The World of Music

What do baroque classics, death metal, lounge jazz, opera and hip hop have in common? They're all part of the western musical tradition, and as such use the same note frequencies, scales, forms and chords. The musical system that everyone knows, and nearly everyone receives tuition in, is in fact just one facet of humanity's rich tradition of music-making. Admittedly it...

It can be argued that any kind of classification of musical styles is arbitrary and therefore not appropriate. Due to the diversity of musical styles and how they are overlapping with each other, it is very difficult to set the boundaries since very often these bounds do not reflect the medley of cultures and time periods that spawned that particular sound. Nevertheless, here are a few ways thr...