Need Some Help

I am currently in school and I am taking a speech class this term. My next speech is due in 2 weeks and I want to do it on Genre Definition. The Genre's that I personally would recognize are Rock, Metal, Country, Pop, Jazz and Orchestra. I want to start writing my outline by next Wednesday (10-12-12) so I thought that I would get some feedback from ya'll. I am looking for suggestions of bands that fit in the categories as well as laymen/working definitions of the Genre's. I am not concerned about sub-genre's at this point as I want to keep it simple.

IMO:

Rock: Stones, U2, Nickelback, Dave Matthews Band

Metal: Iron Maiden, Metallica, Judas Priest, Megadeth

Country: Rascall Flats, Lady Antebellum, Trace Adkins

Pop: Lady Gaga, Madonna, Katy Perry

Jazz: Al Dimeola, Lee Ritenour, David Sanborn, Chick Corea

Orchestra: ?

tohostudios wrote:

IMO:

Rock: Stones, U2, Nickelback, Dave Matthews Band

Metal: Iron Maiden, Metallica, Judas Priest, Megadeth

Country: Rascall Flats, Lady Antebellum, Trace Adkins

Pop: Lady Gaga, Madonna, Katy Perry

Jazz: Al Dimeola, Lee Ritenour, David Sanborn, Chick Corea

Orchestra: ?

Orchestrated Music: Opera, symphony, Baroque, classical... Etc. Not quite sure how it is labeled.

Thanks for the list. I totally agree, except that I would say Rascall Flats is Southern Rock IMO.

I'll chime in on some more jazz artists:

John Coltrane
Miles Davis
Charles Mingus
Herbie Hancock
John McLaughlin

Also, I'd make sure to include The Beatles and Pink Floyd since "rock" encompasses so many genres.

yeah, I would find out if they are trying to get things chronological, or? Because when you drop that 'rock' term, that is so big at this point.... if you could just get away with saying The Beatles....Stones..even U2... that simplifies things....and then jazz, well, jazz more or less demands some kind of chronological context, minus obvious staples e.g. 'Kind of Blue'. 'Armstrong/Ellington'.. you know.

You know what though, go the extra mile with these and don't just copy some ClearChannel funded magazine poll list or what have you. Give some credit to people who were/are doing amazing stuff but in the wrong time or without a budget. Throw some Sun Ra in the jazz category is what I'm saying.

Orchestra is a genre?

If you're going that vague, might as well just include metal in the rock genre.

My music teacher told me there's only two proper genres: popular music and serious music. Folk, pop, rock, jazz, rap, reggae, country, electronic, whatever are all forms of popular music.

Anyway, I suggest you limit it to genres of popular music. That way you don't need to try and include the myriads of centuries of classical music. It's so heavily studied and dissected already and anything short of a book series cannot give proper insight to the different styles. A lot of the genres that didn't age well still have a couple of centuries of history, as opposed to rock and pop music which only have about 60 years. And it's kind of awkward to over-simplify and go "...and soon after the peak of popularity for zarzuela, Jimmy Page founded Led Zeppelin and started what we now recognise as heavy metal".

Having said that, contemporary opera for instance is smurf poo. There's a reason why they play the old stuff so much...

I think a division of something like:
- jazz (includes swing, latin, early 20th century world music etc)
- rock and roll (includes blues, soul, punk rock, metal etc)
- hip-hop (includes rap, r&b etc)
- electronic (includes techno, dance, house etc)
- folk (includes country, world music etc)

...and it would be quite tight. Still mostly focusing on contemporary genres. A lot of genres have actually pretty much died by now.

on Country I would go way back to: Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline, Buck Owens, George Jones, Charlie Pride, Oak Ridge Boys, Statler Brothers("counting flowers on the wall, that don't bother me at all / playing Solitaire til dawn, with a deck of 51"..LOVE that song!!!)... and how could I forget Johnny Cash!!!!

chewie wrote:

on Country I would go way back to: Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline, Buck Owens, George Jones, Charlie Pride, Oak Ridge Boys, Statler Brothers("counting flowers on the wall, that don't bother me at all / playing Solitaire til dawn, with a deck of 51"..LOVE that song!!!)... and how could I forget Johnny Cash!!!!

Thats what I consider country as well, the smurf poo on the radio most definitely has it's roots in pop and southern rock... NOT Country!! I do indeed love me some old country as well.

Lari wrote:

Orchestra is a genre?


I think a division of something like:
- jazz (includes swing, latin, early 20th century world music etc)
- rock and roll (includes blues, soul, punk rock, metal etc)
- hip-hop (includes rap, r&b etc)
- electronic (includes techno, dance, house etc)
- folk (includes country, world music etc)

...and it would be quite tight. Still mostly focusing on contemporary genres. A lot of genres have actually pretty much died by now.

I am honestly not quite sure what to classify all the classical-opera-symphonic music as so Orchestra just sounds right, I guess. I like the idea of leaving it out and concentrating on what these mindless zombies (jk) usually listen to. I would add Grunge and Alternative to the Rock genre and Bluegrass to Folk. I really like the way that you simplified it here. This looks like a good starting point and then go with OCI's suggestion and add some obscure stuff to define and expand the genres.

I want to keep the audience interested and possibly spark an interest for good quality music that is not on the radio.

you wouldn't have rock without blues

Yeah don't forget blues. Robert Johnson would be an important figure to address since he is pretty much the godfather of all of the above genres.