Music Genre Chart

Edit: Please see this

I need help with a few things. I need a list of music styles and music eras. This list has to be as comprehensive as possible, and we can always add to it later.

An example of a music form: sonata, etude, waltz, ballade, tone poem, scherzo, free form, etc...

An example of an era, or genre: Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Contemporary, etc...

I need to cover most possibilities. Thanks!

you mean like a Dictionary or terms ? ... :hmmm: like this ?

Prelude

Postlude

Interlude

Prelude and Fuge

Fuge

Toccata

Toccata and Fuge

Etude

Piece

Piece Lyric

Suite

Suite Lyric

Sonata

Sonatina

Ballade

Symphony

Symphonic Poem

Symphonic Fantasy

Tone Poem

Overture

Improptu

do I continue ?

There are a lot of lesser-known "styles" in good ol wikipedia. Category:Western classical music styles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Okay....let's do this in a more structured manner, so we can catch them all.

Anyone remember the "Top-100 whatchamacallits" threads we went through a while back? Just like that.

Take the list, copy it, add to it, post it. Next person does the same. Keep it in alphabetical order or I will ban you.

Here's a starting point, off the top of my head:

GENRES:

20th-Century

Adult Contemporary

Ambient

Baroque

Bebop

Dixieland / Trad-jazz

Delta Blues

Classical

Country & Western

Dance / Techno / House

Disco

Drum n' Bass

Electronica

Emo

Folk

Free-Improvisation

Free-Jazz

Funk

Hard Bop

Heavy Metal

Klezmer

Minimalist

Opera

Pop

Pop-rock

Post-bop / modern jazz

Prog-Rock

Punk

Reggae

Ragtime

Rap

R & B

Rock

Rock n' Roll

Romantic

Salsa / Latin

Smooth Jazz

Swing

....

Now, GO!

Yes yes, this is what I need. @ SYS65, that sounds about right for forms (although they have to be playable styles, not dictionary terms). I don't expect to catch everything, but I am hoping to catch most Genres. Then I need to capture most Styles. This little "game" that Robin created may sound silly, but this is actually very important.

Anything missed, can be added later in the future.

GENRES:

20th-Century

Adult Contemporary

Ambient

Anti-Folk

Baroque

Bebop

Blues

Dixieland / Trad-jazz

Delta Blues

Death Metal

Classical

Country & Western

Dance / Techno / House

Disco

Drum n' Bass

Electronica

Emo

Folk

Free-Improvisation

Free-Jazz

Funk

Hard Bop

Heavy Metal

Klezmer

lo-fi

Math Rock

Metalcore

Minimalist

Opera

Pop

Pop-rock

Post-bop / modern jazz

Prog-Rock

Punk

Reggae

Ragtime

Rap

R & B

Rock

Rock n' Roll

Romantic

Salsa / Latin

Screamo

Smooth Jazz

Swing

Side note @ Chopin.

Just how specific do you want this?

Do you want: "Latin" ...or... "Rhumba" "Guanuanco" "Salsa" "Cha-Cha" "Samba" ....

Do you want: "Electronic Dance" ...or... "House" "techno" "Rocktronica" "Trip-hop" "Dub-step" "Breakbeat" ... ??

Just curious...because, we can fragment these styles all day long, but a lot of them won't matter.

:hmmm:

I made my additions bold...

GENRES:

20th-Century (this is technically an 'Era' of musical styles/genres, not a Genre)

Adult Contemporary

Aleatory

Alternative Rock

Ambient

Anti-Folk

Baroque

Bebop

Blues

Dixieland / Trad-jazz

Delta Blues

Death Metal

Classical

Country & Western

Dance / Techno / House

Disco

Drum n' Bass

Electronica

Emo

Ethnic/Ethnicism

Expressionism

Folk

Free-Improvisation

Free-Jazz

Free-Tone/Free-Atonal

Funk

Futurism

Hard Bop

Heavy Metal

Impressionism

Industrial/Industrial Techno

Klezmer

lo-fi

Math Rock

Metalcore

Minimalism

Modernism

Neo-Classicism

Opera

Pop

Pop-rock

Post-bop / modern jazz

Post-Minimalism

Post-Modernism

Post-Romanticism

Prog-Rock

Punk

Reggae

Ragtime

Rap

R & B

Rock

Rock n' Roll

Romantic

Salsa / Latin

Screamo

Smooth Jazz

Spectral

Swing

Techno

Trance

OK, so I Continue

Serenade

Song

Rhapsody

Concerto

Concertino

Symphony Concertante

Concerto Grosso (well a bit old ....)

Symphonietta

Fantasy

Intermezzo

Variations

Theme and Variations

Choral

Hymne

Dance(s)

March

Funebre March

Symphonic Movement

Capriccio

Opera

Operetta

Aria

Duo, Trio, Cuarteto, (etc)

Arabesca

Messe

Religious terms like, Miserere, Ave Verum, Te Deum ...uuuuuu many more)

Terms like Adagio, Andante, Allegro (sometimes used as "Adagio for Strings" )

I come back when I recall more....

Does anyone know how to categorize music properly once we reach the more modern genres? As of now, we are categorizing music by:

1. Genre
   
2. Style or Form
   
3. Instrumentation (based on our upload forums)
   
4. Is a piece a movement?
   
5. Key Signature, if any.

Numbers 1 and 2 can become tricky once we get into the mid to late 20th century, and even more confusing in the 21st century. For example, can the Genre Pop have a Style or Form associated with it? If so, what? If not, are there any suggestions on how I would categorize music of the mid to late 20th century, such as Pop, Pop Rock, Rock, Metal, Jazz, Blues, etc?

Also, if there are more suggestions on how to categorize music uploads please let me know your ideas.

You might do better to have the instrumentation and broad genre be the main groupings, and then have something like pandora for suggested music... That way people interested in a given style will be able to grow and learn something from the site, instead of grouping it by self-identified characteristics.

allmusic's genres are pretty good.

Wikipedia's also got a humongous list that'll have similar biases to this list.

I'm not sure how to approach this, there seems to be too many genres and sub genres (for example, ragtime is a sub-genre of Jazz, but I may call Jazz and Ragtime top level genres for simplicity). The way I currently have this set up, is that a user can input a genre by typing it into a text field. I wanted to have set values, so that there is no chance the autogen directory would be messy.

I think certain forms, such as "sonata, or etude" only apply to Western Classical Music. Since 95% of our current user base composes this type of music, I feel a text box for "form" should also be a category. This is the list that I need, I feel Wikipedia's list is too vague. I can use Wikipedia's list for genres, it seems comprehensive enough.

You might try allowing MORE than one genre... So that they can apply more than one.

Like tags... people search for Ragtime, they will find the Ragtime... they search for Ragtime and Jazz, they get the ones that fit BOTH descriptions.

I will have it that if someone chooses ragtime, they will automatically be found for Jazz, so that will be taken care of. I have an idea of what I will do. It looks like I have to create a chart with Genres and Subgenres. Then for the "Classical" genre, that will get its own category for form.

The Wikipedia entries confuse me though. They list these as top level genres:

• Classical Music (Art Music) - this will contain all the music 95% of us compose on this site, at least, to this date.
  
• Traditional Music (I will probably omit this category)
  
• Popular Music
  
• Blues
  
• Country
  
• Electronic
  
• Folk
  
• Heavy Metal
  
• Hip Hop
  
• Jazz
  
• Reggae
  
• Rock

What I am confused about, is that Blues, Country, Electronic, Folk, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Jazz, Reggae, Rock are put under Popular Music as well. But they are listed as a top level according to Wikipedia. How could they be both a top level and subgenre of Pop at the same time? For example, I am not sure if I should have 2 top level Genres:

• Classical
  
• Popular Music

And the Subgenres for Pop would be Blues, Country, Electronic, Folk, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Jazz, Reggae, Rock. The Subgenres for Classical would be Classical, Romantic, Impressionist Music, Minimalist Music, etc.

Or should I have Blues, Country, Electronic, Folk, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Jazz, Reggae, Rock as top level genres, along with Pop, and Classical?

Also, since YC will be categorizing works more effectively, does our current upload forum structure make sense? For example, I am thinking we should break the forums by instrumentation. I am going to have many of you observe the structure of the network before we go live, because I want this to make sense. For example, our upload forums are inconsistent. Orchestral & Large ensemble, chamber, choral/vocal, piano/keyboard all indicate instrumentation, but Incidental/Music & Soundtracks, Jazz, Band, Pop/Rock do not indicate instrumentation, they indicate genres instead. So this is a case of inconsistency we have had all this time! :facepalm:

And remember, with the new generation of YC, we want to accommodate for all types of music, not just classical.

I feel Jazz&Blues is its own category, which would include Ragtime, Reggae, etc. But that's me. And I think that's the biggest issue with what you're talking about -- how i group the genres won't be how everyone does. Maybe a tag-based system would work better? But then, you'd need a tag relation system so that Jazz and Funk end up in the right subgrouping....

As to "pop" covering rock, etc... you'd have to set arbitrary distinctions...

Can anyone here help me with my genre chart? I referenced wikipedia for the information, but I would like to have a few eyes look over the chart. I broke up genres by using two top level categories, Art Music, and Popular Music. Art music contains the European Classical Music movements. Popular Music contains most commercial music, such as Blues, Rock, Pop, etc. Each Genre has a subgenre, and even a sub-sub genre.

I need this chart to be as accurate as possible. It has to cover most music that our current user-base composes in, but it also has to cover other popular genres for our future user-base.

I will share the doc file in Google docs, so for those of you who want to help me, please click here and start editing the genre chart!

I made editing public, so I would need a list of people who are helping me work on this chart, and please make any edits in RED.

I have a huge moral problem calling "art music" by that term. Can we just keep it at "classical" or "modern classical" if you will? I mean, it's already in parentheses.

Looks fine to me, honestly you won't cover them all, and I think you should have a write-in section that adds to the list, even once it's up and running. (basically a "if you can't find it, we'll make a spot for you")

A few thoughts: the group of 6 was more of a "school" than a genre; no one will write in that style again.

NJ Shore sound -- lol.

I have a huge moral problem calling "art music" by that term. Can we just keep it at "classical" or "modern classical" if you will? I mean, it's already in parentheses.

Not to derail, but care to explain? I find "art" music much more broad and covers nonwhite musics.

I'm wondering if we should expand on the "Classical Music (Art Music)" category. After all, this is the group that will get the most attention during during the first year of the network, I am sure.

MAIN genres:

• Classical Music (Western composer stuff) Search by one of three criteria:
  
  • Era/Style
    
    • Contemporary
      
    • 20th century
      
    • Romantic
      
    • Classical
      
    • Baroque
      
    • Renaissance
      

    [*]Form

    • Symphony
      
    • Sonata
      
    • Tone Poem
      
    • Minuet
      
    • Sarabande
      
    • Scherzo
      

    [*]Instrumentation

    • Orchestra
      
    • Wind band
      
    • Choral
      
    • String quartet
      
    • Wind quintet
      
    • Instrumental solo
      
      • Keyboard
        
      • Woodwind
        
      • Brass
        
      • String
        

  [*]Popular Music (stuff like guitars, annoying singing and all that =D)

  • Rock
    
    • metal
      

    [*]Pop

    [*]Electronic

    • techno
      

    [*]Folk

    • country
      
    • bluegrass
      

    [*]Hip Hop/Rap

  [*]Jazz (blues, ragtime, "jazz")

  [*]World (eastern music, ethnic styles (klezmar, romanian folk music, celtic, ect))

  [*]Incidental Music (Marius-stuff)

Is that any better? :veryunsure:

^^^^^

James nails it.

THAT makes perfect sense.

I think any reference to "form" (i.e. structure - Sonata form etc...) or "key" are irrelevant and useless as factors for categorizing the music.

James's'ss FIVE categories make it quick and easy to refine your focus...

I refined my list up there. Understanding that any piece of music can smear between several of the finer delineations, make it possible for a user to select several. For example, if a piece could be categorised under "romantic style" and "20th century" at the same time. Most of my own music does this. It's not one thing, but sort of a mild mixture of a few indicators. Also, make it an OPTION to select these finer categories, rather than making it mandatory for each piece submitted.

I also need your help on our forum structure. I suggest you go onto our test site, sign up, and upload music. You will see a drop down. The drop down choices correspond to where the music will be posted in the forums. The forum names should be categorized by popular instrumentation. This would serve as your instrumentation category:

For example:

• Orchestra
  
• Wind band
  
• Choral
  
• String quartet
  
• Wind quintet
  
• Instrumental solo
  • Keyboard
    
  • Woodwind
    
  • Brass
    
  • String

Each of the above should be a forum category. If you play around with the test site, you will start to understand what I mean.

And you know what, I probably will have this "chart" as an aid somewhere on this site, so people can understand how to categorize their music. Proper categorization is going to play an important role on YC.

Categorizing music will be optional, however "strongly" encouraged. It will improve visibility, so that people who are looking for your particular style, can find you!

I think any reference to "form" (i.e. structure - Sonata form etc...) or "key" are irrelevant and useless as factors for categorizing the music.

I don't think so, it helps those who are looking for particular "moods" or "forms" find the music they wish to find. The goal of YC is to help aid people with similar interests in finding YOUR music easier.