Works Category

I've seen a few posts mentioning the categorization of the subforums. I wondered maybe a completely new categorization can be made, instead of categorizing the size of the piece (Orchestral and Chamber) to a few diffrent genres (Incidental); why not change so that you only have genre. I think it could help the one who gives comments to give better ones since each person favours a special type of genre.

Just a suggestion.

How would you propose to classify genre?

Classical? Jazz? Avant-Garde?

Or would you try and break it down into Romantic, Baroque, 20th-Century, ...

??

Either way, I think it's doomed to fail.

it's ALWAYS difficult to categorize music.

genres have so much "cross over".

and if it's "effort", well, some people can work for months on end on a 6-measure ditty in C major with all white notes for solo recorder, while others seem capable of banging out a 30-minute symphony for 183 musicians in a couple of burps between guzzles of beer and chomps of pizza.

The problem with this, of course, is that someone with less training WILL have trouble with something basic, while someone with either more training or a particularly atuned musical ear will have LESS trouble.

There is also the problem of "resources". Someone with the money for it can get their hands on a pretty astounding set of sample libraries and make even the most trivial, insignificant, little thing sound phenomenal. While someone without the money could write something absolutely breathtaking.... that sounds like utter crap because unfortunately the default MIDI sounds of most computers... well.. sound like crap.

One would NOT be a "major work" except it SOUNDS great (and might look great on paper) while the other sounds like garbage (and the score might be pretty bad also) but might in all actuality truly BE a "major work".

I do understand, just thought that maybe it would be time to change the system; doesn't have to be the suggested one.

The problem with organizing it by era is that not only would we have to sift through the crap we already have on the site, but most of the n00bs I see here wouldn't know the difference between early romanticism and french impressionism if it danced in front of them singing the Portuguese National Anthem.

I know I wouldn't.....I'd be too interested in the wonderful Portuguese National Anthem to pay any attention to music styles :cool:!

Of course, organizing by era also means that when you write music, you are essentially forcing people to choose a style in which to write their piece, or find one that matches their style. As Qccowboy said, there's a lot of "cross over" and it'd be hard to classify all the pieces. I think the way we have it generally works, covering the main formats of music.

I know, I was just qualifying the amount of work we'd need to do if it DID become era-centric.