Music genres

• Middle Ages: Music composed from around the middle of the 5th century to the middle of the 15th century, largely characterized by monophonic and polyphonic music.
• Renaissance: Music largely composed from the middle of the 15th century to around 1600.
• Baroque: Music composed from around 1600 to the middle of the 18th century.
• Classical: Music that was composed from around the middle of the 18th century until the early 19th century. Also used to describe some more recently-written music (neo-classical) that contains many of the same musical elements.
• Romantic: Music composed from the early 19th century to about 1900. Also used to describe more recently-written music (Neo-romantic) that contains similar musical elements.
• 20th century: A wide classification of music composed in the 20th century. This music deals largely with sound experimentation and moving away from the traditional tendencies of tonality.
• Opera, Operette and Zarzuela
• Folk: Musical adaptations of old stories that were passed from generation to generation. Considered somewhat more niche now.
• Rock: Music that originated from Folk and Blues. It used newer electrical instruments instead of relying solely on the classical woodwinds and stringed instruments. It first became popular in the mid 20th century because of famous bands like The Beatles.
  • Grindcore: Grindcore is fast, metal-influenced crust punk, often featuring extreme singing styles, low-tuned guitars, blastbeat drumming and short, high-tempo songs.
  • Heavy metal: Similar to Rock, and generally considered a subgenre of it. It usually uses the same electrical instruments, but the music is more intense and less "pop" in style (see below) such as Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden.
  • Punk: a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock. Includes work by The Adverts, the Sex Pistols and The Clash.
• Pop: "Pop music" once referred to any popular music during the time period, though the term has slowly gained use as a more specific (yet still somewhat vague) genre descriptor for music with a catchy, relatively consistent melody, among other aspects. It is commonly placed as having started in the mid 20th century, alongside Rock music. Much dance music falls under this genre, and much modern Rock music is considered to include elements of it as well, since bands such as the Beatles were a significant stylistic influence on what is now considered Pop.
• Rhythm & Blues (R&B) - an evolving range of genres that first began to develop in the early 20th century.
  • Blues: A somewhat somber, quieter style of music whose name refers to the unhappiness of the performer, and which gained popularity in the early 20th century alongside Jazz, and influenced the early development of Rock music. A major genre within R&B, and one of its earliest genres as well.
  • Rap music and Hip hop - more rhythmically-based, mostly urban-derived genres, with a wide array of subgenres between them.
  • Jazz - an experimental, often brass-heavy and frequently somewhat less-structured genre of music that first evolved in the early 20th century, most prominently followed during the Roaring Twenties but still in existence today.
• Electronica - includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing.
  • Breakbeat - a term used to describe a collection of sub-genres of electronic music, usually characterized by the use of a non-straightened 4/4 drum pattern (as opposed to the steady beat of house or trance). Includes work by The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and Orbital.
  li>Drum and Bass or Jungle - a type of electronic dance music which emerged in the late 1980s which is characterized by fast breaks and basslines. Includes work by Roni Size, Chase & Status and London Elektricity.
  • Ambient - a musical genre that focuses on the timbral characteristics of sounds, particularly organised or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.
  • Downtempo - a laid-back electronic music style similar to ambient music, but usually with a beat or groove unlike the beatless forms of Ambient music.
  • Electro - a genre of electronic music directly influenced by the use of TR-808 and funk records. Includes work by Kraftwerk.
  • House - a style of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, USA in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Includes work by Fedde Le Grand and Frankie Knuckles.
  • Trance - a style of electronic dance music that is generally characterized by a tempo of between approximately 128 and 150 BPM, melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that is progressive as it builds up and down throughout a track. Includes work by Darude, ATB and Chicane.
  • Techno - a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan, USA during the mid to late 1980s. Includes work by Tomcraft, Leftfield and Moby.
  • UK Garage - an umbrella term that refers to several different varieties of modern electronic dance music generally connected to the evolution of house in the United Kingdom from early/mid-1990s. Includes work by T2, The Artful Dodger and Shanks & Bigfoot.
• Reggae - a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady. Reggae is based on a rhythmic style characterized by accents on the off-beat, known as the skank. Reggae is normally slower than ska. Reggae usually accents the second and fourth beat in each bar.Reggae song lyrics deal with many subjects, including religion, love, sexuality, peace, relationships, poverty, injustice and other social and political issues.
• Calypso: A music form that developed in the mid 20th century out of Kaiso music. The genre became a worldwide hit 1950's when the 1956 album titled Calypso was the first full-length record to sell more than a million copies. Calypso's most notable and popular subgenre is Soca music.