A loosely defined musical genre that incorporates elements of a number of different styles and is chiefly identifiable as having an overarching atmospheric context.
Music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of, Western art, ecclesiastical and concert music, encompassing a broad period from roughly 1000 to the present day.
Classical - Instrument Player
Music played by a solo musician using a classical instrument.
An individual who selects and plays or remixes pre-recorded music on turntables, CD Players, or any other form of electronic equipment for the enjoyment of others.
Any music that challenges the commonly accepted notions of what music is. Some experimental music is an extension of traditional music, adding unconventional instruments, modifications to instruments, noises, and other novelties.
A kind of Christian music based on American folk music, marked by strong rhythms and elaborated refrains, and incorporating elements of spirituals, blues, and jazz.
An alternate form of rock where guitars often serve as an ambient rather than melodic instrument, drumming tends to be dance oriented and the vocals are often somewhat haunting or distant.
Ultra-punk music that took the open riffs of hardcore bands and sped them up with metal influences in rhythm and vocals, creating a roaring flood of negative and fractured emotion.
Grunge music is generally characterized by distorted guitar, strong riffs, and heavy drumming. Grunge involves slower tempos and dissonant harmonies that are generally not found in punk.
Grafts the high speeds of Garage on to bubblegum pop records; it's very fast, very bouncy and extremely high-energy.
Hip-Hop
A genre of African-American music of the 1980s and 1990s in which rhyming lyrics are chanted to a musical instrumentals; where several forms of rap have emerged.
A style of music, native to America, characterized by strong but flexible rhythmic understructure with solo and ensemble improvisations on basic tunes and chord patterns and, more recently a highly sophisticated harmonic idiom.
A form of Drum 'n' Bass and Reggae, that uses Ragga vocals and multiple Raggae and old school Drum 'n' Bass elements.
Latin
Latin music is very diverse in which it contains many genres, with the only truly unifying thread being the use of the Spanish language, or the Portuguese language, in Brazil.
Music originally from Mexico usually consisting of at least two violins, two trumpets, one Spanish guitar, one vihuela (a high-pitched, five-string guitar) and one guitarr� (a small-scaled acoustic bass), but sometimes featuring more than twenty musicians.
Metal
A mix between blues and rock music to create a hybrid of thick, heavy, guitar and drums centered sound, characterized by the use of highly-amplified distortion.
A style of modern music characterized by a relaxing or dreamy texture derived from quiet harmonies and drones, often incorporating synthesizers and acoustic and ethnic instrumentation.
Pop music indicates specific stylistic traits such as an emotional singing style, lyrics about love or sex, danceable beat, clear melodies, simple harmonies and repetitive structure so that people can catch on and join in.
Pop rock songs are identified by their simple song structure, catchy melodies, and repetition of musical passages, and by their use of electric guitar and drums -based instrumentation and a somewhat aggressive attitude.
This music is characterized by strong melodies, crisp vocal harmonies, economical arrangements and prominent guitar riffs. Instrumental solos are kept to a minimum, and blues elements are largely downplayed.
Progressive music is the name given to a certain approach to musical composition that has been applied to several different music genres. It has subgenres that have evolved from their root genre by innovating, either through incorporating instruments from other genres or using new techniques within the framework provided by the instrumentation of the root genre to make a new or crossover style.
Punk bands, avioding the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock, created short, fast, hard music, with stripped-down instrumentation and often political or rebellious lyrics.
This identifies the style of music that combined the 12 bar blues format and boogie-woogie with a back beat, which later became a fundamental element of rock and roll. It also has a slick, electronic record production style, drum machine-backed rhythms, and a smooth, lush style of vocal arrangement.
A variation of rock and roll music which has its earliest roots in early-1960s garage and psychedelic rock and is typified by a heavy use of distorted electric guitars, bass guitar and drums.
A style of music which uses the techniques of rock and roll to compose a softer, supposedly more ear-pleasing sound for listening, and focusing in very general language on themes like love, everyday life and relationships.
A musical genre which evolved from emo, post-hardcore, more specifically hardcore emo in the early 1990s characterized by screaming vocals, harmonized guitars, and fast-paced riffs.
Jamaica-originated music that combines elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. It's characterized by a walking bassline, a scratchlike tempo, accented guitar or piano rhythms on the offbeat; and in some cases, jazz-like horn riffs.
A subgenre of rock music that developed in the South of the United States from Rock and Roll and Blues, with a slight influence from Country and folk, and is focused generally on electric guitar and vocals.
The instrumental is generally dance music of medium to fast tempo, with electric guitars dominating the sound.. This genre is associated with the surf culture that has three main subgenres: Instrumental, Surf pop, and Surf rock.
Features an abundance of percussive, synthetic sounds, studio effects used as principal instrumentation, and, usually, a regular, 4/4 beat usually in the 130/hyphy 140 bpm range. Some Techno compositions have strong melodies and baselines.
A style of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s. Trance music is generally characterized by a tempo of between 130-160 bpm, featuring repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and down throughout a track, often crescendoing or featuring a breakdown.
Trip Hop is downtempo electronic music that grew out of England's hip hop and house scenes, often characterised by a reliance on breakbeats and sample-heavy, often moody sound.
Music from cultures other than those of Western Europe and English-speaking North America, especially popular music from Latin America, Africa, and Asia.