More "easy Listening" Sub-genres

[LazyBucks]

Hello forums.

I'm here to see who would support me in trying to get more easy listening sub genres for the audio portal.
I think easy listening is really under developed and not getting the love it deserves.

Classical is a broad term, and there are plenty of sub genres that I think should be included.
I know a argument against this is that it takes views away from people when you create more sub genres, and I agree, but...

The audio portal is a place for animators to come and look for music for their flash. I imagine its a pain going through the classical portal looking for something more "soundtrack" like or perhaps a "solo piano" piece.

This is just my view on the matter anyway, I'm interested to see what people think.
I mean they added "Nerdcore" and "Chipstep" (lol what was that about), so why not just expand classical a small bit?

Interested to hear opinions, thanks!

[Troisnyx]

At 4/17/13 11:41 AM, LazyBucks wrote: Hello forums.

I'm here to see who would support me in trying to get more easy listening sub genres for the audio portal.
I think easy listening is really under developed and not getting the love it deserves.

Classical is a broad term, and there are plenty of sub genres that I think should be included.
I know a argument against this is that it takes views away from people when you create more sub genres, and I agree, but...

The audio portal is a place for animators to come and look for music for their flash. I imagine its a pain going through the classical portal looking for something more "soundtrack" like or perhaps a "solo piano" piece.

This is just my view on the matter anyway, I'm interested to see what people think.
I mean they added "Nerdcore" and "Chipstep" (lol what was that about), so why not just expand classical a small bit?

Interested to hear opinions, thanks!

Agreed. Although EDM is the most produced genre here, the things lumped into Classical and Miscellaneous are just so varied that it's really difficult to find one's pick unless the forums are approached....

[LazyBucks]

At 4/17/13 11:44 AM, TroisNyxEtienne wrote:

At 4/17/13 11:41 AM, LazyBucks wrote: Hello forums.

I'm here to see who would support me in trying to get more easy listening sub genres for the audio portal.
I think easy listening is really under developed and not getting the love it deserves.

Classical is a broad term, and there are plenty of sub genres that I think should be included.
I know a argument against this is that it takes views away from people when you create more sub genres, and I agree, but...

The audio portal is a place for animators to come and look for music for their flash. I imagine its a pain going through the classical portal looking for something more "soundtrack" like or perhaps a "solo piano" piece.

This is just my view on the matter anyway, I'm interested to see what people think.
I mean they added "Nerdcore" and "Chipstep" (lol what was that about), so why not just expand classical a small bit?

Interested to hear opinions, thanks!

Agreed. Although EDM is the most produced genre here, the things lumped into Classical and Miscellaneous are just so varied that it's really difficult to find one's pick unless the forums are approached....

Yes I agree EDM is a very big parent genre right now but "Nerdcore" and "Chipstep" do not really fall into the popular EDM bubble. When I scoped around on these subgenres it really just seems like a NG thing more then anything.

But yes, I agree that Miscellaneous could also use a wee touch up

[alternativesolution]

I agree. Especially the miscellaneous category... that is really broad to start off with, once you start going down the list of tracks in the genre..
Electronic has plenty of its own sub-genres, I think, but Classical is a big one that needs to be broken down a bit, just to help narrow the search..

[AeroMusic]

At 4/17/13 11:54 AM, alternativesolution wrote: I agree. Especially the miscellaneous category... that is really broad to start off with, once you start going down the list of tracks in the genre..
Electronic has plenty of its own sub-genres, I think, but Classical is a big one that needs to be broken down a bit, just to help narrow the search..

The misc. is there for a track that doesn't really fit any genre- if it had sub genres.. then.. the world would most likely implode

You guys can always utilise the tags to help people searching for songs though
But anyway I agree that easy listening could do with a few more sub genres - I'd enjoy a solo piano one :)

[ZipZipper]

Wouldn't a solo piano category be nice, because usually when I click a classical genred song over half of the time it's just solo piano and I expect to hear some glorious soundtracky goodness. A world music category I think would also be helpful to both musicians and animators looking for stereotypical music for different regions of the world. I'm not sure how much further you can divide a miscellaneous category...then you just get more miscellaneous categories within the miscellaneous category. But I think definitely classical could use at least a couple divisions. I'm voting for at least solo piano and world music. I guess also soundtrack would be cool too, but I think most of the time we all think soundtrack when it comes to the classical genre on here.

[LazyBucks]

Ok so, so far the general group idea is if we could have

-Solo Piano
-World Music

I agree with this, classical music needs the work the most.

[camoshark]

How about dividing Cinematic Orchestral from actual Classical Music?

[camoshark]

At 4/17/13 12:42 PM, camoshark wrote: How about dividing Cinematic Orchestral from actual Classical Music?

Oh, and while we're at it, maybe we could ask to rename the category "Easy Listening" to something less incredibly retarded?

[LazyBucks]

At 4/17/13 12:47 PM, camoshark wrote:

At 4/17/13 12:42 PM, camoshark wrote: How about dividing Cinematic Orchestral from actual Classical Music?

Oh, and while we're at it, maybe we could ask to rename the category "Easy Listening" to something less incredibly retarded?

I don't mind the term easy listening, I just created this thread to raise awareness to classical needing more sub genres

[Step]

Here's what I think about it.

This has been mentioned time and time again in past threads, and each time, whoever posts in the threads suggests different sub-genres. There have been a few recurring suggestions in different threads, like a 'soundtrack' genre, but overall we've seen a LOT of different sub-genres mentioned. This means that no amount of sub-genres that the staff adds will truly be enough to satisfy everyone.

The idea should be that the genres are kept general enough to not have to keep on adding new sub-genres, but specific enough to not have to use the miscellaneous genre all the time, or put stuff in the wrong genre. In light of this, I agree that there should be a few more sub-genres under Easy Listening. However, I think "solo piano" and "world music" is going into too much detail, especially with the tagging system in place Barely anyone makes world music, and "solo piano" isn't really a genre. Not only that, but by that logic it's also justifiable to add in "solo guitar", or "solo anything else" for that matter.

It's tough because the more sub-genres there are, the more complex it all becomes, and the staff have said this before. The genre system isn't perfect but it probably never will be, and sometimes I think people should put a bit less thought into what genre a piece of music they made falls under, and focus more on how to make it sound awesome.

[LazyBucks]

At 4/17/13 02:26 PM, Step wrote: Here's what I think about it.

This has been mentioned time and time again in past threads, and each time, whoever posts in the threads suggests different sub-genres. There have been a few recurring suggestions in different threads, like a 'soundtrack' genre, but overall we've seen a LOT of different sub-genres mentioned. This means that no amount of sub-genres that the staff adds will truly be enough to satisfy everyone.

The idea should be that the genres are kept general enough to not have to keep on adding new sub-genres, but specific enough to not have to use the miscellaneous genre all the time, or put stuff in the wrong genre. In light of this, I agree that there should be a few more sub-genres under Easy Listening. However, I think "solo piano" and "world music" is going into too much detail, especially with the tagging system in place Barely anyone makes world music, and "solo piano" isn't really a genre. Not only that, but by that logic it's also justifiable to add in "solo guitar", or "solo anything else" for that matter.

It's tough because the more sub-genres there are, the more complex it all becomes, and the staff have said this before. The genre system isn't perfect but it probably never will be, and sometimes I think people should put a bit less thought into what genre a piece of music they made falls under, and focus more on how to make it sound awesome.

You raise a whole lot of valid points but I don't agree that a Solo Piano genre would justify a Solo Guitar genre.
As it stands I still believe that classical needs to be broken in two or something to rework it because classical is far to general.

I get that this has been banged on about time and time again, and I'm sure you guys are sick to death hearing about it, but the point still stands valid.
You can't add two new electronic genres, i.e. Nerdcore and Chipstep and not expect people from other genres to ask again for divisions in theirs. Dubstep is Dubstep, it didn't need to be broken up to chipstep, "chipstep" music can fall into Dubstep or videogame with easy, same goes for Nerdcore.

With that being said Classical is probably the most broad genre in the audio portal. Perhaps not a solo piano split but something to make it easier for people to sift between songs. I personally like soundtrack but thats also very broad.

Clearly more thought needs to go into this but I don't think the idea needs to be dismissed all together.

[camoshark]

At 4/17/13 02:26 PM, Step wrote: Here's what I think about it.

This has been mentioned time and time again in past threads, and each time, whoever posts in the threads suggests different sub-genres. There have been a few recurring suggestions in different threads, like a 'soundtrack' genre, but overall we've seen a LOT of different sub-genres mentioned. This means that no amount of sub-genres that the staff adds will truly be enough to satisfy everyone.

The idea should be that the genres are kept general enough to not have to keep on adding new sub-genres, but specific enough to not have to use the miscellaneous genre all the time, or put stuff in the wrong genre. In light of this, I agree that there should be a few more sub-genres under Easy Listening. However, I think "solo piano" and "world music" is going into too much detail, especially with the tagging system in place Barely anyone makes world music, and "solo piano" isn't really a genre. Not only that, but by that logic it's also justifiable to add in "solo guitar", or "solo anything else" for that matter.

It's tough because the more sub-genres there are, the more complex it all becomes, and the staff have said this before. The genre system isn't perfect but it probably never will be, and sometimes I think people should put a bit less thought into what genre a piece of music they made falls under, and focus more on how to make it sound awesome.

And that right there is why we've never managed to make any progress with the genre division debate.

Look, no one's asking for a complete rehash of the genre system (although I'm most certainly in favor of it), but there's a limit to the "Oh, but the AP is for animators and game developers to pick songs from, and BOY are they stupid!" argument we've heard well over a dozen times. We're simply asking to disambiguate the instrumental solo (hell, you could even jam them in small ensemble/chamber music for all I care) and orchestral music, and perhaps divide cinematic music from actually classical music.

I'd also be inclined to, at the very least, rename the Latin sub-genre to World so it can have a broader reach, since it's not like people actually know the difference between Latin music and flamenco (hell, some fallacious pricks from techno actually think they own the genre and put their shit in there to abuse it's low population.)

I'll let Jazz go for this one because I don't think anyone without any formal education in the genre would be able to put anything in the right category (hell, most of the time stuff in Jazz isn't even Jazz anyways).

/rant

[Step]

At 4/17/13 02:34 PM, LazyBucks wrote: I get that this has been banged on about time and time again, and I'm sure you guys are sick to death hearing about it, but the point still stands valid.

No I agree with you man. I've always thought it's absolutely mind-numbing that there's chipstep and nerdcore and no 'soundtrack' genre or something to split it up from actual classical works. However, like I said, some of the suggestions in here are too specific and I still stick to my point that adding solo piano (which isn't a genre to begin with) is a bit unfair on other instruments. Guitar, for instance is perfectly capable of creating a whole song as a solo instrument.

Anyway, my stance is that if any new genres are added, they certainly shouldn't be specific like world music or extreme metal (heavy metal suffices just fine to encapsulate the metal sub-genres). I see loads and loads of suggestions like that and adding more of them won't really help the situation, whereas adding more general genres that are still important will certainly help.

[Step]

Right, I've talked about this with Back-From-Purgatory and camoshark. We might be able to ask the staff to consider making alterations to the genre listings if a unanimous and sensible agreement were to be reached. We can all agree that the genre list needs work, so we should try to decide on what changes should be made. The staff are not willing to add every sub-genre in existence, and I don't know if they'd be willing to make any changes to the genres at all, since they have more important stuff to worry about, but it's worth a shot.

Here are the ideas I agree with that were suggested so far:
1.) Changing 'Latin' to 'World'.
2.) Adding an 'Experimental' genre.
3.) Adding a 'Soundtrack' genre.
4.) Adding 'Solo Instrument' (which can be used to encapsulate any instrument solos like piano or guitar solos).

Suggestions like 'Psytrance', 'Shoegaze', 'Liquid Drum'n'Bass", 'Black Metal', 'Drone Polkastep', etc... are far too obscure and specific in my opinion. Try not to suggest something that isn't essential or is too unheard-of/obscure. For example, a soundtrack genre is essential because a lot of cinematic modern music is being put into the classical section, but the aforementioned sub-genres can justifiably be placed into existing categories, such as Trance, General Rock, Drum'n'Bass, Heavy Metal and Miscellaneous respectively.

[LazyBucks]

At 4/17/13 03:26 PM, Step wrote: Right, I've talked about this with Back-From-Purgatory and camoshark. We might be able to ask the staff to consider making alterations to the genre listings if a unanimous and sensible agreement were to be reached. We can all agree that the genre list needs work, so we should try to decide on what changes should be made. The staff are not willing to add every sub-genre in existence, and I don't know if they'd be willing to make any changes to the genres at all, since they have more important stuff to worry about, but it's worth a shot.

Here are the ideas I agree with that were suggested so far:
1.) Changing 'Latin' to 'World'.
2.) Adding an 'Experimental' genre.
3.) Adding a 'Soundtrack' genre.
4.) Adding 'Solo Instrument' (which can be used to encapsulate any instrument solos like piano or guitar solos).

Suggestions like 'Psytrance', 'Shoegaze', 'Liquid Drum'n'Bass", 'Black Metal', 'Drone Polkastep', etc... are far too obscure and specific in my opinion. Try not to suggest something that isn't essential or is too unheard-of/obscure. For example, a soundtrack genre is essential because a lot of cinematic modern music is being put into the classical section, but the aforementioned sub-genres can justifiably be placed into existing categories, such as Trance, General Rock, Drum'n'Bass, Heavy Metal and Miscellaneous respectively.

Awesome Step.

I think the 4 proposed changes are really good and I'm sure most people would be pleased with them.
I'm starting to wonder though if soundtrack is a genre will everyone just put most classical pieces there, but besides that the other proposed changes sound good to me.

Thanks for taking the time to look over it

[Troisnyx]

Wooo! :D

after all this waiting I can FINALLY put Terre des Hommes Libres, Journey to Stonyhurst and some of my other lyrical pieces in the World genre!

[samulis]

My two cents:

-Add to classical:
-> Traditional (Classical, Baroque, Romantic, etc.)
-> Cinematic
-> Ethnic
-> Solo Instrument
-> Fusion

[SourJovis]

I have some suggestions for subdivisions of Miscellaneous:

-Common genre yet not available on NG
-Mixture of several different genres
-Completely original music, of a genre that doesn't exist yet, but will probably become extremely popular in the near future and years to come (Title of this genre may be a tad long)
-Impossible to define
-This isn't music at all

In short

-Unavailable
-Fusion
-Postmodern
-Undefinable
-Noise

[LazyBucks]

At 4/17/13 10:08 PM, Elitistinen wrote: If Classical deserves to get subgenre, so Video Game.

To be perfectly honest I don't think I've ever chuckled at a single one of your trolls.

So leave this thread be will you?
The last thing we need is someone messing things up for the rest of us...

[alternativesolution]

At 4/17/13 03:26 PM, Step wrote: Here are the ideas I agree with that were suggested so far:
1.) Changing 'Latin' to 'World'.
2.) Adding an 'Experimental' genre.
3.) Adding a 'Soundtrack' genre.
4.) Adding 'Solo Instrument' (which can be used to encapsulate any instrument solos like piano or guitar solos).

Yes, this just about sums it up completely.

I will be doing much genre changing to my songs, if and once these are implemented..

[alternativesolution]

At 4/17/13 09:09 PM, SourJovis wrote: I have some suggestions for subdivisions of Miscellaneous:
In short

-Unavailable
-Fusion
-Postmodern
-Undefinable
-Noise

This is kinda what I was getting at, earlier... whether or not those are too many, or could be better titled... miscellaneous can be broken down, I think. I'm not sure how many other artists would benefit from it splitting up (even a little), but pretty much at least half my stuff is miscellaneous..

[Troisnyx]

Dudes, let's get serious here, shall we?

FACT: We've had Nerdcore and Chipstep added to the vast EDM subgenres, bringing the total count to TWELVE. Whether or not this is necessary is not open for questioning in this thread; that's not what we're discussing here. Compris ?

FACT: Miscellaneous just means that: "miscellaneous". It simply means something you can't put into any one of the available genres around. Given the fact that some of the subdivisions that should be there (e.g. World) are not there, such songs are lumped in with most other songs which use a fusion of two or more different genres.

FACT: The Easy Listening genre has only two subgenres -- Classical and Jazz. Literally ALL theatrical music gets lumped in either in the Classical or Miscellaneous genre, which doesn't help at all when people search for music with a theatrical character. Also see my earlier note on world music. Speaking for myself, Ethereal Wave/New Age might be too obscure a genre, with only a select few (Origa, Enya, Akiko Shikata...?) making songs of this genre, but how can you not argue with world music? The Represent a Country contests *sometimes* feature it quite a lot, but they get thrown in to the Miscellaneous pile, never to be seen again.

Now stop the immature bickering, everyone, and let's have a proper, civil discussion about this. We're talking about expanding the Easy Listening subgenres, let's keep it at that.

[Neon-Bard]

I really like the idea of implementing the 'World' and 'Soundtrack' sub-genres into the mix of things.

[Troisnyx]

At 4/18/13 12:00 PM, Elitistinen wrote:

At 4/17/13 10:35 PM, Braiton wrote: I'm still waiting for my Post Apocalyptic Mutant Pirate Horse Deathcore Metal genre to be added.

You won't get than soon. This Audio community isn't working the normal way. People tend to get the most popular thing to fix first, democratically (by popular I mean popular with everyone in the AP, not just this forum). But no, we get those who wants the most work for only and only the dominants, on this forum.

But more straight means more hate. No this is not a troll post.

This will be the last derailment of the thread, and the last I hear of any snivelling in this same thread. If anyone else should complain about this, keep it to a new post and let the mods deal with it themselves.

If changes concern you, why don't you put it into a list? That way you'll know nothing is missing, and if they fail to work on something now, they'll get to it as long as you persist. If it's that important to you, then TELL THEM WHAT IT IS!

Mind you, here are threads of the people who have asked for genres.
EDM is already heavily expanded as is.
Some people even think of lumping it into Miscellaneous when they can't find a genre close to theirs.
This guy suggested New Age long before I even thought about it, though most New Age performers I know are also in the World category.
This was in 2009. Little did he know that there now is a vocal category for Voice Acting.
This guy is making just about the same request as we are: except that a number of us have decided that enough is enough.
Some were complaining that genre threads were a waste of topic space. Here again.
And some are even complaining about the ridiculousness of it all.

As far as genres go: I'm not even a dominant member, just a reg. As are many of us in this thread. We aren't asking for really obscure things in the Easy Listening thread; we're asking just for things that should be there given the sheer volume of submissions which should actually belong in those categories. And I take it that it's just too much to ask, ain't it? AIN'T IT!? Would you rather our efforts went to die simply because genre threads have been brought up too much, or just because we aren't the same as the people asking about them in the past (whether or not they were regs is another story)?

I rest my case. If anyone wants to contest me on this, keep it to another thread.

[Step]

So far my list is:

1.) Changing 'Latin' to 'World'.
2.) Adding an 'Experimental' genre.
3.) Adding a 'Soundtrack' genre.
4.) Adding 'Solo Instrument'.
5.) Adding 'Fusion'.

@SourJovis I don't agree with adding Noise, Unavailable, Undefined, or Postmodern. The first can be thrown into Experimental if it's added, I don't see a problem with the second and third being thrown into Miscellaneous, and I can't see the fourth being used that much (even if it is used, it can still be categorised just fine in Experimental). However if many people are in favour of any of these genres being added then fair enough; I'll add them to the list.

@samulis Ethnic can go under World and Cinematic can go under Soundtrack, by the way. Or shall we change Soundtrack to Cinematic? In its strictest definition, soundtrack music is music made for games, movies, etc, rather than being its own genre, whereas cinematic music means having qualities of that kind of music, which makes more sense.

[Troisnyx]

At 4/19/13 04:30 AM, Step wrote: So far my list is:

1.) Changing 'Latin' to 'World'.
2.) Adding an 'Experimental' genre.
3.) Adding a 'Soundtrack' genre.
4.) Adding 'Solo Instrument'.
5.) Adding 'Fusion'.

1) YES! About high time!
2) Fair enough.
3) Tackling my response below.
4) That'll be welcome.
5) As will this, for people who blend genres a lot. I know a certain HFX will be pleased :D

Ethnic can go under World and Cinematic can go under Soundtrack, by the way. Or shall we change Soundtrack to Cinematic? In its strictest definition, soundtrack music is music made for games, movies, etc, rather than being its own genre, whereas cinematic music means having qualities of that kind of music, which makes more sense.

I would say whether or not the genre is called 'Soundtrack' or 'Cinematic' depends on the breakdown of submissions there are. Please get second opinions: my observation is that a lot of people, even newly scouted audio people, have submitted cinematic works, and oftentimes these things don't sound the least bit classical. Most soundtrack music, depending on what genre it's based on, can fit into the respective genres (video game, rock, even classical).

The naming is up to you guys (I'm personally for Cinematic).

[Step]

At 4/19/13 04:40 AM, TroisNyxEtienne wrote: (I'm personally for Cinematic).

Likewise.

[samulis]

At 4/19/13 04:52 AM, Step wrote:

At 4/19/13 04:40 AM, TroisNyxEtienne wrote: (I'm personally for Cinematic).

Likewise.

Same. I think it describes the sound, while soundtrack is more of an identifier about what the music is to be used for... most music on Newgrounds is suitable for soundtrack, but only a little bit is cinematic.

I've seen a lot of these Cinematic composers, as Trois pointed out, who have to call their work Classical or Misc. My own music is more Cinematic in the sense that it's less like actual classical and more like that of a video game such as Age of Empires or Civilization (where I drew much of my early influence as a composer). I think a lot of composers enter this world likewise- listening to a film/game score and wanting to emulate- so I think Cinematic would be a good addition and the orchestral/classical counterpart of Video Game, which would clean up the crossover that exists with cinematic composers putting their work in Video Game, leaving that genre for traditional styles.

[SkyeWint]

Does anyone else find it extremely funny that cinematic orchestral music and insane jazz pieces can be called "easy listening", but ambient is apparently not easy listening?