Musical genre and classification

[J. Dan]

I've generally been anti-classification and have posted many threads on the topic on the KC. But despite my history playing 80s tribute bands and classic rock, I now spend my time in an original progressive metal band. Metal has a myriad of sub genres. When I try to explain to people what I do, the sub genres are my only way to attempt to communicate to them what I do.

 

So at the end of the day, these classifications and sub genres are all we have to communicate what we feel.

 

How do you feel about genres, sub genres, classifications, etc?

[Joe Muscara]

I agree, I don't like them, but sometimes they're all you have to describe to people what the band sounds like. I remember being in a mall record store looking for the new Van Halen album at the time and being annoyed they didn't have it. Turned out I was looking in the wrong place, it was under Heavy Metal, not Hard Rock, or vice versa, I don't remember. Or trying to explain to someone what Little Feat sounded like, and someone I was with tried to say they were Country. It's annoying, because lots of artists don't fit in those pigeonholes.

[Anderton]

I've generally been anti-classification and have posted many threads on the topic on the KC. But despite my history playing 80s tribute bands and classic rock, I now spend my time in an original progressive metal band. Metal has a myriad of sub genres. When I try to explain to people what I do, the sub genres are my only way to attempt to communicate to them what I do.

 

So at the end of the day, these classifications and sub genres are all we have to communicate what we feel.

 

How do you feel about genres, sub genres, classifications, etc?

I find it much easier to say what something isn't than what it is. I can say something I wrote is definitely not metal, folk, EDM, jazz, or classical

 

Generally I've found describing something in terms of influences comes closer to reality than a genre. I described my album project for 2018 as "EDM meets rock." (I know I succeeded with that goal, because the rock fans said it was too EDM for them, and the EDM fans said it was too rock for their tastes ) But even without hearing what I did, that probably gave you at least some idea of what it might sound like - vocals, guitars, drums, and such, but with a strong dance beat and lots of electronics.

 

I did a song recently that I described as "Enya meets John Bonham." That probably gives you a better idea about what to expect than trying to identify it as being part of a particular genre.

[KuruPrionz]

IMany, many times I've had people come up to me and say stuff like:

 

You play guitar just like Frank Zappa (Hmmm, not sure WTF?)

Thanks for playing that Bowie song (was something I wrote...)

What a great Blues song (Yeah, for a Country Rock tune it was great Blues)

 

And so on. I've long since realized that they just want to pay you a compliment and have no idea what they are talking about. Further, they do not want to know and don't care.

They are just being nice.

 

So I've learned to smile, thank them, introduce myself etc. It used to make me want to correct them, there is nothing positive in that approach.

Improving my acting skills, a good thing...

[Strays Dave]

I've known a few people in the last 45 years (yeah, I am an old fart) who discovered "jazz" and became jazz "onlyists". I call them that because they only wanted to play or listen to jazz. I enjoy and play a good bit of jazz, but I never gave up on other music that appealed to me. I think music can transcend labels if you focus more on the nuts and bolts - harmony, rhythm and melody. But one of my oldest and dearest musical friends said (circa 40 years ago) that playing music other than jazz messed up his jazz chops. I thought this was silliness.

 

Back in early December 2019 I was offer a New Years Eve gig with a jazzer who lives about 40 miles away. This guy can play guitar well. He's about 60 years old. But he has focused on mainly the Blue Note jazz record label material circa 1950s-1960s in the last 15 years or so. When we were discussing music to play, he didn't want to play any of my jazz standards. He called "Over The Rainbow" a little too kitschy. I told him I didn't want to play the gig. It wasn't much money anyway.

 

 

[J. Dan]

Subgenres and examples tend to work best when talking to somebody who is familiar with the genre.

 

Usually the conversation for me goes something like this:

 

Them: What kind of music do you play?

Me: Progressive Metal

Them: What's "Progressive Metal"?

Me: It's like Dream Theater or Sons of Apollo

Them: Never heard of them

Me: We don't tune down and do the cookie monster vocals (growls example). It's more melodic, with vocal harmonies and keyboards and a little more technically complex

Them: Oh. (confused look on their face)

Me: Progressive Metal is to Metal kind of like Rush would be to normal Rock

Them: Oh, OK (not really, just ready to end the conversation, sorry that they asked in the first place)

[Winston Psmith]

@J. Dead - Prog Metal makes perfect sense to me, but then, I'm still auditioning ERG's . . .

 

I run into the same issue when I say Electronic Guitar. Blank look, as often as not followed by "Like Pink Floyd?" or some such response.

[zeronyne]

As someone who deals with classification and taxonomy on a daily basis, I agree with J Dead that genres are both meaningless and incredibly important.

 

I think what most people fail to do is adjust the taxonomy "level" for the audience being addressed. I'll give you a non-musical example to make it more relevant.

 

Conversation with my wife's friend:

"What are those?"

Me: They are little sci fi soldiers and aliens that I paint

"I don't get it"

Me: They are game pieces for a war game simulation played on a table.

"Like Risk?"

Me: Sure

 

Conversation with a gamer:

"What are those?"

Me: They are Warhammer 40k models.

"I don't get it"

Me: Oh, well, they are game pieces for a war game simulation played on a table.

"Like Napoleonics?"

Me: Well...yes. Yes. Like that.

 

Conversation with a miniature wargamer:

"What are those?"

Me: 40k models

"Oh! What faction?"

Me: Dark Angels.

"You mean like Dark Eldar?"

Me: No, that's...[insert geek talk]

 

and...scene.

 

I think the main issue around labeling and genres is the misaligned understanding of how nuanced it is and how much really needs to be conveyed by it. If you replace my stupid examples above with music, the completely musically-unaware person may just need to know that it's "really heavy rock", a casual listener would not be able to handle anything beyond "Metal", and the metal fan may need to know your sub-sub-sub genre (I never knew pirate metal was a thing until I was an adult). And the flipside: is it really important to be that granular? Maybe yes, maybe no. It's all situational.

 

And as an aside, I've always described a nerd (regardless of interest) as someone who cannot filter the information they are providing to match the interest-level or capacity of the listener.

 

 

[Anderton]

Me: We don't tune down and do the cookie monster vocals (growls example). It's more melodic, with vocal harmonies and keyboards and a little more technically complex

Sounds like something I'd like to hear. Any online links?

 

[Nowarezman]

If we didn't have some kind of classification scheme, then it would be yet even harder to answer the question, "What kind of music do you do, actually?"

 

The view from the inside of the musician's head is quite different from the view from outside out there in the general crowd. The general crowd like oversimplifications and the reduction of things to genres - the musician likes recognition for whatever there is that's unique and creative about their music.

 

I wouldn't like a bookstore that just had one section, "Books". If I were a writer with grand ambitions of writing something equal to Shakespeare, 'tho, and the bookstore had a "Literature" section and a "Popular Novels" section, I'd be pretty chapped to find my fine work of art next to "Fifty Shades Darker" in the Popular section. But then so would the person who accidentally grabbed my book, really wanting to pick up Fifty Shades.

 

It's difficult to talk meaningfully about music, except for the most technical aspects. So it's hard also to deal with genres and classifications. But like Chesterton said, sometimes "anything worth doing is worth doing poorly."

 

nat

 

 

 

[J. Dan]

Me: We don't tune down and do the cookie monster vocals (growls example). It's more melodic, with vocal harmonies and keyboards and a little more technically complex

Sounds like something I'd like to hear. Any online links?

 

 

First CD can be streamed free on Spotify as well as purchased on iTunes, Amazon, Apple Music, etc. I came on board at the very end and had little influence and am much more excited about what we are working on now. That said, I'm still proud of the first CD. Seventhofneverband.com

Search Spotify for Seventh of Never. The album is "The Theory of Evilution" (not a spelling error).

[Joe Muscara]

I wouldn't like a bookstore that just had one section, "Books".

Our local record store, which has been around for many many years and we're all very happy it's still around especially after it closed for a while, doesn't have sections except "Used" and "Vinyl." Oh, and "Books." The rest is new CDs, alphabetical by artist.