Some music genres in Western traditions
By Tony Copple I have been teaching music to children aged 8 - 10 for the last month, one lesson a week. Instead of the traditional approach of learning an instrument, I am using a different format, aimed at increasing their enjoyment of music. In my view this is more important to a lifetime of happiness than being able to play an instrument. But I also believe that if they catch the music bug they will be self-motivated to learn to play. So the first lesson in the course was to listen to examples of different genres. All they were aware of was pop music; mainly what they had seen videos for. I played them one minute of 36 genres which would be recognizable to western ears (and added whale and bird song for good measure, just as Carl Sagan did for the gold disk on the Voyager spacecraft). The song they went away singing was Waving Flag by K’Naan, but they latched onto anything with a pronounced rhythm. I am well aware that lumping the music of 200 countries into one example and calling it world music is ridiculous, but that’s what the west has done. There are hundreds of genres out there. I also know that my choices for the examples chosen would not be your choices. But as Rick Nelson sang, "You see, you can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself.' A few weeks later, I replayed 6 seconds of each genre on the first edition of CWCP Radio, 22 February 2018, and a discerning listener suggested posting the list below to enable music buffs to see how many of them they were able to name, and even how many artists and tunes. 1 Early Music Purcell sonata 2 Baroque Bach Brandenburg Concerto No 3 3 Classical Beethoven, Allegro Con Brio 4 Opera Verdi. La Traviata 5 Traditional jazz Louis Armstrong, Dippermouth Blues 6 Early Blues Robert Johnson, Kindhearted Woman Blues 7 Swing Glenn Miller, In the Mood 8 Modern Jazz Chet Baker 9 Jazz – Be Bop Charlie Parker, I got Rhythm 10 Crooners Bing Crosby, True Love 11 Country & Western Patsy Cline, I fall to pieces 12 Gospel Elvis Presley, Run on 13 Rock’n’Roll Elvis Presley, Don’t be cruel 14 Pop (60’s) The Beatles, I want to hold your hand 15 Musical play King Kong (South African musical) 16 Classic Rock David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust 17 Folk Nick Drake, River man 18 Synthesizer Tomita, Snowflakes are Dancing 19 Psychedelic rock The Byrds, 8 Miles High 20 Electronic dance Deadmau5, Aural Psynapse 21 Christian Rock Larry Norman, Why should the devil have all the good music 22 Prog rock Yes, Long Distance Runaround 23 Grunge Neil Young, Walk with me 24 Heavy Metal Pixies, Veluria 25 Experimental sounds Magnus Johanson, Xtra Hogtalare 26 Rap K’Naan, Waving Flag 27 Hip hop Coolio, Gangsta paradise 28 World Music Youssou n’Dour_Birima_(Senegal) 29 Pop (2010) Adele, Melt my heart to stone 30 Electric blues Stevie Ray Vaughn, Texas Flood 31 World Music Youssou n’Door 32 Country (contemporary) Shania Twain, Life’s about to get good 33 Gospel (Contemporary) Kirk Franklin, My Life in your hands 34 Folk (Contemporary) Ian Tamblyn, Tiger Lily Road 35 Contemporary classical Patrick Hawes, Quanta Qualia 36 Christian rock/pop Rend Collective 37 Whale song 38 Bird song Listen to the radio broadcast here, 22 Feb 2018 podcast Copples Western Cape |