HydrogenAudio

Music Discussion => General Music Discussion => Topic started by: thedodgymonkey on 2009-06-04 00:02:48

Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: thedodgymonkey on 2009-06-04 00:02:48
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!!!
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: ExUser on 2009-06-04 00:51:04
Attempt 1: Classical, Jazz, Rock, Folk, Hip-hop, Country/Western, Blues, Gospel, Electronic, Ethnic
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: shakey_snake on 2009-06-06 08:16:34
Western Classical, Jazz, Pop, Ethnic, Primus

Honestly, I think that's about as specific as genre tagging can get without much overlap.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: onkl on 2009-06-06 13:15:03
Classical, Pop, Rock, Electronic, Ambient/Downtempo
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: ojdo on 2009-06-06 17:43:25
My genres, inspired by discogs (http://www.discogs.com/):

Not free of overlapping, of course, but with enough flexibility to adequately represent my music, audio books, ...
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: TomBarlow on 2009-06-07 23:32:09
Good question... I will probably miss some stuff...

Classical
Jazz
Pop
Rock
Blues
Folk
Country
Electronic
Experimental
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: smok3 on 2009-06-08 08:32:50
as it seems one would just need two;
a. approved by Stereophile magazine
and
b.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: pawelq on 2009-06-08 13:32:02
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).

Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: Axon on 2009-06-15 10:28:06
From there you can use various ethnic/historical/instrumental criteria to enumerate all your "usual" genres (which are typically very pop-centric).
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: WonderSlug on 2009-07-06 05:42:19
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
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: audioapprentice on 2009-08-13 01:56:16
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

Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: Cokemonkey11 on 2009-09-19 06:26:03
Hmm,

Acoustic

Electronic

Mixture

that's 3, but now it's almost like we're not even talking about genres anymore.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: NeoRenegade on 2009-09-27 09:12:47
It really varies from person to person based on what they listen to. For example, I’d tag most of what pawelq listens to (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=72499&st=0&p=640022&#entry640022) as “classical” and he might tag most of what I listen to as “pop”.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: sa_ill on 2009-10-08 08:37:02
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.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: Porcus on 2009-10-08 11:52:01
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.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: Zarggg on 2009-10-08 22:44:52
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.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: Sixth Street on 2009-10-15 02:45:16
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
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: extrabigmehdi on 2009-10-15 04:08:13
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)
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: derty2 on 2012-07-17 17:49:12
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.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 +++++
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: alanofoz on 2012-07-17 23:41:47
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"

??
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: derty2 on 2012-07-18 00:42:40
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.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: db1989 on 2012-07-18 10:56:42
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
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: alanofoz on 2012-07-20 00:26:54
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.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: AliceWonder on 2012-07-21 16:31:19
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 ...
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: AliceWonder on 2012-07-21 16:37:18
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)
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: r0k on 2012-07-22 08:17:08
Wow, that's an interesting topic you unearthed here 
Musical classification is subject to MUCH discussion and i'm not sure it's possible to find one that pleases everyone, especially with so few genres. However, too many genres leads to confusion and unusable classifications so in this case, fewer is better.
Probably, a few genres further divided into sub-genres/styles (when using a good player able to read any tag usch as foobar2000  ) is a good compromise between usabality and diversity.
Here is my personal "about a dozen" genres list.
I purposefully refused to use a "pop" genre because there is no one pop but many pops and they can all fit into other genres. Pop is mostly "mainstream" and as such there can be pop-rock, electro-pop, pop-folk ... The only "real" pop to me is pop-rock as popularised by bands such as the Beatles and this one obviously fits into Rock.
Of course, this is largely biased by my own musical preferences. Other people might not agree to make Metal a main genre but i really couldn't fit all my metal albums inside "Rock/Metal", i have too many, and they are way too diverse.

<dreamer mode on
It might be interesting to gather a "definitive" list of musical genres, and obviously can't be done by a single person. The musical classifications changes from site to site. While it's true that many artists don't really fit well inside a single genre/style. Most have a highly dominent style. It would be nice if every site/marketplace could use the same genres for the same artist
<dreamer mode off>
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: ojdo on 2012-07-22 17:45:10
<dreamer mode on
It might be interesting to gather a "definitive" list of musical genres, and obviously can't be done by a single person. The musical classifications changes from site to site. While it's true that many artists don't really fit well inside a single genre/style. Most have a highly dominent style. It would be nice if every site/marketplace could use the same genres for the same artist
<dreamer mode off>


<thinking type="wishful" mode="aloud">

Please go ahead an try to distill the "intersection" of all those lists:
</thinking>


I think discogs is closest to providing a consistent genre/style taxonomy for most popular (as in "is sold") music, while style is used very loosely.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: AliceWonder on 2012-07-22 22:51:35
  • Religious (no matter the religion)


For a very limited genre list I would just leave Religious out.
Many religious songs are not sung for their religious value. Some listen to them for their religious value but others do not.

The U2 song "40" for example, which is basically Psalm 40 put to music.

It's listened to and sung by many people who have no interest in the religious aspect, while other do.

-=-
For religious music in my collection, I tend to use a second (or third) genre to indicate the religious nature.

"40" is listed as Rock in my collection and has a second genre of Christian Rock (though the Psalms I guess are actually Jewish in origin - I've heard it played on Christian radio, I don't know if it is ever played on Jewish)
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: pawelq on 2012-07-23 15:26:41
  • Classical (not to be confused with "old" of course)
  • Religious (no matter the religion)
[/li][/list]And, where would a mass or a church canatata by Bach go?




Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: Porcus on 2012-07-23 18:52:31
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.)


Well again I would have to ask myself what is the purpose of the taxonomy. If it were for my purposes, then I wouldn't really need to distinguish between Chopin's marche funèbre and Mitchell's military marches. (I would probably have more objections against joining Arnold Schoenberg's later works with his earliest ones.)

If I were to split so-called classical music (Western, and including 'modern classical') into two broad buckets, then one would have to cover the renaissance through the common practice period plus anything composed in those traditions. Medieval music without harmonies and time signatures would be out, and, insane as it may seem, classified together with 20th century atonal music, John Cage and Ligeti's Volumina. Most composer-oriented (Western) music would fall into these two categories.

At the risk of being too eurocentric, I'd put “ethnic” music including non-classical European folk music, into one bucket. Here goes your grandpa's accordion, at least. And so do all the hymns based on old folk tones. The trouble here is the elites' non-folk music, which is maybe just as adequately joined in with whatever the Pope commissioned twelve hundred years ago.

The troublesome part is the last hundred years. Which, I guess – does anyone have a number? – contributes the vast majority of the known compositions, and styles. Problem is to differentiate everything that originates from proto-blues/jazz, which is ... well, the most. And while progrock isn't jazz, it marks a very crucial break away from blues/rock/pop's verse/chorus way of organizing music.


So, here's my attempt:

(1) Western classical from renaissance and up through the 19th century, including modern compositions in the same genre,
(2) Western “classical” pre and post this broad genre (1), e.g. without (or deviating significantly from) the typical organized means of time signature, scale, harmony, counterpoint, whatnot, and possibly including e.g. related sacred music, like Jewish?
(3) “folk” and “ethnic” excluding blues and country
(4) jazz.
(5) blues, rythm'n'blues (not the modern 'r&b' term) ... and soul?
(6) blues/jazz-derived music which is largely rythm-based: Hip-hop. And ... funk? Problem: a “dance” mix of anything else?
(7) pop/rock: predominantly based on blues/country (well, country could go in here). Include also that jazzrock which isn't jazz, progrock even if it isn't blues-based, punk and hard rock/metal. This bucket could need to be split, and I'm tempted to split away “pop which I don't find interesting”
(8) electronic/industrial, starting from whatever is a bit too far out to go in the modern classical genre and all the way to japanoise. Ambient may go here or in (7).
(9) other modern music which doesn't fit into (10)
(10) “non-music” – well, rather than discussung what music is: this would be “sound that isn't supposed to be listened to the way you listen to music”: test signals, recognize-these-animals, audiobooks (one with fairytales for children should go here even if there is a tune every now and then), spoken word and related (a CD from a WWII documentary shouldn't be counted as classical music just because this CD documenting that moustached Chaplin-lookalike, contains no other “music”  than Wagner),



Now ... where to put ragtime?
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: GeSomeone on 2012-07-23 22:51:20
Now ... where to put ragtime?

Jazz would be possible.
It is just a matter to how many genres you want to limit yourself.
The simple solution is what WonderSlug brought forward. Pick (about) 9 genres and have an extra one called Other.

BTW In the album list of foobar2000 you can view by genre and see how much (albums) of each you have.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: Porcus on 2012-07-24 02:34:18
BTW In the album list of foobar2000 you can view by genre and see how much (albums) of each you have.


Yeah ... if you have tagged it with genre. Or if you are willing to trust your metadata provider. Which, in case of freedb, is an anarchy of opinions, and I am not sure whether Discogs is much better.

Just for the test, I checked through my rips, where about 98 percent has GENRE present, the vast majority taken from a metadata provider (i.e. not done manually). Predictably, the more specific the less correct: lots of metal is tagged as Rock or Pop/Rock. Which is of course correct if you consider metal a subset, but it isn't very informative, especially not to someone who has his classical music organized separately.

And nearly 40 percent of my classical music has merely “Classical” as genre. Again, it isn't wrong, but it isn't very informative. Keyboard, should that include or exclude organ? Metadata sources totally inconsistent.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: AliceWonder on 2012-07-24 22:44:16
BTW In the album list of foobar2000 you can view by genre and see how much (albums) of each you have.


Yeah ... if you have tagged it with genre. Or if you are willing to trust your metadata provider. Which, in case of freedb, is an anarchy of opinions, and I am not sure whether Discogs is much better.


In re-tagging my music, I'm seriously considering starting a small database who's concern is quality over quantity.
Actual recording date for the date, ISRC numbers when available, the whole 9 yards.

Multiple genre's will be used. IE first listed genre for Beatles would be "Rock" but they would have a second genre of "British Invasion"
That's how I think genre should be used, not just for musical style but for other ways that people may want to group music.

If it is just me contributing it will be very small and if I open it up to outside contributors there will have to be some kind of quality control mechanism, which I'm guessing will result in nasty flame wars and ugliness. Not sure if I really want to go that route. It's not exactly the kind of thing that is really profitable so is it really worth the headaches? I don't know.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: 53.clubs on 2012-08-16 02:17:37
I love that this thread has gone on for 3 years and has at least as much validity as the day it was started.

For the record, I found this thread because I had essentially the same question and joined the board as a result...

I don't claim to have any particular mastery of the subject, but I see a trend developing that *should* lead to the 'actual development' of such a list - with the intent of 'actually attempting' in some meaningful way of 'creating some form of universal standard' out of it. (Take that 'Wishful Thinking').

It appears to me fairly clearly that 10 is too few for 'all music', but certainly not 'too few' for any 'one of us' specifically.  That is to say, any of us can fairly easily identify each other's 'musical taste' from the list they provided, which by definition would indicate that the list is 'incomplete' - not 'bad', but certainly not 'all encompassing' either.  So, each of us could potentially choose 'our 10' from a list of 30 or 40 that would make up the 'upper level' genre categories.  We might have a little of this from 11 and a little of that from 12, etc., but we would each primarily use a 'portion' of the list for our needs.

It also seems very clear to me that any usable 'genre list' which would have any 'universal meaning' would need to have multiple levels of categorization otherwise, where, really, would we put 'Smokey Robinson' doing 'White Cristmas' on a 1963 Miracles Christmas album or Ry Cooder & Ali Farka Toure, Ry Cooder & Manuel Galban, Ry Cooder & V.M. Bhatt - and how would we relate them with one and other (yes,.. this relationship really is the ultimate purpose, otherwise, creating any set of 'categories' is basically pointless - we can define that using the definition of human perception and understanding).

So my idea is that we target a number (maybe 30ish) of distinct genre's and actually create a list to start from, and break that list down into subcategories - probably 3 deep (less seems too ambiguous and doesn't seem to help the purpose, and more seems a bit unweildy) though I have no marriage to this and might find that more depth in some areas is valuable whereas some areas may only require 2 levels.

One of the frustrating things to me - being someone who listens mostly to more 'commercial music' made in the past 5 decades is that I like to listen to 'Albums'.  Not 'collections of songs, or 'playlists', but full-on, well produced 'albums' that work together as a unit.  This doesn't necessarily mean that they are the same 'type' of music all the way through, or that they have the same performers or composers all the way through, but that they were made to fit together well and someone has taken the time to produce them well, with that idea in mind.  Some of the *most extreme* examples that pop into my head are, for instance, 'Frampton Comes Alive', 'Dark Side of the Moon', 'Abbey Road' or "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", but also the Soundtrack from 'Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?', or Eric Clapton's 'Unplugged' album, or even the Original Broadway Cast's recording of 'Hair'.  Some of these are really great productions, but many of the same 'songs' appear in lots of different places with lots of different performers, some worse, some significantly worse, but also, some quite a bit better (Take Harry 'Mac' McClintock's recorded versions of 'Big Rock Candy Mountain' if you need an example here - with or without the introducing and fascinating, yet breif preceding dialogue).

In any case, I would enjoy trying to put such a list together and attempting to actually 'organize' the pack of free running pigs and kittens....  Clearly I am not 'musically qualified or knowledgable' enough to do it on my own, but a group might be fun...  I know I would expect to learn a TON...

Being that I am here and have spewed forth my fantastic drivel,... I should probably contribute my, albeit frustratingly incomplete yet categorically disconnected personal list - as best I can...

* Blues------
* Jazz-------
* Rock-------      \  yeah,... its big - no, I haven't
* Pop--------      /  succcessfully seperated them
* Country----
* Classical--
* Bluegrass--
* Folk-------
* Rap/HH-----      \ ...  Yeah, try to work those
* R&B/Soul---      /      out with a pencil....
* World------

Its an 'ongoing attempt at organization' - which attracted me here in the first place....
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: majawe on 2012-11-17 11:29:24
Punk...

...and non-punk
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: nastea on 2012-11-18 03:32:25
1. House

2. Other

thats it really 
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: Porcus on 2012-11-18 11:15:21
What about extending these binary choices to allow for combinations? Say, if someone comes up with something the two of you guys recognize as a genre, say “mating calls”:

Genre 001: punk
Genre 010: house
Genre 011: music which is both punk and house
Genre 100: mating calls
Genre 101: music which is both punk and mating calls
Genre 110: music which is both house and mating calls
Genre 111: music which is both punk and house and mating calls
Genre 000: music which is neither
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: Wyld Stallyn on 2013-04-04 16:04:22
I guess I'm a grotesque outsider with my +50 genres I am using.

And no, it's not because I listen to Metal and Rock all the time.


If I had to narrow mine down, it would be Big Ensemble, Small Ensemble, Rock/Pop, Jazz, Folklore, Historical Occidental, Historical Oriental, Electronic.
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: db1989 on 2013-04-05 00:44:47
What about extending these binary choices to allow for combinations? Say, if someone comes up with something the two of you guys recognize as a genre, say “mating calls”:

Genre 001: punk
Genre 010: house
Genre 011: music which is both punk and house
Genre 100: mating calls
Genre 101: music which is both punk and mating calls
Genre 110: music which is both house and mating calls
Genre 111: music which is both punk and house and mating calls
Genre 000: music which is neither
Hilarious po—

Wait.

Needs ternary:

0 = not punk
1 = claims to be punk
2 = TRU PUNX
Title: If you could classify music into ten or fewer genres...
Post by: EagleScout1998 on 2013-04-12 09:08:45
My attempt....

Blues
Classical
Comedy
Country
Easy Listening
Electronic
Gospel
Hip-Hop
Holiday
Jazz
Musical
Other
R&B
Rock/Pop
Soundtrack