Let's Talk About Music | My Favourites From Each Era / Genre

Hi.​

I like music. Well... That's not completely true. I like some music and I even adore some music. But as is the case with anything, most of it is horrendous, however, that's exactly what I'm not going to talk about because I wanted to not be a pedantic, nitpicking prick for once. These pieces of music are my favourites from each genre, although "each" is a big word. There's an infinite amount of ways to arrange vibrations of the air, so this is only a very surface level exploration of what music has to offer.

Medieval
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Anonymous - J'ai mis tout ma pensee

During the middle ages most pieces of music were religious. God stood at the center of nearly all music, with the exception of the love songs and comedic pieces played by troubadours, essentially singer-songwriters. The emphasis on religion meant that composers often remained anonymous. "J'ai mis tout ma pensee" is a motet, a short three- or four-part choral piece. Harmony during the middle ages was often primitive, usually consisting of only fourths, fifths and octaves. Having said that, I like this piece, but I largely chose it just because it's really hard to find medieval music.

Renaissance
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Carlo Gesualdo - Mille volte il di moro

While the church was still the main commissioner of music, secular music started becoming more important during the renaissance, as royalty would now commission artists to create songs for them. Art became business. People started taking credit for their own work and people started singing about worldly matters. The music itself also saw much development, moving away from the fifths that felt open-ended (think of power chords, a "chord" that is neither major nor minor) to thirds and sixths. Polyphony, having the different parts sing in different rhythms, became more prevalent and instrumental music became the go-to for dancing. "Mille volte il di moro" is a secular choral piece in Italian, a madrigal. Its title literally means "I die a thousand times a die", not very religious.

Baroque
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Giuseppe Sammartini - Sonata VI

Baroque is the era of music I'm the most familiar with and as such I will from now on try to make this less of a lesson in musical history and more "not-boring" (oh and you can't expect me to write a whole essay on each piece of music). As you can see, the recording of this one is kinda bad, but this was the best one I could find because: 1. It includes all four movements and 2. The "soloist" is really good. This is personally one of my favourite pieces to play and I have many times in the past. I also chose this because I thought it would be nice to have a choice that's not as obvious as a Bach or Vivaldi.

Classical
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem in D minor

Speaking of obvious choices: here's Mozart! The classical era can pretty much be described in three words: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, so I would be lying to myself if it hadn't been one of those. I must say I don't really like most of Mozart's work. If you look in Mozart's repertoire it's an endless see of simple melodies that everyone knows and I get really tired of it after while, but man if the piece that he wrote on his deathbed isn't a masterpiece, they should probably redefine the word.

Romantic
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake

If you want to skip to the part you've actually heard, go to (52:48). I don't care much for ballet, but it has spawned this masterpiece so I can't say I'm not glad it exists. I'm an oboist and "Swan Lake" contains quite possibly the most famous (and beautiful) fragment of oboe ever. This was a complete no-brainer compared to most of my other choices, with the exception of the two previous ones. Many good pieces of music have that one moment where you just get the chills and all your hairs stand up. For me that's this whole piece.

Twentieth Century
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Gustav Holst - The Planets

I don't know what to say about this one. You probably already know it, or at least the Mars part. I just kinda have a soft spot for it. The 20th century was filled with all kinds of compositions which ranged from taking inspiration from the romantic era to avant-garde and atonal music. It was all a matter of choosing one and all I can say is that I just... like it.

Jazz
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John Coltrane - My Favorite Things

"My Favorite Things" is based upon a song of the same name by Julie Andrews, but as you know, it's jazz, meaning that it's its own different thing completely. I don't play any instruments "viable" for jazz, but damn does this make me wish I did. The original song was actually covered twice. "My Favorite Things" by John Coltrane and "7 rings" by Ariana Grande. I think you can guess which is "my favourite thing".

Pop
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Tom Jones - It's Not Unusal

I hate pop music with a passion. I hate the generic rhythms, the bad lyrics, the formulaic structure, the repetition, the everything. Luckily for me, the "pop" genre is terribly defined, so I can just grab a random song I like which is labeled "pop" on Wikipedia and put it in its spot, like the mature person I am. So there you have it, "It's Not Unusual" by Tomes Jones.

Rhythm & Blues
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Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine

R&B is not particularly a genre of music I gravitate toward, but that doesn't stop me from appreciating this song. Not only does it one groovy piece of music, as R&B tends to be, it's also a song that lets you see into the singers feelings, a concept which somehow eludes every other artist talking about money or how many people they've had sexual intercourse with.

Soul
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Stevie Wonder - Pastime Paradise

This might not be the best example of soul you can find, but to me it is the best example of soul you can find. Still, like most soul it has a strong rhythmic groove and strong backing vocals at the end. This song is mainly just known for the two covers it has spawned, "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio and its parody "Amish Paradise" by "Weird" Al Yankovic. Despite that, I think the original is still the best piece of them all.

Reggae
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Bob Marley - One Love

I don't really like reggae all that much. To me it all just meshes together into one big bowl of one-drops, off-beats, chill guitars, hammond organs and positivity. Because I'm not very well versed in the genre I pretty much had to pick the king of reggae: Bob Marley. I did. Here it is. Not the most mind-blowing choice on this list.

Disco
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Earth, Wind & Fire - Boogie Wonderland

Dance! It's disco time, which means I pick and obvious classic that everyone already knows because my musical knowledge is equivalent to that of a starfish. You know it. I like it. Maybe you like it too. Nothing interesting to say here, except that it's become quite obvious that I'm not nearly putting as much effort into these as I was at the start of this thread.

Funk
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Prince - When Doves Cry

When talking about funk, one artist usually comes to mind and that's Prince. "When Doves Cry" is as funky as it gets, emphasis one the one-beat and a rhythmic groove that's second to none. Again, I'm not really surprising anyone here, so I'll keep it short.

Rock
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Queen - Who Wants To Live Forever

While rock is a very varied genre, you don't really get much choice. You either pick Queen or The Beatles, or you leave. The start this song may not be exactly what comes to mind when you say "Rock", but I had to put it on there for the amazing display of Freddie's singing ability that it is.

Dance
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Scatman John - Scatman

Dance is really just an umbrella term for many musical genres. I only put it here because I wanted to put this song on the list.

Hip Hop
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Busta Rhymes - Gimme Some More

Hip Hop or just "Rap" is a really interesting genre of music to me. For one, it's the least like music of all music. It ditches much of the melody you'd traditionally find in any piece of vocal music. Instead it leans more towards poetry, with an emphasis on rhyme, clever wordplay and meter. It's also, in my opinion, one of the most varying in quality. There is a very clear distinction between a rap that somebody thought long and hard about and your generic gansta rap or even worse: mumble rap. I chose "Gimme Some More" because Busta's flow is just lightning fast and because it talks about the ridiculous nature of most gangsta rap.

Nightcore
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No - Stop in Meme/Rant minor

Seriously, why does this "genre" of "music" exist. It's just plagiarism and on top of that, it doesn't even sound good. Do the people who like this pathetic excuse of a style just not hear lower frequencies and live in fast motion or something? What the hell is this even supposed to be?

Bye
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Yay, I just spent the better part of my day writing this mess. I hope you at least learned something about me or music in general. Did you read the whole thing? If so, I pity you. Then again, I wrote this abomination. Have a nice day.

 

Not that I read the whole thing but i'll definitely listen to them

 

I personally like Gustav Holst's "The Planets" suite. Jupiter and Mars are the best.

 

That lil uzi vert guy seems like a pretty good classical musician