Genres
What actually makes a genre sound like itself? It's almost never one thing. Every genre is a stack of layers — scale, harmony, rhythm, then form — and every page reads them in that order. The blues is a scale, a set of chords, a feel, and a 12-bar shape at once.
9 genres
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Blues
A 12-bar form, a shuffle feel, and the blues scale — the stack that became the root of jazz, R&B, and rock.
ExploreChasidicחסידיש
Devotional singing of Chasidic communities — nigunim and holiday songs learned by ear, at the table and in school, rather than written for a stage.
ExploreFolk revival
The 1950s–60s Anglo-American movement that put traditional and borrowed songs on guitar and on record — coffeehouses, Newport, protest — and carried “Donna, Donna” around the world.
ExploreKlezmerכּלי־זמר
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Freygish modes, sobbing ornaments, and dance forms from the freylekhs to the bulgar — the celebration music of Ashkenazi Eastern Europe.
PreviewReggae
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The one-drop — emphasis on beat 3 — and an offbeat guitar/organ skank on 2 and 4.
PreviewRock
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The backbeat — snare on 2 and 4 — plus power chords and a driving straight-eighth feel.
PreviewTraditional Jewish
Songs and tunes kept as inheritance in Jewish home and religious life — holiday songs, table songs, and nigunim — whether or not a poet once signed them.
ExploreYiddish folkפֿאָלקסליד
Strophic songs in Yiddish that lived by being sung — lullabies, love songs, work and protest songs — rather than by being written for a stage or a wedding dance.
ExploreYiddish theaterייִדיש טעאַטער
Composed songs for the Yiddish stage — Second Avenue operetta and the literary Art Theatre — named authors, verse-and-refrain, and the crossover hits that jumped into American pop.
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