A Beginner's Guide to Music Genres

A genre is a bundle of conventions

A genre name is a label stuck on a sound, and also a bundle of conventions that the people making the music and the people listening share. What rhythm it uses, which instruments lead, how the songs are built, what they sing about and what attitude they bring to the stage all come together under one name. So knowing a genre is not about memorizing a list of names; it is about being able to hear those conventions. The borders are always blurry, though, and plenty of songs mix several genres. It helps to think of genre names less as correct answers and more as the legend on a map.

Tell them apart by rhythm first

The quickest clue to a genre is which part of the beat gets the weight. Tap your foot to count the beat while you listen and the differences jump out. These are typical cases, and every genre has plenty of exceptions.

• Rock and pop: a backbeat, with the snare on beats two and four of each bar
• Jazz: a swing feel that splits the beat into long and short, with a bounce
• House and similar dance music: a kick drum landing evenly on every beat
• Reggae: short, choppy guitar and keyboard hits on the offbeats between beats
• Trap-style hip-hop: rapid rolling hi-hats over long, booming bass

Blues and jazz: roots of many genres

The blues grew out of African American communities in the American South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its signature conventions are the twelve-bar form, where three chords cycle in a set order over twelve bars, blue notes that are bent slightly flat, and call and response between voice and instrument. Those elements later seeped into rock, R&B and jazz. Jazz developed in the early twentieth century, centered on New Orleans, and improvisation is at its heart. A common structure has the band play the main melody together, then players take turns soloing before returning to the melody, and colorful chords such as those with an added seventh appear often. Part of the fun of jazz is that the same tune comes out differently every time.

Rock and metal

Rock grew out of 1950s American rock and roll and settled into band music built around electric guitar, bass and drums. The backbeat, repeated guitar riffs and a structure that alternates verses and choruses form its basic frame. Distortion, deliberately roughening the guitar's sound, is the tone most associated with rock. Metal pushes further in that direction, favoring heavy distortion, power chords made of just a root and a fifth, and fast double kick drumming with both feet. It can sound harsh, but many branches value precise playing and complex song structures, and plenty of fans listen closely to the musicianship.

Hip-hop and R&B

Hip-hop began in the party scene of the Bronx in New York City in the 1970s. DJs looping and stitching together the instrumental breaks of records laid the foundation for the beat, and rap developed on top of it. That is why sampling, lifting part of another recording and placing it in a new context, is such an important technique, and in rap the rhythm and rhyme of how words sit on the beat, the flow, matters as much as what is said. R&B takes its name from rhythm and blues, and shaped by gospel and soul, it stands out for melisma, stretching one syllable over many notes, and rich harmony vocals. Today the two genres freely trade beats and vocal styles.

Electronic music

Electronic music is a broad family centered on sounds made with synthesizers, drum machines and computers. House from Chicago and techno from Detroit in the 1980s are often cited as key starting points for electronic dance music. Dance styles are usually divided into subgenres by tempo and rhythm pattern, so tracks that sound alike can carry different names depending on their speed and how the bass moves. Another hallmark is the structure of a build that slowly raises tension and a drop that releases everything at once. Many tracks are made on the assumption that a DJ will mix them, with long stretches of rhythm alone at the start and end, so the intent often comes through better in a continuous set than in a single track.

Listen to classical by era and form

Western art music, usually called classical, changes character quite a bit by era. The Baroque, roughly from the seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century, stands out for several melodies woven together and a steady pulse; the Classical period of the late eighteenth century for balanced forms and clear melodies; and nineteenth-century Romanticism for larger ensembles and a wider emotional range. Works in several movements, such as symphonies and sonatas, are designed so the tempo and mood change from movement to movement, and the structure comes through when you hear the whole thing rather than a single movement. Comparing recordings of the same piece by different performers is a pleasure particular to classical music.

How to broaden your listening

An unfamiliar genre tends to sound all the same at first. Give it a little time until the conventions settle in your ear and the differences within the genre start to appear, and even songs you already love start to sound new.

• Trace the genres that influenced your favorite songs
• Tap your foot to the beat and notice where the weight falls
• Listen to a landmark album in one genre from start to finish
• Compare live performances and studio recordings of the same song
• Build separate playlists by genre to train your ear