Learn about music styles, their history, and how they have developed. See a list of some of the many music genres.
Updated: 11/21/2023
Types of Music | Styles, Genre & History
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the different styles of music?
The different styles of music are art music, folk music, and popular music. Within these broad categories, styles include Western art music, rock, and jazz. Within these styles, even more specific styles can be distinguished, such as progressive rock and punk rock.
What are the main genres of music?
Genres of folk music include ballads, work songs, epic songs, drumming, and folk dance music. Genres of popular music include country, musicals, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock, and rap. Genres of Western art music include symphony, sonata, opera, ballet, and concerto.
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ShowMusic has been a vital part of the human experience across the world since ancient times. Musical instruments and song texts that have survived from ancient Greece and Europe demonstrate a persistent and widespread human interest in vocal and instrumental music.
In 2012, archaeologists in southern Germany discovered bone flutes estimated to be 42,000 years old. These paleolithic instruments, along with music inscriptions on papyrus and funerary monuments, show that throughout the history of civilization, humans have used music to mourn the dead and provide entertainment for the living. Plentiful surviving records from later centuries give us richer insights into the different types of music that were cultivated around the world and the people who performed, composed, and consumed them.
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The terms music style and music genre are used to describe a specific type of music that can be identified and distinguished from other types. One style or genre can be distinguished from others through conventions, such as the use of specific instruments, types of melodies, and organization. A list of music genres is provided at the end of this article.
In many cultures, music is commonly used in ceremonies and for entertainment. Three categories can be used to sort the many styles of music found in these cultures over time:
- art music
- folk music
- popular music
Art music is often financially supported by wealthier individuals and powerful leaders such as emperors and nobles. Specialist composers and performers practice their crafts over many years and provide lavish entertainment that reinforces the patrons' prestige and power. Art music is complex and learned through specialized music notation and teaching methods. Styles of art music typically change at a moderate pace over time.
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Folk music is supported and composed by members of a local community, the performers are also integral members of that community. Folk music is often performed for life-cycle rituals in the local community, including weddings, funerals, and coming of age ceremonies. Folk music may often be learned by ear, listening to and imitating another performer. Folk music styles typically change slowly over time.
Popular music has a commercial purpose in addition to its entertainment value. Along with the live concerts put on by specialists or multi-talented performers, popular music is sold as sheet music and recorded music. Leading styles of popular music typically change much more quickly than art music and folk music.
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Western art music was primarily created for an audience of upper-class Europeans. Medieval French rulers enjoyed listening to troubadour songs about chivalry and love performed by poet-composers such as Bernart de Ventadorn. In the seventeenth century, Italian noblemen enjoyed spectacular works written by Claudio Monteverdi in a new genre, opera. These theatrical works combined vocal music, instrumental music, and acting with elaborate sets.
Examples:
- Bernart de Ventadorn, ''Can vei la lauzeta mover'' (c. 1150)
- Claudio Monteverdi, Orfeo, (1607)
Many genres of Western art music that remain well-known today were produced for upper class patrons in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For example, in the eighteenth century, Johann Sebastian Bach presented a set of concertos, or instrumental compositions featuring soloists and an orchestra, to the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt. Franz Joseph Haydn composed many operas, masses, and symphonies, or instrumental compositions for full orchestras, while in the employ of the wealthy Esterhazy family of Hungary. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote compositions in many of the same genres while under the patronage of the Archbishop of Salzburg and Emperor Joseph II.
Examples:
- Johann Sebastian Bach, Brandenburg Concertos No.1-6 (1721)
- Franz Joseph Haydn, Symphony No. 45, also known as the 'Farewell' Symphony (1772)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782)
By the nineteenth century, some compositions of Western art music also reached larger upper-middle class audiences in concert halls in Europe and the United States. In the twentieth century, symphony orchestras played well-known compositions of Western art music from the previous two centuries that were still appreciated by upper-middle class audiences.
History of Western Art Music
The history of Western art music is divided into several stylistic periods. These are the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern, and Postmodern periods.
| Period | Dates | Composers |
|---|---|---|
| Medieval music | 300-1400 | Hildegard of Bingen Bernart de Ventadorn |
| Renaissance music | 1400-1600 | Josquin des Prez Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina John Dowland |
| Baroque music | 1600-1750 | Claudio Monteverdi Johann Sebastian Bach George Fredric Handel |
| Classical music | 1730-1800 | Franz Joseph Haydn Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Ludwig van Beethoven |
| Romantic music | 1800-1900 | Ludwig van Beethoven Franz Schubert Giuseppe Verdi Richard Wagner Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky |
| Modern music | 1900-1975 | Claude Debussy Igor Stravinsky |
| Postmodern music | 1975-present | Alfred Schnittke Terry Riley |
Within each historical period, many genres and separate styles were cultivated. Some genres, like the symphony and opera, persisted through more than one historical period. Within a single period, such as the Modern period, distinct styles such as impressionism, expressionism, and neoclassicism also developed.
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Folk music is typically composed by those in the local community. Changes to an individual song or instrumental composition may be introduced over time by community members. For example, lyrics may be changed or added, embellishments may be added to the melody, or parts of the melody may be altered. The music may be handed down over years without an individual composer's name being attached to it.
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Folk music includes songs and instrumental music performed for entertainment and ritual purposes in local communities. Narrative folksongs called ballads recount stories about love, history, and mythology. Purely instrumental music, such as West African drumming, can take the place of speech to communicate jokes, warnings, and proverbs to listeners. For major life-cycle rituals, such as weddings, community members may join together in extended sequences of singing, drumming, and dancing. Work songs may be performed to accompany repetitive or physically challenging labor, such as drawing water from a river, pulling in fishing nets from the sea, and driving camels across a desert. Work songs can help coordinate the motions of several workers, provide entertainment during monotonous effort, and express important values in the community.
Examples:
- Unidentified Ainu woman in Hokkaido, Japan, ''Pirika Pirika'' (Song of Beauty and Love) (ca. 1957)
- Four workers in the University of Ghana post office, ''Postal Workers Canceling Stamps'' (1975)
- Amazigh musicians from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, ''Ahidous'' (2019)
History of Folk Music
Much of the centuries-old history of folk music cannot be reconstructed. One reason is that folk music is often passed on by ear or oral transmission rather than through music notation. Another reason is that cultural practices, such as folk music, were suppressed when governments banned the use of Indigenous languages.
From the nineteenth century into the twentieth century, music scholars collected and preserved repertories of folk music in print collections and recordings. For example, Cecil Sharp collected English folk song and dance. Art music composers including Russian composer Mily Balakirev and Hungarian composer Bela Bartok also notated and recorded folk music. American music scholars John and Alan Lomax collected numerous field recordings of folk music for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress.
These collectors often shared folk music with wider audiences in the twentieth century through recordings and live performances. One result was the popular style of music known as the folk music revival associated with musicians such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.
Representative developments in the history of folk music include:
- 300 Mouth harps used in Siberia
- 600 to 1300 West African talking drums developed
- 1866 Mily Balakirev publishes his Collection of Russian Folksongs
- 1903 Cecil Sharp begins collecting English folk songs
- 1910s Bela Bartok collects folk music recordings
- 1930s to 1960s Major field recording collections of folk music created in the United States, Poland, and other countries
- 1940s to 1960s Popular style known as the folk music revival in the United States
- 1970s to present Efforts to revive and reconstruct folk music in Japan, Ecuador, and many other countries
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Popular music is different from folk music in several respects. First, unlike folk music, popular music is sold as a commodity and for commercial purposes. Second, it often undergoes more rapid changes in style as fashions or fads come and go. Third, popular music typically maintains an explicit and strong association with its composers and first performers.
Popular types of music in the United States include parlor songs of the nineteenth century and Tin Pan Alley songs from musical theater productions in the early twentieth century. Prominent composers in these styles include Stephen Foster and George and Ira Gershwin.
Examples:
- Stephen Foster, ''My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night!'' (1852)
- George and Ira Gershwin, Girl Crazy (1930)
Several styles of jazz in the early twentieth century, including ragtime, New Orleans jazz, and swing, gained significant popularity. Like other popular music, early styles of jazz were sold as sheet music and recordings. Prominent composers and performers of early jazz include Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Duke Ellington.
Examples:
- Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five, ''West End Blues'' (1928)
- Ella Fitzgerald, ''A-Tisket, A-Tasket'' (1938)
- Duke Ellington, ''Take the 'A' Train'' (1941)
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History of Popular Music
Popular music came to prominence in the early nineteenth century along with industrialization. Printed sheet music was the primary format in which nineteenth century popular music circulated as a commodity. Middle class consumers purchased sheet music and pianos for social entertainment. Songs with piano accompaniment, dance music, and variations on well-known melodies were widely printed. By the end of the nineteenth century, new technologies emerged that allowed music to be sold in other formats in the twentieth century, including recordings and sound films.
In the United States, important moments in the history of popular music include:
- 1850s Star performers of sheet music are promoted
- 1880s and 1890s Music publishing becomes concentrated in New York's Tin Pan Alley
- 1890s to 1920s Recordings available for public and home use
- 1920s Radio broadcasting begins
- 1920s Sound films produced
- 1930s Hit charts begin to track sales
- 1950s Multi-track recording available
- 1960s Rise of producers and engineers
- 1970s Conglomeration and globalization among record companies
- 1980s Music video stars come to prominence
- 1990s Digital technology becomes available to consumers to create music
Supported by these technologies, popular music styles including country, rhythm and blues, and rock proliferated throughout the twentieth century. Within these major groupings, more specific styles include punk rock, progressive rock, heavy metal, grunge, and rap.
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Western art music
Ballet
Cantata
Chamber music
Chant
Concerto
Fugue
Lied
Lute song
Madrigal
Mass
Motet
Opera
Oratorio
Sonata
Symphony
Troubadour songs
Folk music
Ballads
Dance music
Drumming
Epic songs
Folk songs
Work songs
Popular music
Country
Musicals
New Orleans jazz
Parlor songs
Ragtime
Rap
Rhythm and blues
Rock
Swing
Tin Pan Alley songs
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Music has been a vital part of the human experience across the world since ancient times. The terms music style and music genre are used to describe a specific type of music that can be identified and distinguished from other types.
Musical styles can be categorized as art music, folk music, and popular music. Art music is typically supported by political leaders and elites. More specifically, Western art music was created for upper-class European audiences. Folk music is created by members of a community over time. Popular music is sold for commercial purposes.
| Type of Music | Common Uses | Performers | Pace of change in style |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art music | Entertainment Reinforces prestige of patrons |
Specialists with long and extensive training | Slow to moderate |
| Folk music | Entertainment Community rituals |
Community members | Slow |
| Popular music | Entertainment Commercial profit |
Specialists or multi-talented performers | Fast |
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Video Transcript
Styles of Music: Overview
Music is one of the most fundamental forms of human artistic expression. We have no way of knowing when humans started making music, as such origins are lost in the mists of prehistory. But humans have certainly been making music in one form or another for a very long time indeed. Whether it's simply chanting or drumming by one or two people or the collaboration of more than 100 musicians in a full-sized orchestra, music is one of the most emotive and compelling forms of art.
There are far too many styles, genres, subgenres, and traditions of music to list here. Such an inventory would go on for hundreds of pages. Instead, this lesson will focus on three basic categories for producing and thinking about music: Western art music, folk music, and popular music.
Western Art Music
This category of music refers to the family of styles and genres that have developed out of the Western art music and classical tradition. This category of music is sometimes simply referred to as classical music, but this term is somewhat misleading, since the classical period in Western art music was a specific era that lasted from about 1730 to 1820 and doesn't really apply to periods before or after that time.
Western art music is characterized by compositional sophistication, virtuosity on the part of individual musicians, use of standardized musical notation, and association with the educated elites of Europe. Indeed, this last element is perhaps Western art music's most definitive feature. Western art music from the Middle Ages onward has positioned itself as the cerebral, culturally refined alternative to the folk and dance music of the common people. While individual composers may not have been members of the European aristocracy, with few exceptions they were funded by and making music for either the aristocracy or the church.
Folk Music
Folk music is not a genre, but rather a process through which music is produced. It isn't composed by any one individual; instead, it's produced by a community over a period of time. Typically, folk music is constantly changing with additions being made while other elements are eliminated. Folk music can be understood to be the traditional music of any particular ethnic group or community that is passed down through informal means from one generation to the next.
Unlike Western art music, folk music is typically not notated or written down, although sometimes it can be. It is most often shared orally and taught from teacher to student by ear and can include anything from a cappella English ballads, to complex African drum patterns used for religious purposes, to the rich folk music traditions of South Asia involving sitars, tablas, and vocals. The key factors in distinguishing folk music traditions from other methods of musical production are its traditional basis and communal composition.
Popular Music
Like folk music, popular music isn't exactly a genre, but rather a process through which music is produced, distributed, and consumed. Popular music refers to any form of music that is mass produced or distributed, particularly if the music in question was written specifically for commercial purposes. Popular music is composed with the intention of profiting from that music's mass distribution, either through the record industry or through other means, such as for films, television, or online.
Rock music is considered to be perhaps the popular music genre par excellence; although genres like hip-hop, electronic, and even Bollywood soundtracks are also excellent examples that have seen growth in the 21st century. It can be argued that popular music did not really exist prior to the 19th century, when the recording and mass distribution of music first became possible.
Music Styles: Conclusions
The three basic categories considered here offer only a very rough outline for how we can think about musical categorization, style, and history. Many examples could be offered that do not fit neatly into any of these categories, or that fit certain elements of all three. Jazz, for instance, does not conform to any of the definitions we have discussed in this lesson; although depending on who you ask, it could be included in any of these three categories.
As scholars such as Simon Frith and Pierre Bourdieu have persuasively argued, how we talk about music and culture is just as important as the texts themselves are. What values do we place on particular categories? Who plays and/or listens to particular kinds of music and why? When we think about the history of music, it's important to keep the cultural context of any particular musical tradition in mind.
Lesson Summary
All right, let's take a moment to review what we've learned. Music has been played, written, and enjoyed for as long as we have records to determine. World culture is filled with more varieties of music than any one person could hope to hear in a single lifetime. Western art music consists of the family of music composed by educated, virtuosic Europeans primarily for the enjoyment of the upper classes or for use in church services. Folk music consists of communally composed traditional music that represents the musical vernacular of a particular ethnic group or region. And, finally, popular music can be understood to be any music that is mass produced and intended for commercial purposes. While these three categories do not neatly define all types of music, they can serve as a useful starting point for understanding musical styles, types, and history.
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