What is the difference between style and genre in music

In music, a genre is when we broadly categorize different music pieces which have the same conventions and traditions. On the other hand, the style often refers to specific elements found either in a piece of music or across similar genres. Genre is defined by the common song structures, musical elements and techniques, cultural context, geographical origin, and themes or sounds. They can be further divided into subgenres. One of the broadest genres of music is popular music.

This refers to all music that is commercially available to the masses. Popular music can further be divided into genres such as rock, punk, metal, jazz, electronic, country, blues, hip hop, etc. Another broad genre of music in the cultural context is religious music. The style eventually spread to neighboring States, such as Georgia mainly Atlanta and the Carolinas as well as other nearby States.

Beatbox Releases Beatboxing is using the human voice to mimic electronic percussion and record scratching. The Beatbox tag can be applied to any hip-hop music which features this vocal style. Fresh and The Get Fresh Crew.

It is also a popular musical style in culturally related neighboring Kenya. Boom Bap 14, Releases Boom bap is a style of production in hip-hop music. Although it is still made, boom bap is no longer the dominant style of hip-hop production, remaining somewhat prominent in alternative hip hop but rarely appearing in Top 40 hip hop singles.

Most other hip-hop beats has even eighth and sixteenth notes, but many examples of boom-bap are only even at the quarter note level — the eighth notes may be offbeat.

This could be said about 90s hip-hop in general though. Boom-bap beats are most often funky. Often, a boom-bap measure is just quarter notes kick-snare-kick-snare. Eighth-notes are less emphasized but are crucial to making the boom-bap sound because they are placed offbeat to create that drunken or trippy quality. They tend to be very close to the upbeat of the note it picks up to, especially noticeable in the kick drum.

Sometimes the note it picks up to is even substituted completely by the pick-up note. Bounce 2, Releases Bounce is a sub-genre of rap that started in the projects of New Orleans, Louisiana. The majority of crews came from the UK but the main market appeared to be the European mainland, especially Germany and Switzerland. The Britcore style was adapted by bands from other countries, mainly Germany and The Netherlands but there also have been bands in Switzerland, Belgium and other European countries, such as Sweden or Norway.

The lyrics are mostly in English, even from those crews not being from the UK. But there has been a minority of crews rapping in their native language, for example in Dutch or German.

Due to the internet and the ability to bundle the interest in Britcore there has been a little revival of Britcore and old crews revived new releases of Killa Instinct, Dookie Squad, The Criminal Minds, Hideouz Newcome, Suspekt to name a few as well as a few new bands were formed and Jams appeared all over Europe. From back then up to today, Britcore stands for originality, unwillingness to compromise and riotousness.

The lyrics were higher-than-average political, sociocritical and often based on the movie theme that was used horror, war etc. A Britcore groups appearance can be very militant. At all Britcore is way more aggressive, more dark and way faster than other Hip Hop. Lyrics are used to create consciousness and awareness with the audience.

Often themes are relating to community, spirituality, economics, and politics, sometimes with underlying elements of activism, and on the other end, humour. Generally stemming out a desire for positivity, and to change the prevailing socio-economic structure.

Conscious music seeks to inspire its listeners, particularly youth, for positive awareness in their lives and the world we share, if not for action, then simply for awareness through the dopest music without negative messages. This classic American artform stems from the blues with rich detailed wordplay about personal growth, determination, and overcoming great obstacles, storytelling about injustice, self respect, making mistakes, growing, and sharing of knowledge to raise people up.

Crunk 3, Releases Crunk is a subgenre of hip hop music that emerged in the early s and gained mainstream success during the mid s. An archetypal crunk track frequently uses a main groove consisting of layered keyboard synths, a drum machine rhythm, heavy basslines, and shouting vocals, often in a call and response manner. He later released other songs and albums using the term, and has been credited by other artists and musicians as galvanizing use of the term as well as mainstreaming the music genre itself.

Lil Jon further popularized the word with his album Crunk Juice, and has been credited with inventing the potent alcoholic cocktail by that name. Non-alcoholic drinks, to which alcohol could be added, were manufactured and marketed under the Crunk brand name, with Lil Jon as spokesman. The term has continued to evolve, taking on a negative stigma with police, parents and the media. This drink was allegedly marketed towards to year-olds — those under the US legal drinking age — resulting in Crunk Juice drinking being blamed as a cause of crime or becoming a victim of crime.

Crunk music arose from Miami bass music before in the southern United States, particularly in African American strip clubs of Memphis, Tennessee. This duo soon became known as Three 6 Mafia. Frequently featuring rappers such as Project Pat, Lord Infamous, and Gangsta Boo on their releases, they became instrumental in the formation of crunk music. He was one of the key figures in popularizing crunk during and , and produced two gold records independently, before signing to TVT Records in Nevertheless, crunk was not exclusively associated with Lil Jon and Three 6 Mafia.

It can also refer to recordings of turntablism or otherwise recordings where the DJ is taking an active role of cutting up, mixing and blending songs. Although originated in Rio, favela funk has become increasingly popular amongst working classes in other parts of Brazil. In the whole country, funk carioca is most often simply known as funk, although it is very different musically from what funk means in most other places.

G-Funk 9, Releases G-funk, or gangsta-funk, is a subgenre of hip hop music that emerged from West Coast Gangsta rap in the early s, heavily influenced by s funk sound of artists such as Parliament-Funkadelic. Originating in Los Angeles, California in the early nineties, G-funk which uses funk with an artificially altered tempo incorporates multi-layered and melodic synthesizers, slow hypnotic grooves, a deep bass, background female vocals, the extensive sampling of P-Funk tunes, and a high-pitched portamento saw wave synthesizer lead.

The lyrical content depended on the artist and could consist of sex, drugs, violence, vandalism and women, but also of love for a city, love for friends and relaxing words.

Unlike other earlier rap acts that also utilized funk samples such as EPMD and The Bomb Squad , G-funk often utilized fewer, unaltered samples per song. Dre, a pioneer of the G-funk genre, normally uses live musicians to replay the original music of sampled records.

This enabled him to produce music that had his own sounds, rather than a direct copy of the sample Gangsta 59, Releases Gangsta rap or gangster rap also referred to as reality rap by its performers is a style of hip hop music whose themes and lyrics primarily deal with the gangster lifestyle.

Hardcore Hip-Hop 22, Releases Aggressive lyrics and dirty sound beats characterize this kind of Rap. But the one that stands out in particular is that Hardcore rappers follow a discipline dictated by themselves and keep us representing it best. The dissing is very common, where a rapper devastates another rapper with extremely sharp rhymes to show which is the superior technique. Lyrical themes include violence, prostitution, selling drugs, criminal activity, religion in blasphemy term , and government conspiricies.

They see violence not as a crime but as a simple confrontation, who loses die who wins survive. Hardcore is a lifestyle. Hiplife Releases Hiplife is a musical style from Ghana West Africa that fuses Ghanaian highlife music with hip hop. Recorded predominantly in the Ghanaian Akan language, hiplife gainined popularity throughout West Africa and abroad, especially in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and the Netherlands, where the Ghanaian diaspora can be found.

Highlife music evolved in the seventies and early eighties, when people began fusing traditional Akan folk music with Western pop-music, using Western instruments. Horrorcore 6, Releases Horrorcore is a subgenre of hip hop music whose lyrics depict acts of horror, such as murder and violence. It derived from gangsta rap and hardcore rap.

It openly references horror works of art, such as slasher films and horror stories. More specifically it is an adjective describing the music and the culture associated with that area.

The term was first coined by Oakland rapper Keak da Sneak. It is distinguished by gritty, pounding rhythms, and has been compared to crunk music. Those who consider themselves part of the hyphy movement strive for this behavior. Originating in Northern California, specifically the Bay Area, the act is commonly related to the culture surrounding the Hyphy movement. Instrumental 48, Releases Instrumental hip hop is hip hop music without vocals. The artist who crafts the beat is the producer or beatmaker , and the one who crafts the rap is the MC emcee.

In this format, the rap is almost always the primary focus of the song, providing most of the complexity and variation over a fairly repetitive beat. Instrumental hip hop is hip hop music without an emcee rapping. This format gives the producer the flexibility to create more complex, richly detailed and varied instrumentals. Songs of this genre may wander off in different musical directions and explore various subgenres, because the instruments do not have to supply a steady beat for an MC.

The Mix-Up is the seventh studio album by the Beastie Boys, released in The album consists entirely of instrumental performances and won a Grammy Award in for Best Pop Instrumental Album. Due to the current state of copyright law, most instrumental hip-hop releases are released on small, independent labels. Producers often have difficulty obtaining clearance for the many samples found throughout their work, and labels such as Stones Throw are fraught with legal problems.

Sound could be described as having a mellow or laid back feel. Later releases began to use live instrumentation over sampled loops. Lyrical content often sides on more Afrocentric and racially positive subject matters.

It often features some typical reggae tinges and includes traditional African beats or samples. Popular amongst the largely black township dwellers, this musical style is slowly spreading overseas. The style developed in the late nineties when artists such as HHP and Baphixile started rapping in their native Setswana language.

The lyrics are often lighthearted, with choruses similar to those heard in pop music. Later, rap artists such as Tone Loc, Young MC, and Fresh Prince then made songs with lots of party tunes and storytelling abilities as they became very popular. By the end of the s and early s rappers such as Ja Rule fused gangsta rap themes with s pop and soul elements; pop-rap was dominated by many artists. During the early s, pop-rap returned with a whole different style.

During the late s, pop-rap had many artists such as Drake, will. Please consider using either of those two styles instead. Screw 4, Releases Chopped and screwed very rarely also called screwed and chopped or slowed and throwed , is a technique of remixing hip hop music which developed in the Houston hip hop scene in the early s.

DJ Screw is largely recognized as the innovator behind the chopped and screwed genre. This created an effect where the words or beats in a song were repeated without interrupting its tempo.

In Houston, a different approach of slowing music down, rather than speeding it up, developed. There is no debate, however, that DJ Screw invented the music style. This eventually led to the formation of the Screwed Up Click. Between and , there was a large increase in use of purple drank in Houston.

Purple drank has been considered to be a major influence in the making of and listening to chopped and screwed music due to its perceived effect of slowing the brain down, giving slow, mellow music its appeal. DJ Screw, however, repeatedly denounced the claim that one has to use purple drank to enjoy screwed and chopped music.

Screw, a known user of purple drank, said he came up with chopped and screwed music when high on marijuana. Purple drank was very popular in Houston because of two factors; a lot of strict drug laws in Texas kept the more popular drugs like cocaine and marijuana from crossing state lines which spared Houston the worst effects of the crack epidemic, and the cheap availability of cough syrup in supermarkets in the s.

In the late s, with the help of P2P groups such as Napster, chopped and screwed music spread to a much wider audience. The style is named after the spaza shops, informal corner stores on the flats, where often times rappers can be found performing with lyrics in a mix of Xhosa and township slang.

The style has since gained nationwide popularity with some artists even achieving International acclaim and touring overseas. Thug Rap 21, Releases Lyrics describe the criminal life or mind of the rapper, or at least what they claim. Trap 15, Releases Trap started in the early s, and it was much closer to standard hip hop than the trap we know today. The only main difference between the two at this time is that trap music had different lyrical content. It still used the same sampling techniques, but as time went on, producers started making the bass heavier and heavier.

Important artists from this time include Young Jeezy, T. The breaking point was when the big producers of Atlanta Zaytoven, Shawty Redd, etc started to lengthen the release of an drum machine kick, which when played on speakers that could play low frequencies, made for very heavy bass. They then started using this lengthened kick as a bassline, creating the backbone of modern trap music.

The quickly timed and constantly changing rhythm hi hat patterns followed. The producers started relying heavily on strings and brass to create this new heavy sound. Eventually, each producer would find their own sound, making trap a very diverse genre. Over time, trap has become very experimental, leading to the many different styles we see today. Turntablism 2, Releases Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer.

Turntablists typically use two or more turntables and headphones to cue up desired start points on different records. After a phone conversation with Disk, it was later popularised in by DJ Babu to describe the difference between a DJ who simply plays and mixes records and one who performs by physically manipulating the records, stylus, turntables, turntable speed controls and mixer to produce new sounds.

The new term coincided with the resurgence of hip-hop DJing in the s. Some turntablists seek to have themselves recognized as traditional musicians capable of interacting and improvising with other performers. It mixes Afro-Cuban clave-based rhythms with jazz harmonies and techniques of improvisation.

In , the collaborations of bebop innovator Dizzy Gillespie with Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo brought Afro-Cuban rhythms and instruments, most notably the tumbadora and the bongo, into the East Coast jazz scene. Afrobeat 14, Releases Afrobeat is a music genre which involves the combination of elements of West African musical styles such as fuji music and highlife with American funk and jazz influences, with a focus on chanted vocals, complex intersecting rhythms, and percussion.

Avant-garde Jazz 15, Releases Avant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the mid- to late s among a group of improvisors who rejected the conventions of bebop and post bop in an effort to blur the division between the written and the spontaneous.

It came to be applied to music differing from free jazz, emphasizing structure and organization by the use of composed melodies, shifting but nevertheless predetermined meters and tonalities, and distinctions between soloists and accompaniment. Originally synonymous with free jazz, much avant-garde jazz was distinct from that style. Big Band 89, Releases Should be used to describe recordings by a large orchestra which feature brass sections with multiple trumpets and trombones and a large reed section.

A feature is that whole sections the brass, the reeds often play some parts of the tune in unison while leaving room for soloists at certain times. From the s onwards this style can be applied to recordings by any large orchestra. The big band style was most prominent during the s and s but was still very popular up into the s and many big band style recordings continued to be made during the s and later.

Features complex chord progressions and freeform improvisation. A lyrical fusion of samba and jazz, bossa nova acquired a large following in the s, initially among young musicians and college students. Cape Jazz Releases Cape jazz more often written Cape Jazz is a genre of jazz that is performed in the very southern part of Africa, the name being a reference to Cape Town, South Africa.

Cape Jazz is similar to the popular music style known as marabi, though more improvisational in character. Where marabi is a piano jazz style, Cape Jazz in the beginning featured though not exclusively instruments that can be carried in a street parade, such as brass instruments, banjos, guitars and percussion instruments.

While those years were certainly not devoid of complex, cerebral jazz recordings, music referred to as contemporary jazz does not usually share those sensibilities, nor is the term generally used to describe music centered around hard bop or the avant-garde. Not all contemporary jazz artists completely discard improvisation and challenging experimentation, but by and large, most instrumentalists emphasize shiny production, melody, and accessibility.

Taken from Allmusic. Also influenced by French quadrilles. Prominent trumpet, trombone or clarinet played over a rhythm section piano, guitar, drums, banjo, double bass. May be instrumental or with a vocalist. Not to be confused with smooth jazz. Free Improvisation 42, Releases Free improvisation is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician s involved. The term can refer to both a technique employed by any musician in any genre and as a recognizable genre in its own right.

History Free improvisation, as a genre of music, developed in the U. Characteristics In an atonal context, free improvisation refers to where the focus shifts from harmony to other dimensions of music: timbre, melodic intervals, rhythm and the spontaneous interaction between musicians.

Although performers may choose to play in a certain style or key, or at a certain tempo, conventional songs are highly uncommon in free improvisation; more emphasis is generally placed on mood, texture or more simply, on performative gesture than on preset forms of melody, harmony or rhythm. These elements are improvised at will, as the music progresses. At the same time, Free Improvisation is a problematic term.

It is neither free nor improvised as in their strict definitions. Musicians who play free improvisation develop highly individualized musical vocabulary which are then played without the restriction of a score. In this sense, the freedom implied by the term Free Improvisation is more of an aesthetic of playing towards notions of freedom than freedom in the pure sense.

As it has influenced and been influenced by other areas of exploration, aspects of modern classical music extended techniques , noise rock aggressive confrontation and dissonance , IDM computer manipulation and digital synthesis , minimalism and electroacoustic music can now be heard in free improvisation. Free Jazz 37, Releases Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the s and s. Though the music of free jazz composers varied widely, a common feature was dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz that had developed in the s and s.

Free jazz musicians attempted to alter, extend, or break down jazz convention, often by discarding fixed chord changes or tempos.

While usually considered avant-garde, free jazz has also been described as an attempt to return jazz to its primitive, often religious, roots and emphasis on collective improvisation. Free jazz is strongly associated with the s innovations of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor and the later works of saxophonist John Coltrane.

Coleman pioneered many techniques typical of free jazz, most notably his rejection of pre-written chord changes, believing instead that freely improvised melodic lines should serve as the basis for harmonic progression in his compositions.

Typically this kind of music is played by small groups of musicians, although some examples use larger numbers. Other forms of jazz use clear regular meters and strongly pulsed rhythms.

Free jazz normally retains a general pulsation but without regular meter, and we encounter frequent accelerando and ritardando, giving an impression of the rhythm moving in waves.

Previous jazz forms used harmonic structures usually cycles of diatonic chords. Gypsy Jazz 5, Releases Combination of swing and jazz, with guitars and violins as prominent instruments. Often said to have been started by guitarist Django Reinhardt in the s.

May also be referred to as Jazz Manouche. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mids to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in saxophone and piano playing.

Jazz-Funk 56, Releases Jazz-funk is a subgenre of jazz music characterized by a strong back beat groove , electrified sounds and an early prevalence of analog synthesizers. Post Bop 31, Releases Post-bop is jazz from the mids onward that assimilates hard bop, modal jazz, avant-garde and free jazz without necessarily being immediately identifiable as any of the above. Post-bop can refer to a variety of Jazz music that is post-bebop chronologically but in the common understanding post-bop music reflects these influences: the more open approach to the jazz ensemble crystallized by the second Miles Davis quintet, and the modal intensity of that group as well as of the classic John Coltrane Quartet.

Ragtime 11, Releases Ragtime sometimes spelled rag-time or rag time is a musical style that enjoyed its peak popularity between and Wikipedia Originally developed in the U. After the ragtime style became very popular worldwide and there are many recordings of ragtime from the UK, Europe and elsewhere in the period before but mostly before WWI.

Ragtime, while an obvious precursor of jazz, is a written [ie. Ragtime recordings can frequently but not always be identified by the use of the word rag or ragtime in the title. Although rags continued to be recorded in the period from s to the s, ragtime was no longer a common form during this period as jazz and later big bands or swing had became dominant. The ragtime tag should be used very sparingly after It should NOT be applied to any early jazz or popular music records unless the titles are specifically ragtime compositions.

Just having a rhythmic or syncopated sound does not make a record ragtime and jazz or pop or both would be more appropriate. While obviously influenced by ragtime these are not ragtime recordings and should be given the pop tag. The ragtime influence on jazz was very significant and some early jazz performers such as Jelly Roll Morton both wrote and recorded rags. Some jazz pianists were more ragtime influenced than others with James P.

Johnson and Thomas Waller later better known as Fats Waller recording in what is known as the stride style, while other jazz piansts such as Earl Hines and Duke Ellington created totally new styles of jazz piano. The ragtime tag does not aply to these or other similar jazz records.

By the s interest in the ragtime style was re-emerging and there was something of a revival with many ragtime compositions being recorded and some new ones written and recorded.

An off-shoot of the ragtime revival was Honky-tonk which is not strictly ragtime and is more appropriately tagged pop. Ragtime is a very well defined style and the tag should not be applied broadly unless it is a ragtime composition from the peak peak or a ragtime composition recorded later. If jazz, pop or some other tag is applicable this should be preferred. Usually very downtempo and mellow, and features prominent bass. Almost always instrumental. Melodies are usually made with saxophones, but may also include trumpets, clarinets or oboes.

Synthesizers and electronic drums are very common. The style appeared in the mid 70s to the early 80s. Not to be confused with easy listening. Soul-jazz generally uses Hammond organ and is played in small formations.

On spaceagepop. While the swing style has its roots in the s as jazz developed due to the emergence of musicians such as Lous Armstrong, it took some time for the many different regional jazz styles typical of the s to evolve into the more unified and sophisticated style known as swing.

The swing style began in the U. Although many members of the small swing groups worked in big bands, the two styles are distinct. By definition a big band was a large orchestra of at least 12 musicians and often larger , while a typical swing group of the s was usually a trio, quartet or sextet and most swing recording groups were by at most 7 or 8 musicians.

A useful distinction is that a big band featured soloists in the context of tight arrangements using whole sections of the orchestra such as the brass or reeds seperately or together while a swing group was more oriented to featuring the musicians as soloists with the backing of a rhythm section only. Of course in some cases big band recordings featured soloists extensively, while small band swing records sometimes featured section work as well as solos — so there is not always a clear distinction.

However, the swing tag is most usefully applied to recordings which feature one or more jazz soloists extensively especially in a small group context. The swing style was most popular during the s and s, but swing style recordings continued to be made well after that period. Mosty swing is associated with insttumental recordings although some small band swing records also featuted vocals however from the s onwards the role of jazz or jazz-influenced singers became more dominant and swing can in some cases also be associated with recordings by pop vocalists such as Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole.

As early as the s swing blended with other genres to create new music styles. In country music, artists such as Bob Wills introduced many elements of swing along with blues to create a genre called Western Swing.

Although it can be a painstaking process and one which provokes a great deal of debate, music is categorized into genres for the ease of listeners. Genre is also often confused with style, which is less about a musical title and more about choices musicians make in the process of producing music. Style in music relates to a series of aesthetic musical choices made by conductors, arrangers and musicians. These personal choices involve variations in rhythm, ways of picking or plucking strings, mood, melody and dynamics.

Style imbues a sense of individualism and personality into the music and makes certain musicians, composers and conductors recognizable without hearing their name. True folk music of the world has been kept from the distortions and derivations of commercialism. Folk music has remained pure. What it boils down to is this, if a music has remained pure in form it continues to be referred to a GENRE, once it gets cross pollinated and and "crossed over" it becomes a derivative style.

The two words can be quite identical to the meaning it gives to set a musical term for the music performed or composed. Genre: meaning the identification to an original musical form that may also relate to an era and or place of reference, e. Style: meaning the variation from the original from a genre that carries on the interpretation or instrumentation used, e.

Rock music is not a musical genre. Rock music is a derivitive style. Blues is a genre. Rock music is derived from Blues. The word genre is bandied about quite a lot these days For a style to become a genre, it must represent a distinct departure from the genre it is derived from.

Rock music has not done that. Rock music and all of it's derivitive styles still employs and has not departed from the blues form go ahead look it up. Rock music employs, or has exploited Percussive performance. Call and response tropes. Rock music is a derivative style of Blues. Blues is a genre while Detroit, Memphis,chicaco,st louis,boogie woogie, hill country etc are sub genres or styles. Genre is defined by origin or commission.

The symphony, concerto, divertimenti are examples of genre within western classical music. The composer was commissioned to write a symphony for a dance or private social function. They symphony changed in style and form over time and throughout eras.

The divertimenti is another example of a genre. The composer was commissioned to create these for open-air incidental music at a function. It required a different range of instruments and a different form too. The Blues saw the birth of popular music. I would class it as the first style of popular music, popular music being the genre.

The Blues, it is true is far more distinguishable because it began so far from its African roots, and with contrasting motives.