Are you addicted to a genre of music?

[AnthonyCFox]

For the last year and a half I've made a few attempts at writing "Epic" or "Trailer" music. If you're not familiar, it's a style. Here's one of several compilations on YouTube that have gotten millions of views https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU7SGn0MeP0

I really like the style, but I'll admit, the "millions of views" is a big part of why I was trying to work in the genre.

A couple of days ago I started a new project and decided that starting with drums, then bass, keys, and finally guitar, I was just going to make parts that I thought sounded cool together and not worry about targeting any particular genre.

I'm not done yet, but it's definitely jazz fusion. No question. It's not a surprise really. Deep down it's the music I aspire to and my biggest hesitation about making it is that my guitar chops are nowhere near the level expected for the genre. Well, that and there's hardly a market for it.

I can't improvise at Frank Gambale or Pat Metheny's level but with a DAW, I might be able to fake it. And, I don't know if I have a choice, really. I don't think I can make any other style of music. At least not right now. I want it too bad. I just lose interest in trying to make any other kind of music.

Would any other addicts like to share their "experience, strength and hope"? Yeah. Been there; done that.

[Quirq]

I listen to classical music in the car because there's no CD player and it's the only music on the radio that I can stand (unless they play Mozart or Bach ).

But other than that, I listen to prog and nothing but prog. I really don't get the whole "I listen to anything" mentality. I guess I would listen to other stuff if I liked it, but other music just doesn't do anything for me.

That also means that the paltry, miniscule amount of music I make is also just prog – it's what I like, so as you say, it's what I aspire to make. Shame my guitar/bass/keyboard/drum programming skills are not that great

I'd probably be a lot better if I stuck to one instrument, but it really doesn't help when you spread your efforts around several instruments as well as learning recording and mixing skills – you never get a decent amount of practice on any one thing. But on the plus side, I very rarely have creative differences with myself

I guess one of the good things about prog is that, as a genre, it's huge and you've got everything from electronic to typical band set-up and prog-folk to prog-metal and beyond, so there's plenty of scope.

[GraysonPeddie]

I mostly listen to ambient, new age, Celtic, chill, classical, a bit of smooth jazz, and a bit of downtempo. I sometimes listen to soundtrack music which is pretty much just Disney. Really, I'm into modern architecture (the Future World of Epcot and Swan & Dolphin-Boardwalk Inn area where I can walk from Hollywood Studios to Epcot) and nature (Animal Kingdom), so I tend to listen to Tokyo Tomorrowland (better than Walt Disney World's Tomorrowland as their music sounded a bit cold to me especially with the bassline) music, Innoventions music at Epcot, and Animal Kingdom music (The Tree of Life Three, Oasis Dawn Rising, Spring, Rain, etc.). As for Tokyo Tomorrowland, Innoventions, and Animal Kingdom music, I don't know where all that genre falls into.

I do like to make music, but it's hard to come up with original music. I don't feel like borrowing ideas from Summer Shuffle from the album of Distant Thunder by Checkfield or Innoventions music that is played at Epcot. Heh... Even if that is what all that inspiration came from. Has anyone walked around Epcot (the Future World) at Walt Disney World? Or maybe around Swan & Dolphin area? Boardwalk Inn? Sure, the Boardwalk Inn does not have that modern architecture look, but imagine living in a city with no cars at all. That's all I dream about.

So perhaps I could say that I don't have any kind of addiction to one genre as a whole.

[dakylla]

reggae all the way !!!

[Kegek]

I don't have a favourite genre. Every genre has good and bad songs.
The only genre I really can't stand is pop.

[GraysonPeddie]

I don't have a favourite genre. Every genre has good and bad songs.
The only genre I really can't stand is pop.

Today's pop music? I can't stand them, either, but I do like Michael Jackson a lot.

[blast0id]

I don't have a favourite genre. Every genre has good and bad songs.
The only genre I really can't stand is pop.

Today's pop music? I can't stand them, either, but I do like Michael Jackson a lot.

haha, yeah, I would have to agree, as a whole the pop genre sucks a monkeys asshole, there are some bright spots here and there throughout both the span of "talent" and the lifespan of the genre... granted it's like looking into the starry night and being able to pick the planets from the stars, but there are some, and I would say a few that haven't even hardly been given a listen...

[folderol]

I listen to a wide range of stuff, but tend to avoid obvious 'formula' music. I also rarely look at stuff where someone says "Hey look what I produced in just 2 hours". I generally prefer highly melodic songs/compositions, especially if there's some decent harmonising, call-response, etc.

[White Wraith]

Electronic Dance Music, especially the kind played at festivals.

[AlexTheBassist]

I am totally addicted to prog/math, art rock, post rock and classical music. I'm less addicted to tobacco than to those genres.

[chaocrator]

yes. 3 of them.
1) gothic rock (mainly 80s, i strongly dislike later metal influences)
2) goa trance
3) AC/DC

[tavasti]

For the last year and a half I've made a few attempts at writing "Epic" or "Trailer" music. If you're not familiar, it's a style. Here's one of several compilations on YouTube that have gotten millions of views https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU7SGn0MeP0

I've been trying to create something like that also, viewtopic.php?f=9&t=19104
I also listen some that kind of music, for example Antti Martikainen, https://open.spotify.com/artist/5GETpZj ... keDYKeUKjg

In general, I'm addicted to melodic hard rock / melodic metal. I listen music all the time when I awake.

[Frank Carvalho]

Prog. I am a confessed prog-head. Notice there's a mellotron in my signature.
I do like many other music genres, but when it gets down to writing and arranging, it's always been prog. Mainly.

[Dominique]

I listen all kinds of music. I like classical music for it's state of art of developing a theme. For that, I always listen to complete piece and I hate the current mode of making compilations of parts of different pieces. I like jazz for its phrasing, cuban music for its rhythm, and many other genres. But generally, what make me feel a music have a meaning is its lyrics. For me, acoustical musics, even if I can have a lot of fun playing them, are lacking something most of the time.

To play, I have a rhythm & blues approach, by that I mean I prefer to begin with simple things, with 3 notes you know if you are in major, minor, augmented or diminished, and use my feeling to add the complications. For the chords on the guitar, I will prefer chords that give me one or more free fingers. The same with the rhythm, I begin with the basic rhythmic of a style, experiment different ways of playing it, and build on it.

All that together makes me play mostly some kind of fusion between traditional music, blues-rock-punk and latin music for the rhythm, that mixed with all kinds of influences for the harmony. In practice, how I will play a song will depend on my feeling and a lot of different things. As exemple, if it is cold, I will be much more rock n' roll.

[AlexTheBassist]

But generally, what make me feel a music have a meaning is its lyrics

But that's totally against the core idea of music: to transmit a message without using a single word. If a musical piece requires presence of lyrics, then it's plainly weak. That's the reason I still haven't put online any of my own sounds. Despite I've got some deeper theory knowledge than most do, I still can't always write music that speaks for itself. As we see on TOP100 and similar charts, not many people even in music world can really do that. Heck, most of them just take a plain and common chord progression (T → S → D7 → T in harmonic minor, for instance), make a simple arrangement on top of that, pay a mixer to do a metric ton of sound design for sake of making it not so boring, put on some really crappy lyrics, and that's the product. Really, a “deeply emotional and meaningful” song isn't much more than that, especially if it's played on an acoustic guitar and built on the same three arpeggio chords. Call me a snob, but I'm one of those who's tired of those dumb assumptions that lyrics (not the vocal melody, of course) have anything to do with music. And, respectively, one of those who just wants to focus on musical sounds when listening to music. If I want poetry, I go to a library, be it an online or “old-fashioned” one.

And one last thing to remember: first music a human being ever made was instrumental. The first thing humans played is… a percussion. Vocals came to the game a long, long after.