Music plays an important role in today's culture. Whether you"re driving in your car, watching a movie, or are at a sporting event, music is all around you. It pleases your emotions, soothes your soul and takes away all the worries in the world. But it's not just one type of music that has this effect on everybody. In fact, there is an indefinite amount of genres of music. (The amount depends on how one classifies the music). Throughout this paper I will tell of different genres of music in today's American culture and give a thorough description of each.
The first genre, and probably most well known, is Rock & Pop. Most of a record company's income would come from this genre. Rock is a form of dance music originating around the 1950's, and is a blend of rhythm and blues with country and western. Electric guitars, vocals, an electric bass and a drum set consisting of a snare drum, a bass drum, tom-toms, a hi-hat cymbal, a ride and a crash cymbal usually comprise the sound of Rock, but a keyboard and a piano can also fall into this category. There is many different subdivisions of Rock, for instance there's Punk Rock, Heavy Metal, Death Metal, Surf Rock, etc. Pop usually appeals to younger people due to its" catchy and simple music, but it plays quite the significant role in today's culture.
Next is Opera music. Opera is drama set to music. Around 1600, it originated in Italy and has been spread throughout many countries. In late history, Opera was originally composed and performed for the upper-class society, whereas in today's society, it can be enjoyed by anybody.
Jazz is the next category. Jazz is an American tradition. It's categorized by its strong but flexible rhythm with solo and group improvisations on basic tunes. To sum it all up, you can call it big band dance music. Jazz originated in New Orleans around the turn of the 20th century and since then has evolved into many different classifications.
