Definition of Music Genres
These definitions were created to help Music Library volunteers write reviews and categorize/label music. Programmer volunteers have now expanded and opened it up to the general public as a resource for individuals to debate music, which is at best a pathetic attempt to express the indescribable. Nonetheless, we hope that this will assist you in discovering many of the shows that KOOP has to offer, which are always changing and evolving. Of course, there are numerous other genres, including sub-genres of sub-genres, which are always changing. As a result, while this will never be a comprehensive list, we hope it will prove useful as a starting point for your exploration.
Squelching loops from Roland TB-303 synths are featured in this acid house track.
Jazz Acid This style bears little resemblance to Acid House, despite its name. Acid jazz is a genre that combines elements of jazz, funk, house, and hip-hop to create a unique sound.
Acoustic No electricity was used in the making of this piece. Folk, traditional, and singer-songwriter music are all included in this category. Check out TeXchromosome Radio and Strictly Bluegrass.
Afrobeat is a music genre that combines aspects of West African musical forms, including fuji music and highlife, with American funk and jazz influences, focusing on chanted vocals, complex overlapping rhythms, and percussion. Fela Kuti, a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader who pioneered and popularized the style within and outside Nigeria, invented the name in the 1960s. The Africa Express is a movie that you should see.
Afro-Pop Afro-Pop is a broad phrase that refers to a wide range of modern African music styles, most commonly urban, electric dance music. Afro-Pop is a blanket term for the continent’s many unique types, ranging from Algerian rai to Senegalese mbalax to East African taarab. Africa’s 54 countries have hundreds of distinct languages and musical traditions. The Africa Express is a documentary about Africa.
Alternative The terms “alternative rock” and “alternative music” were coined in the early 1980s to describe music that didn’t fit into the mainstream genres. Indie, post-punk, gothic rock, college rock, grunge, and new wave acts, to name a few, were among the several alternative styles.
Ambient Electronic music with an atmospheric feel, influenced by Jazz, New Age, and other genres. Ambient music describes three-dimensional atmospheres with sound, generally without a beat, and it is typically softer than other forms. Fade To Yellow is the title of cheval cheval cheval cheval cheval cheval cheval cheval cheval cheval cheval cheval
Americana is a current music genre that combines country, rock, folk, bluegrass, and blues elements to create a distinct roots-oriented sound. Adventures In Sound, Around the Town Sounds, International Folk Bazaar, The Lonesome Stranger, Pearl’s General Store, The Singer And The Song, Strictly Bluegrass, TeXchromosome Radio, and Under The X In Texas are just a few of the shows available.
Art-Rock Art Rock is a challenging musical genre that incorporates modernist, experimental, or unorthodox elements while maintaining rock instrumentation and style. It was mostly spearheaded in the mid-70s by Brian Eno’s rock albums, David Bowie and Roxy Music’s mid-70s work, and many other artists. Check out Virtual Noise and The Hippy Campus.
Avant-garde music is music that is considered to be at the cutting edge of artistic expression for the period in which it was created, although it often retains its novelty. It’s on the stranger end of the Art-Rock spectrum, and it’s usually tough to listen to for the average person, though that isn’t always the case. Henry Cow and all of their side projects, The Residents and their Ralph Records work from the 1970s and early 1980s, and others are examples. Commercial Suicide, Fresh From The Underground, The Hippy Campus, and Off The Beatle Path are just a few of the titles available.
Punk in the future (See Noise).
Bebop, also known as bop, is a jazz style that originated in the United States in the early to mid-1940s and is characterized by songs with a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous key changes, instrumental virtuosity, and improvisation based on a combination of harmonic structure, the use of scales, and occasional references to the melody. Bebop emerged as a newer generation of jazz musicians stretched the creative potential of jazz beyond the popular, dance-oriented swing style by creating a new “musician’s music” that was less danceable and required serious listening.
The musicians could perform at quicker tempos since bebop was not designed for dancing. Asymmetrical phrasing, complicated syncopation, altered chords, extended chords, chord substitutions, asymmetrical phrasing, and elaborate melodies were all explored by Bebop musicians. Rhythm sections played a bigger significance in bebop groups.
The traditional bebop group was a small combination of saxophone (alto or tenor), trumpet, piano, guitar, double bass, and drums that played music in which the ensemble supported soloists. Rather than playing elaborately prepared music, bebop artists typically played the melody of a song (called the “head”) with the rhythm section’s accompaniment, followed by a segment in which each performer improvised a solo before returning to the melody of the song’s finale.
Tenor saxophonists Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, and James Moody; alto saxophonist Charlie Parker; clarinetist Buddy DeFranco; trumpeters Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, and Dizzy Gillespie; pianists Bud Powell, Mary Lou Williams, and Thelonious Monk; and drummers Kenny Clarke, Max Roach, and Art Blakey are among the most influential bebop artists. The Jazz Show is a great place to start.
