Question: what is the difference between any music genre and another?

Some are more emo than others.

heh

The way I see it, there are certian characteristics that makes music fit into a genre. Sometimes it's the attitude, the guitar sound, the way the singer sings, or location. Some genres are just too broad (indie rock) and many are not broad (Gamelan) Also there are fusions of various genres. Many conceptions of what a genre is vary among different people. In conclusion, I personally think genres are stupid and they force limits on some bands , but they are nessicary for people to talk about music.

There are differences between shoegazing, space rock, slo- core, sad-core, and dream pop!

Genre = currency = vision of future

Obviously you have capitulated to the powers of the culture industry. The more you study, the less you purely feel the music. Resist the powers. (Question to self: Why am I on this bored?)

cuba libre, are 'studying' and 'feeling', necessarily different. to think is to feel, no? and you're on this board because you like it silly!

It's all about the rhythms, dude.

Pinefox to thread!

cuba libre, are 'studying' and 'feeling', necessarily different. to think is to feel, no? and you're on this board because you like it silly!
No I am on this board because I confirm to the Post Modern rule. Studying and feeling are interrelated. One influences the other. But how important is studying in the enjoyment of music? To think about boundaries is to create confiment.

confinement is a myth

that is to say, you are always thinking, even if you don't think you are. do you see?

To think about boundaries is to create confiment.

A lot of the way music works is by creating expectations and then satisfying the listener by fulfilling them, or by diverging in some way and surprising the listener (but there are limits in a given genre as to what is an apt sort of divergence).

Boundaries don't just create confinement: they create definition, and I think they can generate a certain sort of clarity.

As for the original question, as someone else has already said, different genres will be defined based on different types of features. In some cases it may be a rhythm, in other cases it may be a certain type of instrumentation combined with some other musical element. There is something called a guajira which sounds a lot like a cha cha cha to me. One of the defining elements, in addition to some musical ones which go over my head, is the subject of the lyrics (which I also can't do much with, since I don't understand Spanish).

There are always arguments about where genres begin and end. Is salsa really just mambo or son, or is it different enough that it deserves its own name? Is timba merely the new Cuban salsa, or is it something distinct from salsa? Is Elvis Costello rock? When I used to play reggae while I was living at home, my dad would say, "We used to call this Calypso," but I consider Calypso to be a separate, recognizably different, category. Etc. To a relative outsider, some genre divisions are going to be incomprehensible. I am unable to recognize the fine distinctions among certain types of electronic music.

I would love to live in a world where someone could not distinguish between a recording of Maria Callas singing "Habanera" and John Zorn's Naked City releases.

Boundaries don't just create confinement: they create definition
THen why don't people play hopscotch, bouncing from one genre to the next? And before you say "Hey they do!", I beg to differ. Because on the whole people stay withing one genre (or at most a few subgenres). They create complacency for the listener. For the artist it creates expectatoin, which can hold him back from creating different sounds.
Back to work, back to reality. Sorry for not thinking enough about this. However I really do like the discussion.

The difference between music genres is journalists

guitars.

THen why don't people play hopscotch, bouncing from one genre to the next? And before you say "Hey they do!", I beg to differ. Because on the whole people stay withing one genre (or at most a few subgenres). They create complacency for the listener. For the artist it creates expectatoin, which can hold him back from creating different sounds.

If a genre is big and roomy enough, it may take a while to master its elements well enough to do something expressive or innovative with them. I admit there are probably a lot of other reasons that people will stay in one genre: it may pay off more commercially, they may not be skilled or imaginitive to try something else.

I still don't think expectations are inherently bad.

The difference between music genres is journalists
No, they are just the oil that makes the machine work.

genre = paradigm = inescapable.

no genre = no paradigm = the paradigm of no paradigm = the most mystifying and confining of all!

"And when he finished I said to him: Well, Joe, when you write a sentence beginning with the word 'the,' aren't you already under the law of 'the'? No matter what you do from there on, you are under its law."--Robert Duncan in Toward a New American Poetics

I recently got into a debate over what the difference between metal and punk was, and I used that as grist for an essay I turned into my college Comp class. I'd post the damned thing, but it went on for a page and a half.

That's not too long to post.

Now you tell me. (I did it anyways just to see how long a post *can* be posted. As soon as somebody posts an answer we'll all know if thats enough to make the server choke.)

Here 'tis