Opera music

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text (called a libretto) and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theater, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble.Opera is used in dramas we can say drama with music are the opera's.In this kinda dramas a very high pitch music is sang,The opera singers are supposed to break glasses with singing in appropriate notes.its a different kind of music which offers high pitch of sound or voices.opera represent the sensual and romantic representation of drama it adds emotions in a drama.I've seen once in a TV show showing opera the singers were singing with high pitch vocals and the characters were acting accordingly.

Country music (or country and western) is a blend of traditional and popular US musical forms traditionally found in the Southern United States and the Canadian Maritimes that evolved rapidly beginning in the 1920s.^[1] Distinctive variations of the genre have also emerged elsewhere including Australian country music.
The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s when the earlier term hillbilly music came to be seen as denigrating. Country music was widely embraced in the 1970s, while Country and Western has declined in use since that time, except in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it is still commonly used.^[1] However, in the Southwestern United States a different mix of ethnic groups created the music that became the Western music of the term Country and Western. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres.
Country music has produced the two top selling solo artists of all time in the United States. Elvis Presley, who was known early on as “the Hillbilly Cat” and was a regular on the radio program Louisiana Hayride,^[2] went on to become a defining figure in the emergence of rock and roll. With 129.5 million albums sold, Presley is the top-domestic-selling solo artist in U.S. history. Contemporary musician Garth Brooks, with 128 million albums sold, is the second best-selling solo artist in U.S. history.^[3]
While album sales of most musical genres have declined since about 2005, country music experienced one of its best years in 2006, when, during the first six months, U.S. sales of country albums increased by 17.7 percent to 36 million. Moreover, country music listening nationwide has remained steady for almost a decade, reaching 77.3 million adults every week, according to the radio-ratings agency Arbitron, Inc.

folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. It has become increasingly common to refer to this type of music as traditional music.
Starting in the middle of the 20th century a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional music. This process and period is called the folk revival and reached a peak in the 1960s. The most common name for this new form of music is also "folk music", but is often called "folk revival music" or "contemporary folk music" to make the distinction.^[1] This type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, electric folk, folk metal, progressive folk, psychedelic folk, freak folk and neofolk. While contemporary folk music is a genre generally distinct from traditional music, it often shares the same English name, performers and venues as traditional music; even individual songs may be a blend of the two.
folk music is one of the genre which was introduced long ago by our fore fathers and even earlier.It was introduced long ago.Folk music mostly is sang in feasts  and festivals,its has become a part of cultural.This type of songs or music refers to one's feelings.In context of Nepal it is still in practice or we can say Nepalese are preserving this culture,this is a part of Nepalese culture for instance singing folk songs or plating folk music at the time of sowing crops,marriage,and other feasts it is one of the important part of feasts.
I've also seen these kind of feats where these folk songs are sang and played i first say it while i went into a marriage there the mother of bride was singing songs which is called rateuli,the sing and dance. 

progressive rock music

Progressive rock (also referred to as prog rock or prog) is a subgenre of rock music^[1] that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility."^[2] John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of the 1960s as much as take its rightful place beside the modern classical music of Stravinsky and Bartók."^[3] Progressive rock bands pushed "rock's technical and compositional boundaries" by going beyond the standard rock or popular verse-chorus-based song structures. The Oxford Companion to Music states that progressive rock bands "...explored extended musical structures which involved intricate instrumental patterns and textures and often esoteric subject matter."^[4] Additionally, the arrangements often incorporated elements drawn from classical, jazz, and world music. Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy. Progressive rock bands sometimes used "concept albums that made unified statements, usually telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme."^[2] Progressive rock developed from late 1960s psychedelic rock, as part of a wide-ranging tendency in rock music of this era to draw inspiration from ever more diverse influences. The term was initially applied to the music of bands such as Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake & Palmer,^[2] reaching its peak of popularity in the mid 1970s.

Alternarive rock

Alternative rock (also called alternative music, alt rock or simply alternative) is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became wildly popular in the 1990s. Alternative rock consists of various subgenres that have emerged from the independent music scene since the 1980s, such as grunge, Britpop, gothic rock, indie pop, and indie rock. These genres are unified by their collective debt to the style and/or ethos of punk rock, which laid the groundwork for alternative music in the 1970s.^[1] At times, alternative rock has been used as a catch-all phrase for rock music from underground artists and all music descended from punk rock (including punk itself, New Wave, and post-punk).
Some examples of alternative rock bands that have achieved commercial success and mainstream critical recognition are R.E.M., The Cure, Jane's Addiction, Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Weezer,^[2] Radiohead, The White Stripes, and Muse.^[3] However, many alternative rock artists are cult acts that have recorded with independent labels and have received the majority of their exposure through college radio airplay and word-of-mouth.

clasical music

This article is about Western art music from 1000 AD to the present. For Western art music from 1750 to 1820, see Classical period (music). For other classical music traditions, see List of classical and art music traditions.

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times.^[1] The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period.
European music is largely distinguished from many other non-European and popular musical forms by its system of staff notation, in use since about the 16th century.^[2] Western staff notation is used by composers to prescribe to the performer the pitch, speed, meter, individual rhythms and exact execution of a piece of music. This leaves less room for practices such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation, that are frequently heard in non-European art music (as in Indian classical music and Japanese traditional music) and popular music.^[3][4][5]
The term "classical music" did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to "canonize" the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Beethoven as a golden age.^[6] The earliest reference to "classical music" recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836.
Given the extremely broad variety of forms, styles, genres, and historical periods generally perceived as being described by the term "classical music," it is difficult to list characteristics that can be attributed to all works of that type. Vague descriptions are plentiful, such as describing classical music as anything that "lasts a long time," a statement made rather moot when one considers contemporary composers who are described as classical; or music that has certain instruments like violins, which are also found in other genres. However, there are characteristics that classical music contains that few or no other genres of music contain.
As regards Indian classical music in general, there are a huge number of modes (ragas). Musicians will elaborate a single mode in detail, largely through improvisation but also based on compositions and formal demands. There are also pieces (called "ragamala" or "ragamalika") in which modulations are employed. Individual pieces are shorter in Carnatic music, so recitals are constructed by selecting items in contrasting ragas. The rationale is specifically contrast (usually), as opposed to Turkish music where modes are chosen for a directed development, or Arabic music where the frequent modulations should be as unnoticed as possible, etc. A general aesthetic discussion of this type could become much more extensive.
In both Hindustani & Carnatic music, songs (or instrumental compositions in Hindustani music) are usually (although not always) preceded by an improvised unmeasured prelude (alap/alaapana) which is sometimes extensive. This is followed by the "composition section" in which a specific rhythmic cycle (tala) is used (ordinarily with percussion accompaniment). Although it is usually based upon a pre-existing composition, there are specific improvisational features to this section as well. This aspect earns Indian classical music comparisons with Western Jazz, with which it shares some demands.
Hindustani music is the music of North India, involving both Hindu and Muslim musicians. In this case (as opposed to every other world classical tradition, except European), there are a large number of high quality recordings. Different people will, no doubt, like different styles to varying degrees. In this case, I am only going to list some discs I particularly enjoy without any intention of coming close to encyclopedic coverage.
Dhrupad is the older style of Hindustani music, now rare. The style with which most readers will be more familiar is the more modern style, especially as represented in the Hindustani instrumental (sitar, etc.) list above.
Carnatic music is the music of South India, different in many of its terms and formal demands, although similar in overall outline. The two share some common origins, but the details of these relationships can be contentious.
Indian classical music continues to gain tremendously in popularity in the West, and is now taught widely. In addition to many opportunities to learn it at universities or in specialized instruction, more general resources are appearing. The recently released "Raga Guide" on Nimbus Records is a landmark and well worth pursuing for someone interested in learning the rudiments of ragas:

reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.
Reggae is based on a rhythmic style characterized by accents on the off-beat, known as the skank. Reggae is normally slower than both ska and rocksteady.^[1] Reggae usually accents the second and fourth beat in each bar, with the rhythm guitar also either emphasizing the third beat or holding the chord on the second beat until the fourth is played. It is mainly this "third beat", its speed and the use of complex bass lines that differentiated reggae from rocksteady, although later styles incorporated these innovations separately.

Etymology

The 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English lists reggae as "a recently estab. sp. for rege", as in rege-rege, a word that can mean either "rags, ragged clothing" or "a quarrel, a row".^[2] Reggae as a musical term first appeared in print with the 1968 rocksteady hit "Do the Reggay" by The Maytals, but it was already being used in Kingston, Jamaica as the name of a slower dance and style of rocksteady.^[3] Reggae artist Derrick Morgan stated:

We didn't like the name rock steady, so I tried a different version of 'Fat Man'. It changed the beat again, it used the organ to creep. Bunny Lee, the producer, liked that. He created the sound with the organ and the rhythm guitar. It sounded like 'reggae, reggae' and that name just took off. Bunny Lee started using the world [sic] and soon all the musicians were saying 'reggae, reggae, reggae'.^[3]

Reggae historian Steve Barrow credits Clancy Eccles with altering the Jamaican patois word streggae (loose woman) into reggae.^[3] However, Toots Hibbert said:

There's a word we used to use in Jamaica called 'streggae'. If a girl is walking and the guys look at her and say 'Man, she's streggae' it means she don't dress well, she look raggedy. The girls would say that about the men too. This one morning me and my two friends were playing and I said, 'OK man, let's do the reggay.' It was just something that came out of my mouth. So we just start singing 'Do the reggay, do the reggay' and created a beat. People tell me later that we had given the sound its name. Before that people had called it blue-beat and all kind of other things. Now it's in the Guinness World of Records.^[4]

Bob Marley is said to have claimed that the word reggae came from a Spanish term for "the king's music".^[5] The liner notes of To the King, a compilation of Christian gospel reggae, suggest that the word reggae was derived from the Latin regi meaning "to the king".