3/5/2013

Essay 7: Classification
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#20 Lagman, Alyssa Noreen R.
AT102
Draft
Genres of Music
Music is defined as an artful organization of sound and silence. Modern artists
also use the combination of music and words to make their songs, and we also call this
art music. In general words, the attitude and tastes to music, and the whole
understanding of music is defined by our perception. Its also a known fact that deaf
people can hear the vibrations of music, and there are several examples of deaf people
who played or even created music.
There can be also outlined six different types of meaning in music. The first is
the general meaning of music, the combination of sounds, it is related to the formal
definition of music and is represented in any type of music; this type of meaning deals
with the impression that music creates in the whole, the way that sounds reconnected
between each other.
The second meaning involves the emotions put into music. The phenomenon of
music is that people from different countries and cultures, people knowing different
languages can understand and feel what the author wanted to express by this or that
song or melody. It is clearly seen in classical music which is usually not accompanied by
words but nevertheless touches the hearts of millions of people all over the world. We
may say that music can carry information and emotions like an international language.
It is considered that music may use associations: this meaning is connected
more with music accompanied by words or images. Once a particular image is
associated in our memory with an image or a feeling, this very combination may cause
the same feeling when repeated.
Music is a certain piece or song that may touch memories of another event or
even piece of music and remind it with similar motives or melodies, in this way an artist
may also send his emotions to the listeners.
The next meaning is related to words that accompany the music: the story of
how composer was feeling or in what situation he was while writing the piece can
change our understanding and impression of the piece; the stories in the opera also
make the meaning and emotional mood of an opera extract closer to the listener.
And finally it explains how words connected with music may change our
perception of it: this meaning is one of the mostly related to modern song writers and
modern music. There are artists who put more emotions and information into the
melody or rhythm of the song, and there are artists who rely mostly on words, in this
case music stands on the second place. With the development of technique and the
possibility of writing CDs more and more artists write songs accompanied with words
rather than purely instrumental music.
These were the general ways of creating the impression in music and passing
the emotions to the listeners that may be used by an artist. There are also different
ways of creating the sound of the piece and creating harmony. Nowadays a lot of artists
use electronic means to create new sounds and their combinations; the abilities of
these means are far wider than the variety of sounds given by traditional instruments,
but live music and singing still cant be totally replaced by electronic means.
During the development of the mankind there have appeared different types of
music, the major of them being: classical music (or art music), jazz, country music, soul
music, punk music, Reggae, dub and related forms, rock and roll, hip hop, electronic
music, electronic dance music, melodic music. These are only the main directions of
music; there also exist a lot of mid-directions which combine the peculiarities of this or
that musical genre. All these genres use their own ways of combining melody and their
own means of impressing the listeners. But all of these genres use the above-listed
meanings of music and all the varied possibilities to create an emotional mood of a
play, song or piece can be classified according to these meanings.