swansdown Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 I apologise for my inarticulation of ideas. Uncluttered communication is not the easiest thing for me. Takes a while to orient the words. n.n' Does anyone have a good grasp of orchestral music genres and words used to describe them? My Google Fu has been unrather successful in finding genres within Classical music. From reading, I think there are 3 main types of music, but cannot see what falls under 1 of them. (1) Popular Music: pop, rock, country, metal, etc. (I can identify) (2) Folk Music: -search for an ethnic group or instrument- (I can identify somewhat) (3) Art Music: (what genres are in here?) If pop, rock, country, and metal all fall under Popular Music, what genres fall under Classical (or "Western Art"?) music? Searching for 'good classical composers' comes up with widely varying types of musical pieces. Even a site like AllMusic points to dissimilar "Related Artists". For example, Tchaikovsky's related artist includes Bizet which, while pleasant, is not greatly similar to my ears. I've also tried looking up descriptions of composers I do like for keywords for finding similar composers to no great luck. Some of the terms seem to identify what century they lived in instead of what sorts of music they made (eg. Classical, Romantic, Baroque), while other terms are suitably vague and haven't been so helpful to me (eg. Light Music, Dance Music). I'm not expecting to be spoon fed here: I'll read pages on genre terms. Just having trouble getting my footing even after sifting through many pages of information. A simple set of terms probably escapes me. Crossed fingers that someone here will know more. (And I didn't even use a single exclamation mark! ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 (edited) With regards to the generally non-electronic music, at least for me, I learned it in a music appreciation college class. I have an excel file I made that reviewed the whole semester for my final. The ones from there that I recall to be orchestral are aria, ensemble, recitative, minuet (sometimes, such as Minuet in G), theme & variations, concerto, concerto grosso, trio sonata, sonata, minuet & trio, str. quartet, symphony, rondo, chamber music, program symphony, overture, concert overture, music drama (Wagner), tone poem, and incidental music (sometimes). Edited June 13, 2014 by timaeus222 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansdown Posted June 14, 2014 Author Share Posted June 14, 2014 (edited) Oh! Oh! Very useful! Thank you. I've looked those potential genres you list. :3 I have looked up their definitions then compared them to 4 fields: - role - members in foreground (eg. soloists, aria vocalists) - members in background - specific pacing The role is unrelated to genre. (It is related to position of piece or purpose of piece.) Foreground and background membership is related to genre, because it dictates the sound that can be produced by restricting to certain instruments and vocalist types? Specific pacing may be key to genre. Pacing is the type of melody, no? I have written down the following pacing types: - incidental music and chamber music (usually lower key in background) - minuet and minuet trio (a movement in 3/4 time?) - waltz (a composition in triple time?) - polka (in duple meter?) - march (usually duple meter, regularly accented?) - quadrille (alternates between simple duple and compound duple time?) Are these genres? Maybe if pacing type is added to membership type... that will be the genre. Edited September 8, 2023 by swansdown Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansdown Posted June 17, 2014 Author Share Posted June 17, 2014 hmm now I don't think even the underlying pace of a piece (eg. waltz, march) combined with the membership of a group (ie. instruments and vocals) is enough to define a genre within Art Music. Masquerade Waltz Die Fledermaus Waltz Waltz of the Flowers Second Waltz All starkly different in mood despite having the same underlying pacing (or beat?) and musician membership. (I can't be arsed to check, but I'm pretty sure they're all orchestras.) If this were metal, I would try to put them in helpful little boxes: thrash, power, folk... Unfortunately, unless I want to create all those helpful little boxes by listening to thousands and thousands of pieces... it's not of much use to me for finding similar stuff. pah! There should just be an orchestral equivalent of the Encyclopaedia Metallum. *pout growl* :c Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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