Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Making music more interesting with musical styles

Most of us have heard of hip hop , rap , rock or even blues. These are styles of music which are or had been popular in various periods of pop history.

Lots of church musicians only play one style of music - mostly contemporary pop , from the beginning of P&W till the end. It works fine but after a while the music gets boringly similar and predictable. It seems like the worship band has nothing new to offer and their repertoire seems limited.

The solution is to listen to the various styles of music and adapt them
into worship.

The way each instrument is played for a certain style of music is differ
ent. So the band has to learn how to play , for example , piano rock style or the guitar blues style or the drums jazz style.

Here are a list of about 32 popular musical styles , your band may want to listen to , explore and experiment with.


For those who have played on those keyboards with in-built rhythm, you will notice some of the familiar names here..


1. 8-beat
2. 16-beat


3. Hip Hop
4. Rap
5. Dance/Trance/Techno
6. Waltz
7. Slow rock 6/8
8. Bossanova
9. Cha-cha

10. Tango
11. Salsa



12. Rhumba
13. Baguine
14. Reggae
15. Hard Rock / Metal
16. Country music


17. Ballad
18. Disco
19. Swing
20. Big Band
21. Twist
22. Funk

23. Bebop
24. Blues
25. Rockabily
26. Shuffle

27. Calypso

28. Fusion
29. Boogie Woogie
30. Hawaiian
31. Caribbean Music


32. Ethnic Music

and many others ..

Some particular styles may require the use of certain instruments. For example, the pedal steel guitar is particularly prominent in Country music and Hawaiian music while there is a great emphasis on the floor drums in Disco.






The piano plays a very vital
part in Shuffle and the Steel drums are a must in Caribbean Music.


And thank God for the synthesizer, we are now able to play the sounds of these exotic instrument with ease at worship services !

Check out these
styles at youtube.com and you can learn how these styles are played. And for a more complete list of musical styles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_styles

No comments:

Post a Comment