It would be nice to see which music genres our community members like and enjoy most. The following poll lets us gather that information. The genres are taken from a very useful website, which I have referred to often in the last year to broaden my horizon.
And now onto the poll and thank you for participating if you choose to do so.
Which music genres are your favorite ones? Choose two to five.
Classical . Medieval & Renaissance
Classical . Baroque + Classical Era
Classical . Romantic Era
Classical . Modernist Era + Contemporary
Blues
Jazz
Rhythm âNâ Blues
Country
Pop (with all its sub genres) . Indie Pop
Folk
Rock âNâ Roll . Classic Rock
Punk Rock . New Wave . Hardcore Punk
Alternative / Indie Rock . Contemporary Rock
Heavy Metal
Industrial . Gothic
Reggae (Jamaican)
Rap
Techno . House
Trance . Ambient
World
0voters
Some genres are grouped together mainly because there is a maximum of 20 entries for the polls. I tried to group as sensibly as possible.
Easy enough for me to avoid all four classical divisions (because others just make the cut earlier) but thatâs not to say I donât enjoy classical too.
Fitting âmusicâ into 20 genres is hard with a capital H given the breadth of the artistic endeavour. I believe the people behind MusicMap, to whose map I linked above, did a splendid job for popular music. The above genres are basically taken from that and squeezed into the 20. With taxonomies, classifications or databases granularity is an important concept. You probably know the term, but for all others it means at which consistent level of detail do I look at the data set. The first level of granularity here would be âmusicâ. The second level would look like âClassicalâ . âWorldâ . âFolkâ . âUtilityâ . âPopularâ (as shown in the music map). I chose to take a third level view. As classical music is such a wide field spanning centuries and thousands of composers it seemed adequate to subdivide it.
If you click into the super genres in MusicMap, you find all the sub genres and how they are linked together. I found that rather nice and educational for myself. Should the poll reveal that we have a large group of people who love one or two super genres, we could do a second survey with the sub genres there.
So, a Western World view on music this is, right? All that does not fit is âWorldâ ⊠I repeat, and I donât like your database granularity, it is ethnocentric:
You donât mean to do harm, but you do. The vast majority of music in the world does not fit in your used granularity.
I like the path the people from MusicMap have taken. Seeing the forest for the trees is crucial these days. Iâm siding with their approach, and am by no means bringing anything new or original into the world - simply using their categories. You find the categories and the reasoning there. Kindly read the texts on the MusicMap site. Those should defuse most of the irksomeness. Oh, and I just remembered a book in my library âA crude look at the wholeâ by John H. Miller. That title sums it up in a way.
Iâm unsure on whoâs behalf you are making that harm remark. Anyway. I donât know, it would be like saying a cancer researcher does harm by choosing to not research alzheimerâs.
Iâm well aware of sensitivities in the art world when it comes to representation across cultures. I followed the career of a prolific African art curator for quite a while. He addressed the issue often in exhibitions. Much more has to be done for sure. In the end we are 7 billion human beings. One family. One earth. Skincolor, country, religion, in-group/out-group all that is ultimately superficial. Underneath we are all the same. I believe you are creating an issue where there is none. A research project like MusicMap needs boundaries to be successful. And they chose wisely as you can read in their âIntroductionâ, âAbstractâ and âMethodologyâ sections. I love to continue but would then ask you to engage with the source material in depth.
So far the only thing that the poll shows is that the average âaudiophileâsâ listening tastes are far, far different than the average music consumer. As of now Jazz is near or at the top of this poll, yet in every listing of music sales over the years Jazz places at or near the bottom.
Iâll keep it as brief then. When you look at both constructs they are not vastly different. The Wikipedia article classification is detailed under regional music / world music, where MusicMap is not. And then MusicMap did not set out to be. Their intent is providing overview and context in popular music, which a very long list can not.
Maybe this is the better way to handle your concern - what list of twenty genres do you propose for the purpose of such a poll?
Why do you want us to vote for mainly âpopularâ music as defined by people from just 1 part of the world? Is your intent not to poll what music dCS users favour, but just to push popular music? I believe your intent is the first, but the classification you have chosen is poor, never mind the bla bla they use to explain themselves.
Anyway, forget it, talking about music is like dancing about architecture. âShut up and play your guitarâ FZ
We can let this rest, sure. In that case only so much. I saw a funny sticker behind the bar in a restaurant I visited recently. It just had one German word: Nörgel
Should we continue, then this:
Well, intent, in case you believe me⊠I wanted to create a fun little topic to breathe more life into the dCS forum music category aside from the wonderful âWhatâs spinningâ list. You know, get to know each others taste, satisfy some curiosity, see how we compare to (âŠyou pick anything). I have no political aims. Also, there is no ambition to create anything definitive. I believe the diligence employed is sufficient for the purpose.
If you say such, it would be polite to provide your reasoning beyond labelling the source as âbla blaâ. So?
You didnât provide a better genre categorisation for the purpose of our current topic either albeit me asking you. Linking to Wikipedia where there are hundreds of genres listed is insufficient. We would need 20, and thatâs the rub and where the (criticisable) work starts.
I reckon I could nörgel about anything given the chance
My biggest complaint this evening would probably be the inaccessibility (to me!) of classical music. Itâs just so bloody daunting. Iâm trying to give myself a decent shot at working out what I like. Maybe itâll be like most music for me â seems like I like a good example of pretty much anything â but the tricky thing for me is working out where to start. When everything that (I think) falls under âclassicalâ doesnât fit width-wise in my iPhoneâs display it makes me long for the simplicity of âthe second track on the new <artist_name> album.â
That could be an idea for a thread, actually: âClassical for idiots like Ben who are trying hard but still coming up exhausted (Concerto No. 1 in E Minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 11: II. Romance: Larghetto)â
(Would the forum software handle it? My BartĂłk struggles with such things )
It is daunting but remember that you donât need to know everything or hear everything. The trouble is that there are around at least three centuries of compositions to deal with to get a basic grounding and that the same work can have dozens of different recorded performances, some of which may provide a key to your enjoyment and others not.
My journey with this genre as a serious interest started over 55 years ago ( and I am still learning) when a flatmate used to play Beethovenâs 6th Symphony before turning in for the day . From there it was an easy jump to the other Beethoven symphonies a couple of years later once I had decided to make the effort. Yes, it does take effort, it isnât really a form of music where listening is something one can do superficially. I think that it also needs some historical knowledge to understand why musical styles change over time and how they relate to the society that produced them.
I think it requires quite a bit of immersion over time with guidance from, say, friends with more extensive knowledge, reading ( e.g. criticsâ reviews) and , if possible, a source of curated listening with a format where you will likely stumble across as yet unexpected works some of which will become your favourites ( I have been lucky to have BBC Radio 3 ).
Unfortunately although anyone with sufficient experience could give you a list of popular classical works with, perhaps, best recordings there is no guarantee that any of them will strike a chord with you. There has to be some kind of link between the music and your inner world and only you can find that.
in lack of friends who are versed in classical music, are there books you can recommend? For me it works well to get into new fields by reading. And I am still at the gates of classical musicâŠ
Also, is there something you can say about the initial steps of appreciation / listening into the music? A lot of orchestral music sounds similar to my untrained mind.
At the moment I chose Brahms as a composer to return to every now and then. His outlook seems to resonate somehow.
I believe the people behind MusicMap, to whose map I linked above, did a splendid job for popular music. The above genres are basically taken from that and squeezed into the 20. With taxonomies, classifications or databases granularity is an important concept. You probably know the term, but for all others it means at which consistent level of detail do I look at the data set. The first level of granularity here would be âmusicâ. The second level would look like âClassicalâ . âWorldâ . âFolkâ . âUtilityâ . âPopularâ (as shown in the music map). I chose to take a third level view. As classical music is such a wide field spanning centuries and thousands of composers it seemed adequate to subdivide it.
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