What defines Guitar driven music genres?

[William B.]

Hi, I like to listen to a lot of different styles of music and as of late been thinking about what defines each genre. (especially Metal)

There seems to be so many sub genres. The confusion starts already when I think about what is the difference between Rock and Metal.

Not just Metal, like what's the difference between Bluegrass, Country, Americana.

Is it lyrical content, beats or more?

Maybe you can leave your opinions here and we can expand on them together to get a clearer picture? (at least for me)

I'm sure there's stuff on the internet about it but I thought could post a thread about it.

I need to go for now

 

[idssdi]

Lyrical content not so much. A lot of times it's more in harmony, melodies and sound.

The way I look at it is more or less like this

Pop: emphasis is very much on writing hooks and preferably as catchy as you possibly can

Rock: a lot of rock and especially classic rock is fast blues with overdriven guitars

Blues: I-IV-V chord progression with combination of major and minor thirds and usually lots of space and a lot of times a bit sad

Jazz: ii-V-I progression

Gypsy jazz: not exclusively ii-V-I, no drums and rhythm is defined by the rhythm guitarist and bass player (la pompe for example). The lead guitarist also targets the 2nd and 6th and it can include a violin.

Metal: heavy distorted guitars and a lot of the time in minor keys. Double bass is very common too

House/EDM/techno : groove based (or not a lot going on the harmony)

Hip hop: tends to be pretty slow to make room for the rapper to rap over it.

These are just some short descriptions because I suck at genres and tend to just use the 'do I like it?' approach when it comes to music. Especially since genres tend to be combined a lot really

Obviously there are differences in subgenre. Techno, EDM and house are not the same and within metal, blues and rock there's a whole bunch of differences. This is mostly very broadly how I tend to look at these genres

 

[chris_is_cool]

Most genre definitions grow organically out of musical history, so there are some genres, which outsiders mash together but which have completely different musical inspirations and history. 70s Punk and Hard Rock/Heavy Metal used both distorted guitars, but are completely different genres, and if you were to tell any 70s punk band that they played rock, they would just beat you up (and the other way around).

So, here is how I see it, roughly starting from the 70s with my favorite music. I'm not gonna talk about anything that I don't know anything about.

So roughly around the late 60s and early 70s, out of the harder blues and blues rock, there are two genres emerging, Hard Rock and Heavy Metal. Now, there is a lot of debate on a lot of bands of that time, wheather to count them as heavy metal or not, because the new term heavy metal was thrown around a lot then, and applied to bands like Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple etc... In my opinion (just from internet and conversations with old school metal heads who were actually alive back then), the first real heavy metal album was the Black Sabbath debut album, and the essentiel bands from the era, who actually shaped the sound of heavy metal as a whole, were: Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Motörhead. If you want to argue if a particular Thin Lizzy album was actually Heavy Metal or not, knock yourself out, but these 3 are undeniably the very fucking definition of Heavy Fucking Metal.
Sometimes, this ambiguous 70s era is also referred to as "Proto Metal".

1979/80: Start of the metal explosion in UK, with what we call now the "New Wave Of British Heavy Metal" (NWOBHM). Bands like Iron Maiden, Saxon, Angel Witch, Tygers Of Pan Tang, Venom, Mercyful Fate etc really define the sound of Heavy Metal (alongside the already mentioned 70s bands). If you describe the genre of a band as "Heavy Metal" or "Traditional Metal" or "Trad", I will expect a sound close to this era.

Then of course, Heavy Metal was spreading around the world fast. "Speed Metal" is a genre with many definitions, I would see it most of the time as a sub genre of Heavy Metal describing the fastest and most aggressive bands (or just albums), that are not quite Thrash yet, like early Accept, Venom debut, Mercyful Fate, Metal Church...

Early 80s in the US, birth of my two favorite genres of all time (and their fan base HATED each other with a passion): "Glam/Hair Metal" and "Thrash Metal".

Thrash Metal was of course defined by "The Big Four", Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. It uses the "speed" of speed metal, more distortion, harder riffing (a lot of palm muted down strokes and gallops), less emphasis on melody and more emphasis on aggression, and overall, there are influences of Punk and Hardcore in this genre. Outside of the Big Four, shoutout to Exodus, Testament, Overkill, Flotsam and Jetsam, and of course "The Big Four of Teutonic Thrash Metal" (ie the founders of the german thrash metal scene): Sodom, Kreator, Destruction, Tankard.

Speaking of Europe and Germany, Speed Metal evolved in a more melodic (still fast and powerful) direction, called Power Metal, with bands like Helloween, Blind Guardian, Gamma Ray etc... In the US, Power Metal is also evolving, with bands like Manowar, Omen, Manilla Road... Some consider US Power Metal and EU Power Metal to be different genres entirely, because EUPM evolved into a more melodic and in the 90s also symphonic direction, while USPM was always more aggressive.

But back to the arch enemy of all Thrash Metal Fans of the 80s, Glam Metal. While I would not consider Van Halen to be actually Glam, they definitely were a big influence in what became the "Sunset strip sound", together with Quiet Riot, Mötley Crüe, Twisted Sister etc... Lots of Sex, Drugs, Rock'n'Roll and party, and a lot more girls in the scene. And Thrashers didn't like that one bit, they wanted "harder, faster, more aggressive, less mainstream). Luckily, now in 2021 I don't have to participate in this silly war and can just enjoy both styles for what they are. Other favorites of mine are: Ratt, WASP, Y&T, Skid Row (some don't want to count them here, but deal with it, they were part of the scene), Bon Jovi, etc...

Back to the more aggressive side of metal: In the mid and late 80s, a more aggressive version of Thrash Metal is born, which eventually evolves into Death Metal. Possessed probably coined the term, but I would call Death the first real Death Metal band. Very deeply tuned guitars, looooooow growls, heavy fucking riffs and riffs and even more riffs... Check out Cannibal Corpse, Bolt Thrower, Obituary, Suffocation among others... And then there is the whole scandinavian branch, and it all evolves into douzens of sub genres, which are either all the same or completely unrelated depending on who you ask.

The other big extreme genre is Black Metal. The first wave of Black Metal (also known as Proto Black Metal) grew out of NWOBHM and Speed Metal, with bands like Venom and Bathory. But Black Metal really started in the early 90s with the 2nd Wave Of Black Metal, with Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum, Immortal etc... As opposed to Death Metal, the vocals are usually very harsh screams, there is very little attention payed to technicality (apart from tremolo picking everything), it is a very lo-fi sound overall. Oh yeah, and lots of blast beats.
Of course, the history of this period is deeply troubled. Check out the wikipedia article for details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Norwegian_black_metal_scene
But the very quick overview: Vocalist of Mayhem kills himself, another member of the scene commits murder, then a lot of wooden churches in norway are burned, then the guy behind Burzum (Neo Nazi, also former member of Mayhem) murders the guy behind Mayhem...
Honestly, while there is some Black Metal that I like, the tolerance for hateful ideologies up to straight up Neo Nazism in the Black Metal scene up TO THIS DAY is extremely off putting, and something that I have never seen to that extend in any other Metal scene... Or music scene in general.

Moving on, I'm a lot less interested in music genres developed after the mid 90s. Of course, in the early 90s we have the whole Seattle Grunge movement, we have crossover thrash (mixing 80s hardcore punk and thrash metal), we have stuff like Groove Metal (Pantera, Machine Head, later Sepultura, Soulfly), Industrial Metal, Gothic Metal, Alternative Metal, Nu Metal, Metalcore (mixing 90s hardcore and Death Metal, and then it just evolves as a genre beyond that), etc... And I didn't even mention all the progressive subgenres which I really don't just want to group together as Progressive Metal...

And yeah, all that is just a really quick and dirty overview of metal and directly related genres. For a real understanding, the only way is to listen to lots of bands and get a feeling for each genre and what defines them and distinguishes them from other genres.

This became a lot longer than I thought it would.

 

[Calvin Phillips]

Genres you can probably have an easy time identifying. Subgenres.. they are slang made up terms fans make to make their bands sound unique and be their "own sound"

Personally I dont follow or care for subgenres.

 

[William B.]

My first guess was the rhythms but now seems it's a combination of everything.
So if Hard Rock and Heavy Metal came from Blues where did Jazz come from? Or what is it?
Asking for a friend

 

[idssdi]

My first guess was the rhythms but now seems it's a combination of everything.
So if Hard Rock and Heavy Metal came from Blues where did Jazz come from? Or what is it?
Asking for a friend

I sincerely believe that a lot of music can be traced back to one of these genres: classical, jazz, blues and folk ( I included folk because that's kind of how songs were passed along in the old days).

 

[chris_is_cool]

My first guess was the rhythms but now seems it's a combination of everything.
So if Hard Rock and Heavy Metal came from Blues where did Jazz come from? Or what is it?
Asking for a friend

If someone wants to write a wikipedia article like I accidentally did for Heavy Metal, have fun .

Jokes aside, I know a lot less about Jazz and Blues, I just didn't grow up with these genres and only started caring after starting to play the guitar. What I DO know: Jazz and Blues both came out of the African-American population of the 19th century, and they both kinda combined African musical traditions with ideas of western harmony. From wikipedia, Blues came first, and developed out of the African work songs from the era of slavery. Blues as a more formalized genre, with 12 bar blues and stuff, developed after the turn of the century. Jazz came a bit later, and with more influences from western harmony, but there are also a lot of blues elements in jazz, like swung rhythms, improvisation based melodies, etc. As far as I understand, if you want to play jazz now, you really need to know your 12 bar blues inside and out.

Anyway, as far as the history concernes, wikipedia seems like a good source, and as far as the music goes, probably just listen to a lot of Blues and Jazz, especially after they became more "well defined" genres in the 20s and 30s or so.

Jazz - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Blues - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The defining blues song for me: (I don't know much else )

 

[Ed Seith]

Chris did a great job on his writeup and Calvin summarized nicely about genres and subgenres. I'd add that for subgenres, a lot of those nowadays really just started by a band being made up of two (or more) very diverse primary (genre) influences. I.E., when bands started mixing blues-derived rock in with jazz and psychedelic influences, we got progressive rock, which now also has many subgenres of it's own.

I'm not typically a fan of subgenres, and like bands that blur those lines more than those who adhere to them. Trivium started as a metalcore band, but I don't consider them metalcore, even though the foundation of their "sound" remains largely metalcore. Avenged cover a lot of different genres, sometimes hopping from album to album - HttK is a very "classic metal" or even "modern hard rock" album, but then The Stage is generally much more progressive metal or even progressive rock in some cases. City of Evil is LOADED with NWOBHM influences, with their metalcore underpinnings being much less obvious.

 

[William B.]

My stepdad, he's a keyboard player. He said the pentatonic scale was just playing the black keys and also said it's oriental sounding. I listened to it with that thought in my mind and he's right. Always thought it was "Western", got really confused.

I probably shouldn't worry about picking a genre to stick to, maybe it's like boxing myself in.
Gonna check out some of those bands I haven't heard yet.
All I know for sure is is that my music needs guitars', bass, drums', and lyrical stuff
Maybe more

 

[Ed Seith]

My stepdad, he's a keyboard player. He said the pentatonic scale was just playing the black keys and also said it's oriental sounding. I listened to it with that thought in my mind and he's right. Always thought it was "Western", got really confused.

I probably shouldn't worry about picking a genre to stick to, maybe it's like boxing myself in.
Gonna check out some of those bands I haven't heard yet.
All I know for sure is is that my music needs guitars', bass, drums', and lyrical stuff
Maybe more

Ids can say more, but that's not correct. The black keys are the sharps or flats on a piano. The pentatonic scale is just five notes of the major or minor scale (no 4th or 7th), so if the C major scale is C D E F G A B, then the C Major pentatonic is C D E G A - literally none of those notes are black keys on a piano.

 

[idssdi]

My stepdad, he's a keyboard player. He said the pentatonic scale was just playing the black keys and also said it's oriental sounding. I listened to it with that thought in my mind and he's right. Always thought it was "Western", got really confused.

I probably shouldn't worry about picking a genre to stick to, maybe it's like boxing myself in.
Gonna check out some of those bands I haven't heard yet.
All I know for sure is is that my music needs guitars', bass, drums', and lyrical stuff
Maybe more

A keyboard is late out in half steps. So if you start on the first white key it's a C, the black key is a C#, the white key is D, the black key is D#, the white key is E, the next white key is F, the black key is F#, the white key is G, the black key is G#, the white key is A, the black key is Bb, the white key is B.

That's an octave on a keyboard so sharps and flats are black (exquise me if this is theoretically not correct for keyboard players) and the other are white.

If you now play the C major scale you play C D E F G A B which is all the white keys. If you make it pentatonic you get C D E G A which is still only white keys.

If you play the A major scale you have A B C# D E F# G# which is four white keys and 3 black keys. Now making it pentatonic it becomes A B C# E F# which is three white keys and 2 black keys. So no the black keys are not the pentatonic scale. If you only play the black keys you can get a scale in a key with only flats and sharps but I can't think of one where that really applies right now

 

[William B.]

Ids can say more, but that's not correct. The black keys are the sharps or flats on a piano. The pentatonic scale is just five notes of the major or minor scale (no 4th or 7th), so if the C major scale is C D E F G A B, then the C Major pentatonic is C D E G A - literally none of those notes are black keys on a piano.

I guess I forgot exactly what he said. But it does sound Oriental? Pentatonic means "5 root notes" just looked it up.
Bill showed a picture and was explaining how sharps kept getting added in his MC. I didn't understand it much at the time but
maybe that's something.
g2g 4now

 

[chris_is_cool]

The black keys of a keyboard are a pentatonic scale! They are the F# Major Pentatonic. Pretty easy to see, the major pentatonic is formed by the degrees 1 2 3 5 6, or by the step sequence whole - whole - 3 halfs - whole - 3 halfs . The relative minor is D#, so they also form the D# minor pentatonic. Can't believe you guys missed that, Ed and Ids .

Otherwise, regarding the subgenre discussion, yeah, many great bands with long carreers will evolve over time and break out of belonging to just one subgenre. On the other hand, there are also plenty of great bands just finding a style that suits them and then sticking to it for 40 years, and that can also be great.

Edit: Gb Major Pentatonic would also work, F# sits at the opposite point of C on the circle of fifths, it has 6 sharps in the key signature, and likewise Gb has 6 flats. So choosing between Gb major and F# major is pretty much just taste, I guess.

 

[Calvin Phillips]

Attached boy Chris. I was gonna say that it was possible it belonged to a scale. But I didn't wanna take the time to look it up.