Musical Cosmos

I’m of the opinion that the whole notion of musical genres is flawed, and that to try to classify and define music in any rigid way is often inaccurate at best, not to mention inimical to the free-flowing creative spirit that underlies musical inspiration.

Having said that however, it’s practically impossible to have any kind of meaningful discussion about music without referring to the genre of the piece in question (unless of course you’re listening to it at the time, which is not the case with these blog posts!), so genre labels are a useful shorthand that ensure that most people will have at least some idea what I’m talking about if I refer to a ’speed metal’ song or a ‘Baroque’ concerto.

I want to be clear though that I see such labels as approximations at best; while it may be true that a large proportion of musical pieces commonly placed in a particular genre have much in common (whether in terms of their structure, or origins, or motifs, or whatever other means of classification are used), there will always be those that don’t quite fit the mold, or which overlap into neighbouring or completely different genres, often spanning several at once in an interesting sonic synthesis. Personally I tend to prefer these ‘mutant’ forms, and also strongly resist having my own music classified in terms of genre.

Genre definitions then, are a necessary and often useful evil, but when I refer to them, it’s from a perspective of knowing that music is really just… music. That is, an expression of creative freedom, that should not be deliberately constrained within the limits of any one style, just for the sake of adhering to some preconceived set of ideas about what’s ‘appropriate’ for that ‘type’ of music. Ironically, since I have a whole section of this site devoted to discussion of different musical styles and forms, I’m dependent on conventional genre labels for discussion purposes. So I’ll use them for convenience and intelligibility, but I don’t really believe in the retentive, rigid attitude that often underlies such labels and definitions. At the end of the day, music either appeals to a person on a gut level or it doesn’t, and the category into which it is pigeonholed by the intellect is totally irrelevant.