A genre of American music that originated in New Orleans circa 1900 (see Jazz timeline) characterized by strong, prominent

meter, improvisation, distinctive tone colors & performance techniques, and dotted or syncopated rhythmic patterns. But Jazz is so much more than that. Most attempts to define Jazz music have been from points of view outside that of Jazz. Jazz is the most significant form of musical expression in American culture and outstanding contribution to the art of music. From obscure origins in New Orleans over a century ago, the music and the word we use for it are now familiar the world over. Like the self-motivating, energetic solos that distinguish the genre, Jazz continues to evolve and seek new levels of artistic expression. In slightly over one hundred years, this evolution has given birth to approximately two dozen distinct Jazz styles. Jazz music draws from life experience and human emotion as the inspiration of the creative force, and through this discourse is chronicled the story of its people. Jazz musicians and those that follow the genre closely, can indeed be thought of as an artistic community complete with its leaders, spokesmen, innovators, aficionados, members and fans.

Western music is a broad category of music that includes all musical genres that use a 12-note chromatic scale, including Western classical music, rock and roll, and many other forms of popular music. The word Western may be misleading; although much of this music came from

Europe and North America, important contributions have come from places like Russia and Japan. Western music developed out of the creatively fertile framework of Western philosophy that had its birthplace in ancient Greece. Pythagoras experimented with intervals of sound based on small integers, which we recognize today as the 12-tone chromatic scale. From these logical roots developed the chants of early Christian tradition, first monophonic, and later polyphonic and including instruments. Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources. Musically, rock has centred around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music with a 4/4 beat utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.

Pop music (a term that originally derives from an abbreviation of "popular") is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented towards a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes. Pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, but as a genre is particularly associated with the rock and roll and later rock style

Musicologists often identify the following characteristics as typical of the pop music genre:
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an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology[3]

y y y y

an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities[3] an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, over live performance[10] a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments[10] much pop music is intended to encourage dancing, or it uses dance-oriented beats or rhythms[10]