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A Cappella "A cappella" refers to singing without instrumental accompaniment. A cappella music has many forms, such as Gregorian Chants, choir music, doo-wop, scat, barbershop singing and yodeling. I, myself, was forced to become an a cappella singer when I found that I wasn't able to get my piano into the shower. Web:
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Barbershop Quartets Throw down your accordion, your bagpipes, your tin whistles, and join a barbershop quartet. More fun than a barrel of monkeys, able to leap octaves in a single bound, these singers are lively, energetic, and know how to have a good time. Web:
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Big Band The Big Band music we still enjoy today developed in the United States from a mixture of ragtime, jazz and other influences. The Big Band sound was more or less invented in the early 1940s by Benny Goodman (and his arranger Fletcher Henderson), and copied and modified by many other bands. The Big Band era flourished until the mid 1950s, when it was killed off by a combination of television, short (3 minute) 45 rpm records, and a variety of economic factors. Web:
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Blues It's best played in tiny lounges with poor lighting. Maybe fill the room with some smoke. There is a true art to the mournful quality of the music. This is not just "crying in your beer" music. Explore the resources that bring the blues to life on the Net. Web:
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Celtic Music Music is something that the Celts do well. The soulful wail of the whistles and the primal beating of the drums would make just about anyone yearn to buy a plane ticket to Ireland. The proof is in the numbers. Fans of Celtic music are abundant on the Net. Here are some Web pages with information about Celtic music magazines, live jam sessions, radio programs, and more. Web:
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Classical Music What a civilian calls "classical music" is actually a large body of serious work, written by many different composers over centuries: symphonies, concertos, chamber music, duets, opera, choral music, and so on. Such music represents some of the highest achievements of mankind. Traditionally, classical music is studied with respect to various historical periods: Medieval (before 1450: Gregorian chants); Renaissance (1450-1600: Byrd, Monteverdi, Palestrina); Baroque (1600-1750: Bach, Handel, Vivaldi); Classical (1750-1820: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven); Romantic (1810-1910: Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Mahler, Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky); and 20th Century/Modern (1900-present: Bartók, Cage, Copland, Gershwin, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Stravinsky). Web:
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Contemporary Christian Music America is a highly religious, mostly Christian, country with a long tradition of homegrown religious music. In the eighties, Christian music was simple: Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. In the nineties, an influx of money and enthusiasm created a watershed in which the quality (and quantity) of Christian music increased significantly. Today, contemporary Christian music of many types enjoys a large audience, especially among the young and faithful, and as often as not, if you don't listen to the lyrics, you can't tell the difference between Christian music and its more secular cousins. (Presumably, God listens to the lyrics.) Web:
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Country Music If you don't get enough country music while riding in the pickup to and from the feed store, check out these sites, which offer concert reviews, country radio stations, discussion groups, magazines, and fan club information. Love, marriage, divorce, truck driving, dogs, beer -- it's all just good old-fashioned American fun. Web:
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Disco On June 7, 1976, New York magazine published an article by Nik Cohn, entitled "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night". The article described an eighteen-year old Brooklyn teenager named Vincent, a neighborhood dancer with a sense of style and a definite attitude. The Sixties had faded, and a new generation of teenagers was about to redefine the popular culture. "The new generation takes few risks. It goes through high school, obedient; it graduates, looks for a job, saves and plans. Endures. And once a week, on Saturday night, its one great moment of release, it explodes." And thus was born disco. For most of us, the epiphany came with the 1977 release of the movie "Saturday Night Fever", starring John Travolta as Vincent (who was renamed Tony Manero). Three decades later, it's hard to remember that disco was once a force majeure, and that dancing was something you did with a partner, with style, and with an attitude. Three decades later, disco is looked upon as an aberration, nothing more than the last, flowery hurrah between the revolution of the Sixties and the vast, interminable social wasteland of the Eighties and Nineties. But I was there and I remember. For a short time, it was possible to be cool, have fun, and enjoy the music -- and to do it all with a partner, with style, and with an attitude. Web:
Folk Music I think Tom Lehrer put it best: "The reason most songs are so atrocious," he explained, "is that they were written by the people." Lehrer is a tough act to follow, so I'll content myself with pointing out that the Net has lots of folk music resources, including Usenet discussion groups. Web:
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Funk Opera makes you homicidal, classical puts you to sleep, and country music makes you want to get in a monster truck and plow over any small cars in your path. For a change, try some funk. Funk is based on the rhythmic innovations of James Brown. Discussion includes not only funk, but some rap, hip-hop, soul, R&B, and related varieties. Artists of the genre include Earth, Wind and Fire; Parliament/Funkadelic; and Prince. Not only does funk sound good, you can dance to it too. Web:
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Gregorian Chants Gregorian chants, sometimes referred to as plainsong, are among the oldest type of music that is still performed and studied. (In fact, if you take a college-level music survey course, you will probably start with Gregorian chants and work your way toward contemporary music.) Gregorian chants have no instrumental accompaniment and no rhythmic structure. They consist of only a single melody line sung in unison by a group of people. Such music is described as monodic. (If you are taking a music survey class, remember this word -- it will show up on the multiple choice test.) Gregorian chants originated in Catholic churches around the sixth century A.D. and are named after Saint Gregory I (540-604 A.D.), who was Pope from 590 to 604. If you have never heard a Gregorian chant, please do listen to one. You will find that the primitive, unaccompanied melody has the power to soothe your instincts in a way that more modern music cannot. Web:
Indian Classical Music Indian music has a long complex history, dating back almost two thousand years. There are two major genres, Hindustani from the north of India and Karnatic from the south. Indian music differs from Western music in fundamental ways. Western music is based upon an octave that has 13 different tones (on the piano, 8 white notes and 5 black notes). Indian music divides the octave into 22 segments, each one being about one quarter of a tone. Most Indian pieces are based upon a single melody line or raga. There are many different ragas, each with its own rules and characteristics. The rhythms, which are complex, are also based on patterns, which are called talas. The main instruments used in Indian music are the drum, and the vina and sitar (both of which are stringed). To Western ears, Indian music sounds exotic and, sometimes, monotonous. To Indian ears, the combination of the talas, the ragas and skillful improvisation make for a complex, never-ending musical tapestry. Web:
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Industrial Industrial music started in 1976 when Industrial Records was formed by members of Throbbing Gristle. Since then, industrial music has flourished, died, been reincarnated as the electronic instrumentation used to create a dance beat, and then started to flourish again. If you like the idea of blending machinery, noise, rhythm and music, you may be ready for an industrial lifestyle. Web:
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Jazz Jazz developed in the United States in the early part of the twentieth century. The roots of jazz stretch back to the Black spiritual songs brought from Africa by slaves. Since the 1920s, jazz has developed into a variety of different musical forms. What they have in common is the characteristic of free flowing melody and rhythm, which is often improvised. Some jazz is highly abstract, even to the point of being arrhythmic and lacking in melody. Other, more traditional jazz, is repetitive to the point of being completely familiar (for example, the blues). My opinion is that there is not much in life that can't be improved by adding some good jazz to the mix. Web:
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Medieval Music Believe it or not, there really was music before rock and roll. And it was good music, too, but you can't do the Twist to it. If that doesn't bother you, you will probably love music from the Middle Ages. Early music lovers chat about records, books, performances, song texts, and translations as well as transcribing early music scores in electronic form. If you are new to medieval music, check out the FAQ. Web:
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Metal If it's not worth playing loud, it's not worth playing. Check out the great metal resources on the Net. The Web sites cover not only heavy metal but speed, thrash, death and extreme metal. If you wanna talk the talk, hop onto IRC or hang out in Usenet. Achieve total heavy-osity. Web:
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Movie Soundtracks A big part of every film is the soundtrack, the music that is chosen to go along with the visual images in order to enhance our enjoyment. Creating the soundtrack requires the services of highly skilled musicians, and is an art unto itself. Personally, I think that a good soundtrack significantly enhances the value of a movie and I'm always disappointed when the director creates a pseudo-soundtrack by using a collection of popular songs instead of music that was composed especially for the movie. What could be more boring than to watch a tedious montage to the accompaniment of a commercial rock song? And what could be more moving than to watch a well-scored film in which the music complements the action perfectly? Web:
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New Age Music In the 1980s, many people believed that the world was about to undergo a massive change, one that would bring harmony and spiritual enlightenment to a vast number of people. Today, the essence of these ideas is preserved in what we call New Age music: soft, peaceful, instrumental music based on slow, evocative melodies and harmonies. Web:
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New Wave In the 1960s, the French film world produced a movement, led by Godard and Truffaut, in which abstraction and symbolism were used to deal with psychological themes. This movement became known as New Wave. In the late 1970s, a new style of rock music arose that was given the same name. Early new wave music was marked by the use of synthesized sound with a repetitive beat, featuring a general air of emotional detachment. From about 1978 to 1986, new wave embraced a variety of musical styles that dovetailed with the rising popularity of music videos and MTV. To many people, new wave is the eighties -- Culture Club, Depeche Mode, Devo, Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls, Howard Jones, Human League, The Fixx and Wham! -- a time of European groups with big hair, pointy shoes, synthesizers, lipstick and poet shirts. Web:
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Opera Opera, drama set to music, started in Florence, Italy, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. (The first opera was Euridice, by Jacopo Peri, in 1600.) If you are an opera buff, you probably like to go to performances as often as you can. But what do you do when the fat lady has already sung, and you haven't had enough? You rush home, and fire up your Internet connection. Web:
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Punk Rock Punk rockers, head banging, thrashing, nose studs, dyed hair and shaved heads -- and what ever became of Jello Biafra? Share the punk experience. Web:
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Rap and Hip-hop At first, rap music was not much more than how Shakespeare first described it, "no melody, heavy beat, full of words and rhythm, signifying nothing." However, over the years, as rap evolved into hip-hop, intelligent, well-adjusted, educated people started to write the lyrics, and the words became meaningful (well, some of the words anyway). Can you believe it? Rap music has become positively mainstream. Rap is dead; long live rap. Web:
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Reggae You don't have to be a nyahbhingi to like reggae. Even quashies can get the beat and suck the rhygin energy to the max. So praise the Lord and pass the chillum: the Net is the most irie place to be. Web:
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Rock and Roll Rock and roll is here to stay, I dig it till the end. It'll go down in history, just you wait, my friend. Web:
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Ska Ska is Jamaican dance music that first became popular in the early 1960s. (Ska is considered by some people to be the ancestor of reggae.) Do you like ska? There is only one way to find out. You need to listen and you need to move, and once you start moving, I bet you'll like it. Web:
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Techno Composers using computers and electronic tools have fewer constraints than composers using conventional instruments. Techno musicians take advantage of modern music tools to combine rhythm, sounds and complex interactions, and send the whole thing right to your auditory cortex. Can you handle it? Maybe yes, but can you still handle it sixteen hours later? Web:
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