Music Glossary (Part 2)

A. General Music Terms
B. Genres
C. Rhythmic Definitions
D. Melodic Definitions
E. Harmonic Definitions
F. Miscellaneous (coming soon!)

B. Genres

Classical Genres
As I mentioned before, in the Music Vocabulary Glossary (Part 1), What many non-musicians consider "classical music" encompasses more genres than just "Classical".
Music Historians classify "classical music" based on trends in the style of performance and instrumentation through time. The earliest "classical music" could be considered:
Medieval music (Gregorian Chant) (500-1400): During the Medieval times, music consisted of primarily Gregorian Chant, which was generally one part vocal chanting used for the celebration of Mass. Gregorian Chant is the oldest known written form of music. It tends to look like so:

Renaissance Music (1400-1600): Although Renaissance Music is influenced by Gregorian Chant, it marks the end of the trend of single-part vocal music. Greensleeves is a common Renaissance song, and fits the style extremely well.
Baroque Period (1600 – 1760): Baroque means "misshapen pearl", and that sorta fits into the sound of this music. The most famous baroque composers were Vivaldi, Handel and J.S. Bach. The harpsichord (a "plucking the string" piano instead of a string struck by a hammer) was commonly used in this era, as well as the performance of ornamentation. Ornaments include trills and tremolos to add interest to a long note. Vivaldi's Four Seasons is a perfect example of Baroque Music.
Classical Period (1600 – 1760): Classical music is the quintessential beautiful polyphonic melodies with an extreme structure, even each movement of a symphony had a set style and beat it required. The piano was invented and became a common solo instrument; Mozart wrote during the middle of the Classical Period and Beethoven marks the transition between Classical music and the next... Romantic Period.
Romantic Period (1815 – 1910): Wagner and Tchaikovsky are big names from the Romantic Period. Most romantic music was the anti-classical, although some still followed a similar structure during this time. Composers like Berlioz made the ensemble bigger than ever with new instruments. Romantic music tends to be very emotional and expressive of feelings.
Contemporary Period (1900s-today?): For lack of a better term, any music made since the Romantic period that is still in the "Classical style" is considered contemporary. This is the catch-all miscellaneous category of classical music.With such a wide variety of instruments, styles, and melody influences, no one theme explains every quality, although much of contemporary music tends to be "unique" to say the least.
Now, there are tricks using recording and digital audiomakers, crazy arrythmic and yet at the same time in-rhythm (phasing) songs (read about this video and the comments) and even silent pieces, in the pursuit of musicians thinking up something new.


Folk Music
Every nation has its own Folk music. These tend to be melodies that someone growing up in that world feels is familiar and recognize from their childhood, as well as its influences on popular music.
Examples:
American: Shenendoah
Eastern European: Bratislava
Folk Music have had rebirths and became "popular" even in the last century. Ex. Mamas and the Papas

Rock Music
I took a History of Rock and Roll Class last year, and the best definition for what rock music is simple, and this broad definition probably labels a majority of all music made today as rock:
Rock has two components, and usually both can be found in the drums and/or rhythm instruments.
1: The song has an accent on beats 2 and 4 (as opposed to the usual for classical music, accents on 1 and 3). This gives a feel that the song is always rockin and leadin to the next part, as there seemingly is no conclusion (or cadence) as it gets to 4.
2: The song has an 8-beat style beat. This means a pattern of 8 beats can be found within each measure, and considering that each measure has the accent on 2 and 4, it produces a sound like this: dum dum PAT dum dum dum PAT dum dum dum PAT etc.
Early Rock:
Little Richard - Tutti Frutti
Classic Rock: This is actually a radio genre, and is very subjective (as if any other genre isn't? :/ ) Basically, classic rock tends to be at least 10 years old and tends to be the big hits. Ex. Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo - Rick Derringer
Punk: Punk tends to be anti-society, and found its roots in garage rock. However, late 90s found that even Punk Rockers were "selling out" their sound to big name record companies. Punk kings Green Day certainly have their attitude, although their last album did disappoint several fans. The Punk sound tends to be full of active and fast drums, tends to follow a similar rock song-structure of verse/chorus. The lyrics were usually along the lines of I hate authority, I wanna do what I want.
Grunge: Early 90s music featured the grunge music scene: grunge tended to be a little in your face, but also calmness with an edge. Ex. Smashing Pumpkins 1979
Metal: This tends to be loud, screaming, fast, anti-life and culture music spawned from the 80s. Metal has its own sub-genres, but basically to the untrained ear, they all sound fairly similar: sorta like this: All That Remains - Six.
Pop Rock: This genre has been around since the Beatles first did it with songs like Eight Days A Week. Today Pop rock sounds much the same, if not with some more electronic synthesizers instead of an orchestra.
Prog Rock: Progressive rock starts out slow and/or quiet, possibly the most chill and classical-sounding, and then halfway through, the song gets into a whole new groove as it goes through a crazy solo that progresses from groove to groove. Once one has been worn out a bit, the song'll speed up or slow down, add an extra beat here and there, and basically keep unpredictable unless you've heard the song before. Prog rockers Dream Theater do it better than anyone else I've heard. (start at like 3:00 to see the transition)
Electronic Rock: Nowadays, nearly every guitar goes through some effects and sounds and synthesizers, to make the exact sound the musician wants. Most could fall under an umbrella genre of Electronic Rock. However, there are several types of Electronic rock beyond that. There are fully electronic songs that have the standard rock beat through much of the song, compared to a normal rock song and ensemble (guitar, bass, drums, voice) with electronic editing and sound bites.

Electronic Music:
Electronic is another umbrella genre, because, all it requires is that some form of electronics was used to make the song. Therefore, only "acoustic" songs featuring a mic next to an instrument or voice could be considered un-electronic (albeit the microphone would be electronic amplification)
But, there are still other genres that are more specific and unique to electronic music.
Techno: The roots of much electronic music comes from early techno. The normal techno song has each on-beat (1 and 3) hit, while the off beats (2 and 4) get an accented sound. These patterns tend to be very fast in techno. Early techno sounded a little like Basshunter - Boten Anna. Techno is commonly labled as House, and as far as I can see, there isn't much difference. All of it is club dance music.
Trance: Oftentimes confused with techno, but merely it is just influenced by techno. Trance tends to have a 16 beat style beat (meaning every 16th note in a measure is portrayed by something, usually a bass synth or drum), and an accent on each beat (so you get the sound of BOM beh deh deh BOM beh deh deh BOM beh deh deh, etc. Trance tends to be very fast as well, and very good dance music. Oftentimes, Trance is considered "progressive trance", as it goes in and out of the beat and intensity alternating with some calm parts. Psy GOA TRANCE is a good example.
Downtempo (aka Ambience): Downtempo electronica is the opposite of trance and techno, as they tend to be slower and calmer. Downtempo electronic music can sound like anything, and there are plenty of varieties of it in the world already. A lot of good music can be classified as ambient electronica. Here's a few of my favorites:
Aphex Twin - Xtal
Four Tet rmx of Skttrbrain (Radiohead Orig.)
Everything in between downtempo and trance can be unclassifiable, or could fall into many genres. Examples of this include Infected Mushroom's Converting Vegetarians or Ratatat's Mirando.

I will add another post for jazz, blues, or any other genre I can name. Stay tuned for more Music Glosssary!

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Now playing: Aphex Twin - Start As You Mean To Go On
via FoxyTunes