Styles of Music
    

For books and classification of literature it's called genre but for music it's style. From folk songs and blues, classical, jazz, rock and soul through to hip hop and rap, dance and trance - it's all good.

Knowing the names of styles of music are a way to find music that may be similar to other music we know we like. By searching for a style, we may find new artists who appeal to us.

If early tribal cultures are anything to go by, then drums were our first instrument and rhythm our first introduction to music. Did you ever spin and spin until you fell down as a child? Did you tap a beat with your ruler and slap your thighs? Rhythm is in our blood as our heart beats and pulses. Most styles of music are classified by their beat before anything else.

We dance when we are happy and excited and a beat has our toes tapping even when we are not aware of it. When we are sad we lament and as we sing of what we lost, we remember why we miss it and keep it, in some small way, alive in our hearts.

Containers with seeds in them make shakable maraccas, two wooden pieces make castanets and metal workers made single tone bells, cymbals and glockenspiels, all early percussion instruments to accompany dance and song.

Stringed instruments have been with us for centuries. The harp was often mentioned in the bible. Pipes of some sort have also been around a long time. Simple clay pipes such as the ocarina and the bamboo pan pipes or a rams horn have been around centuries.

Classical music needed a few small technological advance to develop the stable glues and the skills to shape sound from wood and metal to make the piano and organ, and the more complex metal musical instruments.

Piano accordians and banjos became extremely popular.Big brass band instruments such as the trumpets, tubas and trombone had their era. Saxaphones and oboes and other reeded woodwind instruments all had their day.

The instruments themselves have shaped many of our music styles. For this century alone the electric guitar and synthesizer have had a profound effect on our styles of music.

Each race from different countries have different styles of music, and their culture has played its part in each style. Each appears to have a slow love ballad or lament style and a fast party dance style. From the haunting celtic folk songs to the joyous scottish jigs, from harmonious negro spirituals and late night blues to the energetic african dance beat and the more mellow jamaican reggae.

Each style of music evokes images of their country. The fluid prayer and ululation of Islamic music. The strange sparse non rythmic glitter of Japanese music. The thrumming multiple harmonic strings of Indian sitars. The bells and percussive musical instruments of Tibet and China. The passionate, emotion infused tenors singing operas from Spain, Italy and Germany. The echoing yodelers of Switzerland. The rolling deep tones of Russian music.

At this time of our lives we have all these styles of music at our fingertips, how amazing is that? We can turn on a car radio and hear styles of music from all over the world blended into new pop songs or traditional recordings. We can go online and download almost everything we can think to look for.

We can listen to a recording of the greatest singers and musicians, whenever we choose to, at the touch of a button. We have total control over that. We can play one song over and over if we choose. The only thing that's scarce for us is the ability to share the air of a live performance of music by musicians.

Our music, like many other parts of our lives, has been privatised. It streams into our ears through headphones and it's rare to be enabled to join in community singing, anywhere other than at a church. Hence of course, the immense popularity of games like guitar hero. 

So many of us have both sides of the coin and like to sing and make music just as much as we like to listen to it. Learning to play a musical instrument is like an invitation. Once you start to play, people who also like to play ( or sing or listen) are drawn to you and your opportunities to experience live music suddenly open up.

As you gain experience, this increases and public performance may be the next step for some. Yet simply to be able to play with friends and family is a joy worth embracing. I might guess also that for some of us, music is a friend when you are all alone as well. As John Denver said of his guitar ...

" This old guitar taught me to sing a lovesong, showed me how to laugh and how to cry. Introduced me to some friends of mine and brightened up some days, helped me make it through some lonely nights, what a friend to have on a cold and lonely night."