GaryBlanchardandFriends
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Joined: 09 Jun 2008
More posts by GaryBlanchardandFriends
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 Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 5:20 am Post subject: Genres |
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I truly do understand that genre labels help people to make some decisions about music prior to listening, but I always find them so limiting while they are at the same time too broad. Grateful Dead and the Ramones are both rock, yet very different. "Indie" is more a label status than a musical style. "Folk" can be everything from Pete Seeger to James Taylor.
I have the hardest time trying to classify myself. If pressed, I might call what I do folk-rock, but that doesn't really describe it. I guess what I want to know is how do others decide what genre to align with? |
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Reconsiderate
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Joined: 19 May 2005
More posts by Reconsiderate
96.109 Music Forte Dollars
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 10:40 am Post subject: Re: Genres |
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| GaryBlanchardandFriends wrote: |
| how do others decide what genre to align with? |
I'm right there with you, bro.
I never know how to describe my music to other people. In some sense, you could consider it electronica, since I write and mix everything using synthesizers on my computer. But, really, that's only a superficial description at best. After all, my style doesn't depend upon my medium. Were I to have learned the clarinet, piano, guitar, theremin or some other instrument, the songs would still be written in the same way they are today, which is largely loop-based.
Whenever I sit down to write some music, I usually start by picking a time signature (such as 5/4 or 6/8, et cetera) and melodic key (such as D# major, F diminished, A enigmatic, et cetera) at random. As soon as I've got these, I'll do my best to make some interesting loops using the synth voices and percussive textures that I find in Reason, my composition software. The beats often take on a convoluted or "jagged" quality, while, with the melodies, I'm just going for something that's easy to listen to.
Once I've got a solid loop or two, I'll start playing around with ways to repeat, arrange and modify them as the song progresses forward through time. (This is what interests me most about song composition: its layout, the sequencing and organization of its constituent pieces.) At some point while all this is going on, I'll make the executive decision whether to throw in some lyrics, which I'll pull from a poem I've written or intend to write, or leave the song as an instrumental. Whichever I decide, I'll run with it until I feel it's done, or I run out of ideas. It's a great exercise in imagination for me, because I'm always doing what I can to head in directions where I've never taken previous songs.
In the end, my music serves primarily as a means of framing and emphasizing my lyrics-- I do consider myself a wordsmith first and a recording artist second. Having been influenced mostly by hard rock (such as Tool), industrial (such as KMFDM) and rap (such as KRSONE), my lyrics tend to be somewhat confrontational and ironic, and are almost always delivered in a half-sung, half-spoken style. In the past, others have described it varyingly as "electro punk", "spoken word" and even "underground hip-hop". In my opinion, I'm just making music the way music is supposed to be made; you can call it whatever you like.
Thanks!
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Reconsiderate
Weird music for weird weirdos who are weird
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