i agree. and i want to produce in many genres. but earlier on in the thread there was flamming about "genre hoping," so your saying to try many, which i do, and other are saying to not?... i think they all have sticks up their asses.

quote:

Originally posted by Sanguis Mortuum What we now call 'classical' was pretty much all there was back then, so, at the time, those types I listed would have been their equivelant of 'genres',

Good point, you could call those genres of classical music. Guess no one can be knocking EDM for having so many different flavors. In fairness, beatport has only 18 genres listed. That's not so bad when you think about it. I still hate trying to sift through all of them though, looking for good music. I'm glad there are DJ sets and podcasts.

When I compose, I don't have any style in mind. I flip through my sound catalogs, and just start jamming. I never know what's going to come out. Sometimes it's a progressive house track, sometimes electro house. I'll let the label figure out what genre the song is. I'm starting to think that some of my stuff could be considered eletro tech or something like that, if there is such a thing.

I don't stick to any kind of rules. For me personally, rules are creativity killers. Some composers use a strict set of rules, that's fine to. Takes all types.

This is the Trance production forum, so I guess we'll always take flack for mentioning other styles of EDM. Electro House seems to be especially despised here. There are forums for house production, they aren't near as good as this one though.

With respect to the sub-discussion about classical music, I see only two ways one can really define an electronic genre: either (a) by the tempo, or (b) by the sound. Classical music ranged anywhere from 50 M.M. (more or less the same as BPM) to 180 or so, and was composed for just about every different instrument and combination of instruments available at the time. I think it's fair to say that "classical" music encompassed far more different styles than the entire umbrella term "EDM" or "electronic music". Nevertheless, the "genre" is still generally defined by the period - baroque, classical, romantic, contemporary/modern.

Pieces from the baroque/classical/romantic eras also had a different and perhaps much more important distinction, that being the arrangement and rhythmic structure. I'm not trying to pick on anyone here, but most commercialized genres today (includes any genre during its fad period, and basically all trance since 2001 or so) use exactly the same arrangement in almost every track. Further to that, there was a much more objective classification system back then; you can still look at the arrangement of any piece from that era and (assuming you've studied any theory) be able to say whether or not it's a prelude, polonaise, march, fugue, sonata, concerto, whatever.

Probably part of the reason we have all of these ridiculous and meaningless sub-genres is that there is no formal system of classification today other than the genre itself. Instead of an honest, objective label like "Waltz in D Major, Allegro, for Piano", you have every dipshit DJ and producer making up his own subjective one ("Deep funky hard progressive electro tech-polka") in order to sound like he's on the cutting edge. And because the names are completely subjective, it's our word against theirs as to whether or not it's really funky, hard, and progressive electro-tech polka or if it's just ordinary run-of-the-mill deep tech-polka.

It's a goddamn dog's breakfast. Just be honest and pick a sensible genre (trance, house, breaks) and if you really want, add a prefix that describes a bit more about either the style or the sample/synth selection. Example of the former would be "funky" or "uplifting". The latter could be "electro" (if it's got that 808 feel - please understand that the word is not merely a short form for "electronic sounding") or perhaps "symphonic" or something like that. If you don't want to come across as a pretentious asshole, use ONE of these prefixes, not both; it sounds really lame if the genre is more than two words.

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awsome words man.