GENRES OF MUSIC

A Classification Essay

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 are classical 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.
Revised by:
Lagman, Alyssa Noreen R.
AT102