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. It’s 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 CD’s 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 can’t 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