If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres... Options

[thedodgymonkey]

I am trying to classify all my music into quite broad genres. If you could only have ten or less categories for your music what would they be?
Okay, I don't have any completely bazaar music like a Panda playing The Bamboo Flute or my own rendition of Mozart's 5th using bottles and spoons!!!

This post has been edited by thedodgymonkey: Jun 4 2009, 00:03

[Canar]

Attempt 1: Classical, Jazz, Rock, Folk, Hip-hop, Country/Western, Blues, Gospel, Electronic, Ethnic

This post has been edited by Canar: Jun 4 2009, 00:51

[shakey_snake]

Western Classical, Jazz, Pop, Ethnic, Primus

Honestly, I think that's about as specific as genre tagging can get without much overlap.

[onkl]

Classical, Pop, Rock, Electronic, Ambient/Downtempo

[ojdo]

My genres, inspired by discogs:

1. Classical
2. Electronic
3. Funk / Soul
4. Hip Hop
5. Jazz
6. Latin
7. Other
8. Pop
9. R&B
10. Reggae
11. Rock
12. Speech
13. Stage & Screen
14. World

Not free of overlapping, of course, but with enough flexibility to adequately represent my music, audio books, ...

[TomBarlow]

Good question... I will probably miss some stuff...

Classical
Jazz
Pop
Rock
Blues
Folk
Country
Electronic
Experimental

[smok3]

as it seems one would just need two;
a. approved by Stereophile magazine
and
b.

[pawelq]

I think about seven would suffice. For me ;-).

1. Orchestral
2. Concertos
3. Operas
4. Choral
5. Chamber
6. Solo keyboard
7. Pop-ish (never used, actually).

[Axon]

• Song, in a style suitable for home/personal reproduction with voice and accompaniment
• Dance, in a style suitable for dancing
• Art (that is, music not necessarily meant to tell a story, evoke an emotion, sustain dancing, etc)
• Popular (music in an emotional/understandable style appealing to a wide taste)

From there you can use various ethnic/historical/instrumental criteria to enumerate all your "usual" genres (which are typically very pop-centric).

[WonderSlug]

1.) Pop
Typical Top 40 stuff you hear on the radio. Can also include 80's New Wave.
Examples: Madonna, Britney Spears, Aqua, New Order, Tears For Fears, Duran Duran.

2.) Hip-Hop
Anything old school rap, modern rap, or even gangsta rap.
Examples: LL Cool J, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Eminem, Run DMC, The Sugarhill Gang.

3.) Rock
All types of rock music including classical rock, modern rock, grunge, hard rock, alternative rock.
Depending on how broad you want to make it, one can even include country western and bluegrass, since in a way, they are somewhat really soft rock.
Examples: Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Poison, Seven Mary Three, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, The Scorpions, Rush, Ben Folds Five,

4.) R&B
Pretty standard typical Motown or soul music that isn't hip-hop or jazz.
Examples: Barry White, Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, R. Kelly

5.) Jazz
Pretty much self-explanatory.
Examples: Louis Armstrong, Cassandra Wilson, Robert Coltrane.

6.) Latin
Any Latin artists. Also includes salsa, cumbia, and ranchera music.
Examples: Shakira, Alejandra Guzman, Julio Iglesias, Enrique Iglesias, Alicia Villareal.

7.) Metal
Any metal, including heavy metal, speed metal, death metal, thrash metal, etc.
Examples: Metallica, Megadeth, Motorhead, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Pantera

8.) Electronica
Anything that is mostly DJ made on electronic equipment. Includes Techno, Trance, EuroDance, Goa.
Examples: Astral Projection, Ministry of Sound, Moby. Also all those DJ continuous mix albums, like Armin Van Buuren's "A State of Trance" weekly series.

9.) Classical
Anything regarding the music of the classical composers.
Examples: Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Tchaikovsky, Chopin.

10.) World
Rythmic beats of various non-American culture
Examples: Brazilian Samba, African Tribal, Reggae, World Fusion, Turkish Dance.

11.) Other
Anything that can't be broadly applied to the above.
Examples: New Age, Speech, Language Learning

This post has been edited by WonderSlug: Jul 6 2009, 05:49

[audioapprentice]

I would use 2. For popular I tend to think in terms of era's (eg 60's, 70's etc) more than genres.

1. Popular
2. Classical

[Cokemonkey11]

Hmm,

Acoustic

Electronic

Mixture

that's 3, but now it's almost like we're not even talking about genres anymore.

[NeoRenegade]

It really varies from person to person based on what they listen to. For example, I’d tag most of what pawelq listens to as “classical” and he might tag most of what I listen to as “pop”.

[sa_ill]

Two Genres:
1. Commercial garbage
2. The Real Stuff

LOL

On a more serious note, here is my classification:
1. Rock
2. Hip-hop/Rap/Reggae
3. Jazz
4. Electro
5. Ethnic
6. Classical

This I think is the most general classification of music. Then, say we want to enter sub-genres, the list in never ending. Rock has Experiment, Hard Rock etc etc, Electronic has Fusion, down tempo etc etc.

[Porcus]

I am trying to classify all my music into quite broad genres. If you could only have ten or less categories for your music what would they be?

For what purpose? I split my catalogue into two -- classical music and the rest. The reason is not that Merzbow has more in common with Malmsteen than with Mahler, but that classical music is largely released on a "by composer" basis, and everything else in my collection largely by performer. (Adaptations: Tribute albums -- "all these amateurs cover your favourite band in order to cash-in on their name" -- are treated as if the original were the performer, though. Contemporary composers ... let's say I don't have much doubts on neither Ligeti nor Zappa.)

And foobar2k admits multiple installs, each with its own library. If I had audio books, I would keep them in a third library.

Then I also split the "everything else" catalogue into "various artist" and "everything else" in my directory structure, but not in my foobar music library.

This post has been edited by Porcus: Oct 8 2009, 11:54

[Zarggg]

Change "Electro" for the full "Electronic", because "electro" isn't a genre; it's a buzzword. Add "Metal", because (heavy) metal isn't rock. Reggae isn't hip-hop at all.

This post has been edited by Zarggg: Oct 8 2009, 22:45

[Sixth Street]

I use only 9 genres in my library. Although, there are many types of music I don't listen to so that doesn't cover everything. My 9:

Bluegrass
Classical
Country
Hip-Hop
Jazz
Pop
R&B
Rock
Soul

[extrabigmehdi]

Here's how I would categorize my stuff:

1- Classical
2- Games OST
3- Ambient (drone music, brian eno, binaural beats, sounds from nature etc...)
4- Films soundtracks
5- Pop
6 -Chillout & Downtempo (buddha bar albums, kruder & dorfmeister ...)
7- Dark stuff (electronic, hard rock, gothic, heavy metal : stuff that can be depressing, because quite dark)
8- Miscellaneous (put anything else here)

[derty2]

Genre classes:

         Composed
         Electro
         Jazz
         Popular
         Project
         Rhythm
         Rock
         World

Notes:

Composed is my name for the "high-brow-art performance music" of the western world.
I have never liked the word "Classical" and it also intersects with the name of a stylistic period in time,
and also confuses me from clearly defining modern/avant/experimental sub-classes.

Electro is stuff by people who place importance on mixing sounds emanating from knobs and gadgets.
Kraftwerk goes in here. So does Aphex Twin. So does Techno music. So does Disco music. So does DJ music.
Fo me, the "modern classical" composer Stockhausen also goes in here. So does Terry Riley. So does Brian Eno.
I prefer to place the artists Alvin Lucier and John Cage in "..\Project\Performance Art\" (see below).

I define sub-classes for the Electro genre so that I can relate the artist to other genres and styles and music player library search purposes:
For example, for Stockhausen, the audio file <GENRE> TAG would look something like: Electro > Composed; Modern Composition; Modern Classical; Avant-Garde; Experimental

Jazz is what it is; a harmonic. melodic, rhythmic, skillful and improvisational tour-de-force by "intelligent" musicians

Popular is any artist or group who has transcended their own musical and cultural boundaries to another level of consciousness.
Many of the artists I place here are based on my own subjective opinions.
I place The Beatles in here (and not in the Rock genre class).

Project is a very broad 'umbrella' class which -for me- mops up many loose threads.
I find it difficult to justify having a separate Genre class for many things such as Film Soundtracks, Game Music, Video Productions, Audiophile Samplers, etc.
Therefore I place all these things into a parent class named "Project".

and if we were to look inside my filesystem folder named "..\Project\", we would find these sub-folders:
..\Project\Audiophile\
..\Project\Audio Tech\
..\Project\Computer Scene\
..\Project\Film\
..\Project\National Anthem\
..\Project\Nature Sound\
..\Project\Performance Art\
..\Project\Theatre\

Rhythm is a class I could define exactly like the "Jazz" class (see above),
except it has a looser reliance on the word "intelligent" and emphasizes concepts such as "feel" and "groove" and "culture".
Types of music I place here are "Reggae", "Ska", "R&B", "Blues", "Soul", "Funk", "Rap", etc

Rock is a class which does not really need to be defined.
Musicians in this class like using electric and loud instruments like Bass, Guitars, Drums, Keyboards (and mixing desks).
The musicians in this class also like to conceptualize and create "labels" and "images" for themselves and their output.

World is music and sounds which define a cultural identity on planet earth different to what I am usually exposed to.



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That's it for me; the world of audio is reduced to 8 (eight) genre classes, with hair-splitting differences being done in
the <GENRE> tag of the audio player. Thank God foobar2000 exists, with its ability to split TAG values +++++
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This post has been edited by derty2: Jul 17 2012, 18:26

[alanofoz]

Hmmm...

Examine your lists - how would you classify "Sumer is icumen in"

"The water is wide" (also known as "There is a ship" or "Waly waly" or "Jamie Douglas")

"Scarborough Fair"/"The Elfin Knight"

"The times they are a-changin'"

"Silent Night"

"Happy birthday"

"Three blind mice"

??

[derty2]

alanofoz, are you talking to me?

Is your post meant to come across to other readers as sarcastic drivel, or are you trying to elaborate on something or other?

If this is sarcasm. . .why ???????

If this is not sarcasm. . .then elaborate on your topic so people can get a proper handle on it.
You have listed 8 tracks and you think they are virtually impossible to classify; is that correct?
Instead of just posing a tricky terse question to the readers, why don't you be the first person
to attempt putting a "genre" label against each item in the list, and let's see if we agree.

If I was to attempt a serious answer at your Post #20. . .
What exactly is "Sumer is icumen in" ? Am I supposed to know this item? Should I search Google and go to Youtube to hear a sample?
What has a track named "Sumer is icumen in" got to do with a topic named "classifying music. . .genres" without any mention of an artist?
There is no point moving on to anything else in your list, because the same logic applies.

This post has been edited by derty2: Jul 18 2012, 01:04

[db1989]

That list includes nursery rhymes, occasion-related songs, and a hymn. Rather than to barge in with an unsolicited survey, alanofoz might instead have attempted to be more constructive by asking what you would do with songs of this broad class, which I would label ‘traditional’ or something similar. But, as it is, we have very little to work with.

Back on topic, I suppose my ten genres would be something like this:
• rock
• soundtrack—possibly including (and, in that case, comprising mostly) games, although I might be tempted to reclaim one of the lower-priority slots with Game
• electronic (not including games, e.g. Mega Drive)
• classical
• pop (with much deliberation over artists such as The Beatles, as derty2 already mentioned!)
—and now five that wouldn’t get much use—
• jazz
• hip-hop (note: gangsta rap can take a running jump right off a cliff)
• R&B (assuming this can refer to worthwhile stuff, rather than the truckloads of crap that fills the chart nowadays), possibly incorporating soul (is that permissible?)
• folk, possibly incorporating country (if I ever had any of the latter!)
• and finally, the magical solver-of-all-problems: other

[alanofoz]

alanofoz, are you talking to me?

Not to anyone in particular.

Is your post meant to come across to other readers as sarcastic drivel, or are you trying to elaborate on something or other?

If this is sarcasm. . .why ???????

If this is not sarcasm. . .then elaborate on your topic so people can get a proper handle on it.
You have listed 8 tracks and you think they are virtually impossible to classify; is that correct?
Instead of just posing a tricky terse question to the readers, why don't you be the first person
to attempt putting a "genre" label against each item in the list, and let's see if we agree.

If I was to attempt a serious answer at your Post #20. . .
What exactly is "Sumer is icumen in" ? Am I supposed to know this item? Should I search Google and go to Youtube to hear a sample?
What has a track named "Sumer is icumen in" got to do with a topic named "classifying music. . .genres" without any mention of an artist?
There is no point moving on to anything else in your list, because the same logic applies.

Having looked closely at my previous post I see not the slightest trace of sarcasm. Sorry it struck you that way.

I'm merely trying to illustrate that there are songs that don't seem to fit easily into any category mentioned so far.

Sumer is icumen in is the oldest known song in the English language, you actually may find it rewarding to Google. Perhaps Mediaeval/Renaissance might be a category?? Or Traditional Folk Music. Both categories notable by their absence I think. (I included a couple of well-known examples of Trad Folk.)

Not sure where to place Dylan.

I included Silent Night because I didn't see Sacred Music or similar in any list. Or Christmas Carols?

I also wondered whether Nursery Rhymes rates as a category, and I'm still not sure what to do with Happy Birthday.

I was trying to be thought provoking in a light-hearted manner, not trying to provoke anything else.

[AliceWonder]

I'm iterate when it comes to music history. Just a warning

My attempt:

1) Classical
2) Opera
3) Acoustic Guitar (other instruments allowed, but main thrust)
4) Jazz
5) Rock
6) Rap (probably should include most hip hop)
7) Polka
8) Drum
9) Acoustic Piano
10) Christian Gangsta Rap

OK - I don't think 10 is really enough, and with a limited number, why did I waste one on Christian Gangsta Rap? Gah, what a stupid thing for me to do ...

This post has been edited by AliceWonder: Jul 21 2012, 16:32

[AliceWonder]

Not sure where to place Dylan.

With a very limited number, traditional folk (which Dylan is not) is probably too narrow, folk by itself is probably a necessary one and that's where I'd put Dylan, with such a limited number. In my own collection w/o genre limits I put him in American Folk (along with Woody Guthrie and others) to distinguish his style from European Folk or Latin Folk. So I would put him in a general folk if I was limited to 10 but I would hate to be limited to 10.

EDIT -

Nevermind, looks like the Dylan was in response to someone who left folk off (which, incidentally, I did too)

This post has been edited by AliceWonder: Jul 21 2012, 16:39