Music. I just can’t survive without it. This is a tribute to all those people who have helped me love music as I love it today. Among those are 2 of my best friends and my sister and a cousin. Let’s get on with it already now!
Genres of music are really confusing as many artistes tend to mix many genres into their creations. I am really lost for words when someone asks me to differentiate between different genres of music. Although the distinguishing features are far too many, its really hard to put sounds into words. Making bass noises really sounds like someone trying to convert Morse code into music with extremely poor results. Many-a-times, my friends ask me about the difference between hip-hop and rap.
Now I’d say its easy enough to recognize. Not that I’m a professional, but its pretty easy even for people who’ve heard about these genres for the 1st time. And as my friend pointed out, most hip-hop/rap artistes are African-American (read black). Don’t count me as racist, its really a fact. (Let’s just call African-Americans as AAs, in case anyone reading might be offended by the “black” tag). Rap and hip-hop requires a certain amount of talent with regard to singing to be able to carry it out perfectly.
Rap requires a lot of quick singing/speaking which is really what AAs do best. Hip-hop is really a kind of melodious rap with the singing keeping pace with the tune. Now, I’m really not a fan of rap or hip-hop as i consider the lyrics of most of these artists as senseless and arguably violent. I’m glad I took my friend’s advice and switched to rock from hip-hop. While I really can’t insult any person’s musical choices, I really feel rap and other such genres are detrimental to the moral values of the society.
Now moving on to similar genres like RnB, House, Trance, etc. Most of these are recently coined genres (I guess so). RnB is similar to hip-hop, except that it is more melody-oriented rather than vocals-oriented. House and Trance music is what you commonly hear at most discos and nightclubs. Trance music is a rage nowadays with many DJs cashing in on their sound-mixing abilities.
Now, coming to my favourite genre. Yup, you guessed right. Rock it is. Rock is completely different from the aforemntioned genres. While the others create music from electronic devices along with the traditional ones, rock music is (mostly) based on the combination of guitars, drums and occassionally, the piano. I’d say rock requires a lot more talent than the other genres do. But its just a matter of opinion.
Rock is just one part of the story. There’s jazz, blues, metal, etc as well as pop music.
Pop music makes use of a lot of melodious singing combined with pleasant sounds. It is mostly on the talent of the vocalist that the success of pop artistes is based. Jazz is a version of pop/rock which is accompanied by use of wind instruments like the saxophone, trumpet, trombone, etc. Blues is strictly an acoustic version of rock, thus making no use of electric guitars/ electric bass whatsoever.
Coming to metal. This is the most misunderstood genre of music ever. Most people relate metal to noise. I’d agree to a certain extent. But to a certain extent ONLY! 90% of metal is noise. The rest 10% has some of the best artistes of all time, like Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Metallica, Megadeth among others.
These are the most popular genres in music. I might have missed out some, but please bear with me. The musical choices you make are your choice and your opinion only. Don’t let this article (or my opinion) influence you. The point is to enjoy music, be it classical or just our Masala Bollywood songs. So as John Lennon and Jim Morrison strove to do, enjoy the poetry that is music !
And as Joe Elliot sings – “Let’s Get Rocked”!
The Song Remains The Same 