弋陽腔起碼在明初永樂間已相當盛行，其流播地共有江西、安徽、南北兩京、湖南、福建、廣東、雲南、貴州等地，勢力之大冠嘉靖時諸腔之上。戲文中的弋陽腔見於記載者，則始於明正德間祝允明《猥談》，那時弋陽腔已與餘姚腔、海鹽腔、崑山腔等腔並稱。其流播地域如此廣闊，應當和它的腔調特質以及保持許多早期戲文面貌有密切的關係：它保持了戲文初起時，運用里巷歌謠、村坊小曲，以鑼鼓為節、不和管絃所衍生出來的現象；又吸收了北曲曲牌，從中生發了滾白和滾唱，為後來的青陽腔提供了極為開闊的天地。弋陽腔不僅沒有在嘉靖年間斷絕，而且萬曆以後陸續見諸文獻，入清之後，於乾隆間改名叫做「高腔」，至道光間仍時有蹤跡可尋。又衍生出徽州腔、四平腔、青陽腔、徽池雅調、京腔等派別，迄今猶然潛伏流播於各地方劇種，如：江西贛劇、浙江婺劇、福建詞明戲、廣東正音戲等等。可見弋陽腔在明代五大腔系中，流播最廣，以其俚俗「其調喧」而最為撼動人心，最為廣大群眾所喜愛；也因此，崑山水磨調雖始終為士大夫所倡導以期與之抗衡，實質上仍望塵莫及。

The Yiyang opera became popular at least by the early part of the Ming dynasty (early 15th century). The scope of its circulation included such areas as Jiangxi, Anhui, the Northern and Southern capitals, Hunan, Fujian, Guangdong, Yunnan, and Guizhou. The magnitude of its influence made it the top operatic style in the Jiajing period (1522-1566). The earliest recording of Yiyang style operas can be found in Zhu Yunming’s Weitan (Indecent Talk), which was written during the Zhengde period (1506-1521). At that time, Yiyang opera was on the same par with the Yuyao, Haiyan, and Kunshan styles. Its wide circulation is most likely a result of the special nature of its tunes and the fact that many of the early operas written in this style were well preserved. These early recorded pieces incorporated ballads from “the lanes and alleys” and villages tunes, and used gongs and drums to keep rhythm. They also drew from northern arias, creating “rolling dialog” (gunbai) and “rolling songs” (gunchang), which paved the way for even further creative development in the later Qingyang tunes. After the Wanli period (1573-1620), Yiyang opera started being recorded much more extensively. During the Qianlong period (1736-1796) of the Qing dynasty, the name Yiyang was changed to Gao. Written records of Gao opera can be found up to the Daoguang period (1821-1851). Many other styles were offshoots from Yiyang opera, including Huizhou, Siping, Qingyang, Huichi Elegant tune, as well as Peking opera. Even today, many of its characteristics can be found in Jiangxi Guju opera, Zhejiang Wuju opera, Fujian drama, and Standard Cantonese drama. A look at its composition and circulation will reveal that Yiyang opera enjoyed the widest circulation out of the five main operas of the Ming dynasty, enchanted people with its use of common speech and “noisy” tunes, and was loved by the widest segment of the population. Because of this, it had long been the envy of the Kunshan Shuimo tune, which was advocated by Ming literati but could never seem to overtake Yiyang opera in popularity.