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Owing to the large number of tones in the Zzean language, how Zzeans perform or view as music is significantly different from mainstream Western or East Asian views.

Vocal music

For Zzeans, non-"tonal" elements such as rhythm, ornamentation, and scale choice are vital for distinguishing singing from normal speech.

Zzean singing traditions include:

• an intoned singing tradition
• hiphop/rap (speech with stylized rhythm and sometimes autotune)
• a religious chanting tradition with much ornamentation
• something really weird and independent from Cuam music's weirdness

Choral vocal music that uses big block chords is wordless; polyphonic word-ful singing is used in specialized contexts.

Instrumental music

The boundary between vocal and instrumental music in Zzean culture is ill-defined, as pitched instruments can "speak" by imitating the tones of speech. One can also choose to play instruments in a more "relaxed" or "conversational" manner by playing in speech-like contours rather than song-like ones, the same way as voice can.

Instruments

• a shruti box that plays 5-note drones for guiding singing
• "talking" drums, flutes, trombones and fretless bowed strings

Scales

Zzean music is abstractly based on a pentatonic framework, onto which the five tone levels of Zzean are mapped. Seven-note scales are viewed as ways to ornament 5-note scales. However, not all Zzean pentatonic scales are octave-equivalent.