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A CRASH COURSE ON EXISTING MUSIC GENRES

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Part VI :: Hiphop, New Age, Classical

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Published in PRESS Magazine

July 2004

Our crash course wouldn’t be complete without touching up on three of the most fundamental styles in music – Hip-Hop, New Age and Classical. Pay attention, class.

HIP HOP

Hip-hop is a genre of African-American music of the 1980s and 1990s in which rhyming lyrics are chanted to a musical accompaniment. A viable art form, Hip hop is music created by African-American musicians whose early forms were songs that had a melodic line and a strong rhythmic beat with repeated choruses. Hip Hop, however, is more than just music as it is deemed to refer to an urban youth culture associated with rap music and the fashion of African-Americans, where the lyrics which focus on Hip-Hop culture is riddled with the deep-rooted angst and the captivation of American youth culture.

OLD SKOOL

Old skool is a term which relates to the music, dance, MC-ing and Dj-ing of the late 1970s and 80s. Old skool is hard core and encompasses the dance styles of popping, boogaloo and breaking.

NEW SKOOL

New Skool is more freestyle genre, incorporating all of the Old Skool styles of dance but mixing it with a "tribal" hip hop flavour. Developed in Los Angeles, it recognises African roots, but is heavily influenced by earlier hip hop culture. A fusion of all dance music to the biggest degree -- all styles of rhythm-making and programming – funky breaks and the Miami sound were based in repetitive loops of a break and the sound of old-school hip hop. The nu-skool sound comes out of the technical side, whereby the breaks are normally produced from scratch.

GANGSTA RAP

One of the most important innovations in Hip-Hop is the advent of Gangsta Rap. Now the most popular form of Hip-Hop, Gangsta rap is a genre of hip hop, often with lyrical subjects based on the violence and misogyny inherent in the gangster lifestyle. This subject matter has caused a great deal of controversy, with many observers criticizing the genre for the perceived messages it espouses, though groups like N.W.A (Niggas with Attitudes) have brought ghetto life to the pop charts and artists like Snoop Doggy Dogg have sold over 4 million copies with this music genre.

NEW AGE

Born from an aesthetic that aims to induce a sense of inner calm, new age music emerged from the meditational and holistic fields. Both artistically satisfying as well as therapeutic, these are generally harmonious and non-threatening music that are allied with new age philosophies encouraging spiritual transcendence and physical healing. Robert Rich, Steven Halpern, Steve Roach, Michael Stearns, Rusty Crutcher and Coyote Oldman are among some of the musicians behind New Age Music.

NEO-CLASSICAL/INSTRUMENTAL NEW AGE

The Neo-Classical distinction refers to any style influenced by classical music, whether the performer is offering updated arrangements of actual works by an established composer (Bach, Pachelbel, and Debussy seem to be popular in this respect) or weaving elements from the baroque, classical, romantic, impressionistic, and/or more challenging 20th century styles into a more original approach.

AMBIENT

Ambient is a spacious, electronic music that is concerned with sonic texture, not songwriting or composing. Frequently repetitive, it usually all sounds the same to the casual listener, even though there are quite significant differences between the artists. Ambient music evolved from the experimental electronic music of '70s synth-based artists like Brian Eno and Kraftwerk, and the trance-like techno dance music of the '80s and became a popular cult music in the early '90s, thanks to ambient-techno artists like the Orb and Aphex Twin.

TECHNO-TRIBAL

A more specific variation on the ethnic fusion theme, Techno-Tribal music is combines man's most primeval musical expressions with his most technologically advanced inventions as tribal rhythms and instruments from the aboriginal cultures of Africa, Australia, and North & South America are mixed with sophisticated electronics. Robert Rich, Steve Roach, Jon Hassell, Gabrielle Roth, Michael Brook, Jorge Reyes and David Van Tieghem are some musicians behind Techno-Tribal Music.

CLASSICAL

The classical repertory is enormous, extending back over more than 1000 years of musical history. Classical music is the art music of Western civilization. It is music that men and women have written in an attempt to create something great or important. Classical music includes many different genres and styles and it's roots can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece. It can be played by instruments or be sung. One person or one thousand people can perform it. It is divided into six historical periods, namely Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and the Contemporary. In another definition, "classical music" is the art music from what we call the "classical era" which spanned from about 1750 through 1820. This music includes the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Joseph Haydn, and Ludwig van Beethoven, as well as many other significant musicians.

CHAMBER MUSIC

Making music together in small instrumental ensembles had been a popular diversion since as far back as the 16th century. Presently, the duo sonata, the string quartet and the piano trio are the most common chamber ensembles. Other popular ensembles are the piano quartet (piano, violin, viola and cello), the piano quintet (piano plus string quartet), and the woodwind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn). 

VOCAL CLASSICAL

The desire to transform words into song spans the entire history of music. The music of the troubadours and trouvères (schools of poet-musicians in 12th and 13th century France) is the earliest written record of a significant tradition of secular, solo song. Since then, the repertory of solo song has grown tremendously and is amazingly varied. Over the past two centuries, the song repertory has grown enormously. The song cycle is a related form in which a set of individual songs is composed as an indivisible unit. The songs in a cycle are generally unified in some way: they can be based on poems by the same poet, they can tell an extended story, or might simply have a similar mood.

CHORAL

From ritualistic chanting to ecstatic expressions of religious feeling, choral singing is an essential part of the Western musical tradition. The repertory of music for multiple voices is enormous, beginning with Gregorian chant, moving through the development of polyphony in the Renaissance , and extending to the present day. Choral music is still primarily sacred, even today, but beginning in the 19th century, a repertory of secular music was developed. Much of this secular music is for small vocal ensembles in which there is only one singer per part. Schubert and Brahms, for example, wrote songs for three or four voices that follow the tradition of the German art song.

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