List of music genres and styles
Template:Short description Template:Popular music Template:Inline This is a list of music genres and styles. Music can be described in terms of many genres and styles. Classifications are often arbitrary, and may be disputed and closely related forms often overlap. Larger genres and styles comprise more specific sub-categories.
Classical
- Andalusian classical music
- Indian classical music
- Korean court music
- Persian classical music
- Kurdish classical music
- Ottoman music (Classical Turkish music)
- Western classical music
- Early music
- Medieval music (500–1400)
- Ars antiqua (1170–1310)
- Ars nova (1310–1377)
- Ars subtilior (1360–1420)
- Renaissance music (1400–1600)
- Baroque music (1600–1750)
- Galant music (1720–1770)
- Classical period (1750–1820)
- Romantic music (1780–1910)
- Medieval music (500–1400)
- 20th and 21st-centuries classical music (1900–present):
- Modernism (1890–1930)
- Impressionism (1875 or 1890–1925)
- Neoclassicism (1920–1950)
- High modernism (1930–present)
- Postmodern music (1930–present)
- Experimental music (1950–present)
- Contemporary classical music (1945 or 1975–present)
- Minimal music
- Early music
Popular
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Avant-garde & experimental
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- Crossover music
- Danger music
- Drone music
- Electroacoustic
- Industrial music
- Instrumental
- Lo-fi
- Musical improvisation
- Musique concrète
- Noise
- Outsider music
- Progressive music
- Psychedelic music
- Underground music
Blues
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Country
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Easy listening
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Electronic
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Folk
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Hip hop
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Jazz
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Pop
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R&B & soul
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Rock
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Metal
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Punk
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Regional
African
Antarctica
Asian
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- Middle Eastern
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- Arabic music
- Fann at-Tanbura
- Fijiri
- Khaliji
- Liwa
- Kurdish folk
- Music of Israel
- Persian traditional music
- Sawt
- Music of Turkey
Australasia & Oceania
- Australian folk music
- Australian hip hop
- Indigenous music of Australia
- Music of Hawaii
- Music of New Zealand
- Music of Polynesia
- Music of Samoa
European
Latin & South American
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North American
Religious
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- Christian music
- Islamic music
- Sikh music
- Buddhist music
- Yarsani
- Modern pagan music
- Music of ancient Greece
- New-age music
- Shamanic music
Traditional folk
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Other
- Ballroom dance music: pasodoble, cha cha cha and others
- Bedroom production
- Children's music
- Classic hip-hop
- Computer music
- Dance music
- Drug use in music
- Incidental music or music for stage and screen: music written for the score of a film, play, musicals, or other spheres, such as filmi, video game music, music hall songs and showtunes and others
- Independent music
- LGBT music
- Patriotic music: military music, marches, national anthems, War songs and related compositions
- Regional and national music with no significant commercial impact abroad, except when it is a version of an international genre, such as: traditional music, oral traditions, sea shanties, work songs, nursery rhymes, Arabesque and indigenous music. In North America and Western Europe, regional and national genres that are not from the Western world are sometimes classified as world music.
- Theatre music
- Virtuoso
- Yodeling
These categories are not exhaustive. A music platform, Gracenote, listed more than 2000 music genres (included by those created by ordinary music lovers, who are not involved within the music industry, these being said to be part of a 'folksonomy', i.e. a taxonomy created by non-experts). Most of these genres were created by music labels to target new audiences, however classification is useful to find music and distribute it.
See also
This list is split into four separate pages:
- List of styles of music: A–F
- List of styles of music: G–M
- List of styles of music: N–R
- List of styles of music: S–Z
- List of country genres
- List of electronic music genres
- List of house genres
- List of industrial music genres
- List of trance genres
- List of hip hop genres
- List of jazz genres
- List of reggae genres
- List of rock genres
- List of heavy metal genres
- List of punk rock subgenres
- List of hardcore punk subgenres
- List of microgenres
- List of music styles that incorporate the accordion
- List of pop music genres
Bibliography
- Borthwick, Stuart, & Moy, Ron (2004) Popular Music Genres: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Fabbri, Franco (1982) A Theory of Popular Music Genres: Two Applications. In Popular Music Perspectives, edited by David Horn and Philip Tagg, 52–81. Göteborg and Exeter: A. Wheaton & Co., Ltd.
- Frith, Simon (1996) Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
- Holt, Fabian (2007) Genre in Popular Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Negus, Keith (1999) Music Genres and Corporate Cultures. London and New York: Routledge.