Contemporary Western Music Genres

Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American
communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States around the end of the 19th century from
spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues
form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll is characterized by specific chord
progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues chord progression is the most common. The blue notes that,
for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent (minor 3rd to major 3rd) in relation
to the pitch of the major scale, are also an important part of the sound.

Jazz
Jazz is a music that originated at the beginning of the 20th century, arguably earlier, within the AfricanAmerican communities of the Southern United States. Its roots lie in the adoption by African-Americans
of European harmony and form, taking on those European elements and combining them into their
existing African-based music. Its African musical basis is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation,
polyrhythm, syncopation and the swung note. From its early development until the present day, jazz has
also incorporated elements from popular music especially, in its early days, from American popular
music.
it differs from European music in that jazz has a "special relationship to time defined as 'swing'", involves
a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays an important role and
contains a sonority and manner of phrasing which express the individuality of the performing jazz
musician.

Rock and roll

Rock n roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late
1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African-American genres such as blues, jump
blues, jazz, and gospel music, together with Western swing and country music. Though elements of rock
and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, rock and roll
did not acquire its name until the 1950s.
In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano or saxophone was
often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or supplemented by guitar in the middle to
late 1950s. The beat is essentially a blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, the latter almost always
provided by a snare drum. Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars (one
lead, one rhythm), a string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit. Beyond
simply a musical style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and on television, influenced lifestyles, fashion,
attitudes, and language. It went on to spawn various sub-genres, often without the initially characteristic
backbeat, that are now more commonly called simply "rock music" or "rock".

Most notable rock n roll star would be Elvis Presley who recorded his first song thats all right in 1954.
Rock n roll influenced bangle music a great deal, especially in the 60s and 70s. Example: Manna de
song Jibone ki pabona, Happy Akhand song Abar elo je sondha
Rock

Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter,
with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Rock songs from the mid-1960s
onwards often used the verse-chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has
been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic
diversity of rock. Because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and
cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated
musical definition."

A simple 4/4 drum pattern common in rock music

Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes
in addition to romantic love: including sex, rebellion against "The Establishment", social
concerns and life styles. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin
Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm and blues. The predominance of white, male and
often middle class musicians in rock music has often been noted and rock has been seen as an
appropriation of black musical forms for a young, white and largely male audience. As a result it
has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics.
Since the term rock began to be used in preference to rock and roll from the mid-1960s, it has
often been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from
which it is often distanced by an emphasis on musicianship, live performance and a focus on
serious and progressive themes as part of an ideology of authenticity that is frequently combined
with an awareness of the genre's history and development.[18] According to Simon Frith "rock
was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an
emphasis on skill and technique with the romantic concept of art as artistic expression, original
and sincere". In the new millennium the term rock has sometimes been used as a blanket term
including forms such as pop music, reggae music, soul music, and even hip hop, with which it
has been influenced but often contrasted through much of its history.

Pop music
The definition of pop music is purposefully flexible as the music that is identified as pop is constantly
changing. At any particular point in time it may be easiest to identify pop music as that which is
successful on the pop music charts. For the past 50 years the most successful musical styles on the pop
charts have continually changed and evolved. However, there are some consistent patterns in what is

identified as pop music. Pop music evolved out of the rock 'n roll revolution of the mid-1950's and
continues in a definable path to today.
Like other art forms that aim to attract a mass audience (movies, television, Broadway shows), pop music
has been and continues to be a melting pot that borrows and assimilates elements and ideas from a wide
range of musical styles. Rock, r&b, country, disco, punk, and hip hop are all specific genres of music that
have influenced and been incorporated into pop music in various ways over the past 5 decades. Most
recently, Latin music seems to be impacting pop music more significantly than at any point in the past.

Musicologists often identify the following characteristics as typical of the pop music genre:

an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or

ideology

an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities

an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, over live performance

a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments

much pop music is intended to encourage dancing, or it uses dance-oriented beats or

rhythms