Over the past century the amount of music on offer has sky rocketed, and with the incerase in volume, new genres and sounds have been created. But it is often easy to forget where the music you listen to today originated from, and to dicipher the key features of each genre.
Blues: Originated around the 17th Century amoung black slaves brought over to America from Africa to work on plantations and railways. For this reason and ever since the music has always been about sadness and depression. The standard blues format has a twelve bar structure, divided into three phrases of four bars each, and the words are one phrase of twelve beats, repeated, and a third phrase that is different. Related Link : Origins of the Blues
Jazz: Was born sometime around 1895 in New Orleans and originated from elements of Ragtime, marching band music, and Blues. However unlike Western musical traditions Jazz where artists would do there best to play the notes just as the composer had intended. Jazz artists tended to break away from this set rigour often playing music improvised on the spot, with less in any set structure.Related Link : Origins of Jazz
R & B: This genre otherwise known as Rhythm and Blues originated in the 50's from places like Memphis and New Orleans. It is closely related to its blues roots however has a far greater emphasis on rhythm.Reggae: Originated from Jamaica in the 1960's and was developed from traditional African Caribbean music such as mento, calypso and ska. The genre was made world famous by Bob Marley who popularized the style on a world-wide basis.Related Link: Origins of Reggae
Trance: Developed out of Techno in the 20th Century and has evolved and developed very quickly into many sub genres. Trance generally evolves a strong repetitive base line with the introduction of electronic noises that are blended in such a way to create build ups. Psy Trance is still a underground form of music as Progressive Trance is beginning to hit the Urban scene and House Trance is very happy music and has hit the club scene heavily in recent years.Related Link: Three Degrees of Trance
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