I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

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David Polich
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I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by David Polich »

The recent "discussion" about whether DP "sucks" for EDM got me thinking
that I may be at the point where I simply cannot keep up with all the
sub-genre's and genres of pop music anymore. The latest style reference I've
seen? "Braindance" - whatever that is (apparently a sub-genre of EDM).

What I'm more convinced of than ever, though, is that people are too precious
about their preferred styles. For example, it took me awhile to figure out what clients meant when they asked for a "Hoover" sound. Did they mean a vaccum cleaner sound effect? When I finally got an audio example, it struck me that the Hoover sound was simply a supersaw analog synth with a "falling" pitch envelope applied.

I've also encountered these rather funny requests -

1. "That wobbly guitar sound". The client meant a rotary speaker (Leslie)
effect on the guitar.

2. "Snare drum that hits". This turned out to be a sidestick sound that
the client wanted.

3. "Deep, cold mix". The client was asking for just about everything drenched in a long hall reverb.

So many times, these "new" genres are touted as new heights of creativity
when they can really be broken down to simple old-school terms. As in, "house music" has a constant 909 kick on every quarter note, and a hi-hat
occurring on the "and" of every quarter note.

I still don't know what "braindance" is, though.
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billf
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by billf »

David Polich wrote:I still don't know what "braindance" is, though.
There is a band called Braindance. I have no idea if there is a genre of the same name though.
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by stubbsonic »

In the past there were quite a few jazz tunes based on 12-bar blues or the "I Got Rhythm" chord changes. Moreover, in many arenas, jazz was limited to swing beats and bossa novas. I think much jazz still suffers from a similar narrow spectrum syndrome.

EDM is a bit worse with whole "genres" being based on a singular drum beat and a specific tempo. It is incredibly restrictive in some ways. I suppose the creativity comes with choosing sounds and beats (rather than making them).

The technology has gotten more user-friendly, allowing most folks with an interest in making music to assemble elements into 4/4 pieces with simple harmony. Rather than thinking of this as expanding the ranks of artists in the music creation process; in many ways it is an expansion of the ways in which "audiences" can interact and participate in music-making. In other words, technology is blurring the line between artist and audience. I think that's a good thing-- especially if it makes folks more demanding of more advanced artists.

Still, mainstream music seems very boring to me. Let's hope that after a few more years of squeaky clean, auto-tuned, quantized, formulaic music, folks will begin to crave something more interesting and refreshing.
Last edited by stubbsonic on Mon Nov 18, 2013 11:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by Shooshie »

stubbsonic wrote:Still, mainstream music seems very boring to me. Let's hope that after a few more years of squeaky clean, auto-tuned, quantized, formulaic music, folks will begin to crave something more interesting and refreshing.
Been hearing that since I was a kid in the late 1950s. The trouble is that creative people come along, and a new genre is created around their work, then that becomes a straitjacket for all who follow… until someone creates something new again.

I was listening to a Philip Glass symphony the other day, after which I immediately bought the whole album, and was noticing something that I thought was VERY interesting. It resembled another symphonist very strongly: Beethoven. No, the actual lines of the music sounded nothing like LvB, but structurally it was very similar. And that's what a symphony is supposed to be about: structure and how you play off of it. If you ignored the lines themselves, which sounded very much like Glass, and the harmonies, which were again very Glassian (and which are very 50s pop derivative) you are left with structure, and that's what it's all about. That's what Beethoven did. Romantic symphonists tried to make their symphonies about melodies. They nearly drove the symphony into the ground. Moderns did somewhat better, but tried to dissociate themselves a little too far from structure. Again, it kind of flopped. Glass seems to have returned to the structure, and it resonates with your bones.

The point, as it applies to this thread, is that form is important. You can create your own, but it's hard to find a form that hasn't been tried. When it works, you can be pretty sure that you're sitting on the foundations of a form that's been around forever. New genres, then, are probably more about orchestration, lyrics, or just plain cult appeal. But I'm open to anything if it entertains, makes sense, or moves me in some other way. I just don't see any particular reason to name it something new, other than for non-musical reasons. (Branding, mostly.)

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Phil O
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by Phil O »

There are only two genres. Sucks and doesn't suck. The problem is getting people to agree on what music belongs in which genre. :wink:

Phil
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

They're not new genres. They're egotestical [sic] revelations.
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Phil O
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by Phil O »

Indeed!
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stubbsonic
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by stubbsonic »

It is perhaps too easy to take a particular example of something and expand it into a generalization. It is all too true that structure is an important element and is perhaps more difficult to innovate around it. However, similar examples can be found and hence cases can be made for harmony, rhythm, and melody.

To me the important point of this thread is that genres seem to be forming around more and more narrowly confined ideas. Use a particular synth sound for one song? Now it is a genre. And the song, as shooshie so eloquently put it, "forms a straitjacket for all who follow" -- it is a restraint that is voluntarily donned in the absence of new ideas.
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

Current generations have never defined their own art as a genre, that's just egos talking. Future generations define them in context to other art forms.
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by stubbsonic »

Are you saying that when a current generation dubs (no pun intended) something "dubstep" or "grindcore" or "acid dub" or "trance hop", they are not actually naming genres? I think that is what the OP was referring to. Perhaps a different word than "genres". Perhaps "styles", then.
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

gen·re
ˈZHänrə/Submit
noun
1.
a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.
They're describing what they think they're doing. Individuals do not define genres nor cultures. Collectively a civilization does, and usually it's is subsequent generations that view a period of artistic patterns that defines what particular genre is. "They're" (whoever they are) are free to call it whatever they want, but it does't instantly become a genre. They may believe it to be part of a genre, but in and of itself, it is not one and whether or not it is actually a part of any genre is not their call.
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by David Polich »

Well, I dunno - I think I might have to start my own new genre - "Davecore". :)
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

I kind of like Politechno.
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by Shooshie »

David Polich wrote:Well, I dunno - I think I might have to start my own new genre - "Davecore". :)
:mrgreen:
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Re: I cannot keep up with all the new music genres

Post by Phil O »

stubbsonic wrote:To me the important point of this thread is that genres seem to be forming around more and more narrowly confined ideas. Use a particular synth sound for one song? Now it is a genre. And the song, as shooshie so eloquently put it, "forms a straitjacket for all who follow" -- it is a restraint that is voluntarily donned in the absence of new ideas.
Is it so different than defining songs around rhythms or dance steps (i.e., foxtrot, cha cha, tango, etc.)? Perhaps it's the misuse of the word genre, as was alluded to earlier. Maybe these terms are simply attempting to define some aspect of the style, like foxtrot. Technically foxtrot is not a musical style, and certainly not a genre. It's a dance step. But, I can remember a whole bunch of my parents' old 78 records being marked "FOXTROT" and wondering , "What the heck does that mean?" Now I'm hearing terms like dubstep and wondering, "What the heck does that mean?"

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