Music Blends

What genre do you play? What genre do you write? What genre do you produce? I've responded to these questions hundreds of times: article questioners, interviews, written bios, song submittals, performance rights organizations, copyright forms, fan email; the list goes on, I know. What am I thankful for in all this? Drop down boxes and multiple-choice questions. Tech options and AI have their place.

There was a time, in my musician infancy, I could respond with a single word which would easily separate and establish a genre boundary for myself and to others. Ha. I was recently involved in a music theory course and a producer improvement course; these were refreshers for me I thought. During these courses I was presented with; more like I was drowned with the recent definitions of major music genres: 6, no 13, no 51, no 7; did I mention subgenres? Today we have a list of 1,300 minimum subgenre, and it is growing as I write, it seems like an international music industry pastime. Country Music alone as a genre has 41 subgenres. Why? Diversity, I guess. We have become enamored through the internet, its ever-growing music markets and marketing techniques and use of social media in an effort to help us find ourselves. For musicians this is not very different. Not a day goes by that I am not contacted with "the answer" of what will help me market myself to launch my music career.

My main musical influence was in guitar and went from classical to flamenco; then I had a hard rudder change to pop, rock, RnB, soul, the British music invasion, those pretty much filled my genre horizon. It was only in the recent pandemic year(s) that I took a leap into the writing and the producing of hip-hop and EDM, both of which are considered subgenres of RnB, well that's today anyway, I think. The leap was a challenge, but very rewarding.

I have never stopped being amazed at the growing number of musicians worldwide (roughly 9M) and the growing number of songs (approximately 90-100M). These music industry stats of course are from multiple online sources, so I really just share with you what I read. These are moving targets; I admit to no confirmations. The dominating thought here is the same as it was when I attended high school: everyone wants to be a musician (a subdivision of creatives I believe). I can only estimate the number of playing or active musicians I knew in 4-5 local cities or towns, in so many high schools attended, through a listing of students covering maybe 5 years (thank you Classmates): 38,000 students. In my own high school that may touch on 7,500 students with approximately 20% being "active" musicians (band members, solo artists, singers and song writers, recording and session artists) maybe 1,500, of course in various major well-known genres.

Over the years, decades now coming and going, I saw that number dwindle. Now I have a hobby type interest, researching with those "active" musicians that I have kept in touch with, scattered throughout the USA, I'll estimate 20%, maybe 300, of those above remain active. The most interesting observation for me is that nearly all of those I interact with wandered very little from those major genre(s) they first embraced. Subgenres were not such a relative topic.

The focus on music genre diversity within this past decade becomes a major measurement of reflection to me, so much so, that I observe we are even marching in step with and seemingly being driven by the impact of social media, not by the musician or the music. The message I believe, even in genre creation becomes to define oneself, or to separate oneself, to blend in or not to blend in, to be "fluid" I believe is the most recent description I've learned.

When you ask me today about "my" music genre, I most likely will have only a two-word response. Maybe three.