What is Proto-Alternative Post-Art Prog-core?

"death by genre theory"

In the coming weeks to months to however-long-i-decide-to-keep-this-up’s, I’ll embark on unraveling this tangled Rat King of a cobweb that has attached itself to each corner of my mind. To speak plainly: I’m big-picture-kinda worm, and a firm believer that all big-picture-kinda worms are actually also small-picture-kinda worms. Understanding, appreciating and, to a certain extent, making music is all about seeing the invisible throughlines that run between all different kinds of music, or at the very least, all the different kinds of music you like. So, in order to do that effectively, it’s super helpful to understand where in the big picture a piece of music lies, and what lines are being drawn to other parts of said big picture. Capisce?

So that’s enough simple talk, let’s get down to the nitty gritty:

Genres aren’t important because they give us tools to put sound in a box, although unfortunately, some musicians——many of whom are inclined to a style that starts with “M” and ends in “etal”, seem to think as much——but we’ll get to them in due time.

Genres are important because they’re words we’ve specifically invented to describe, discuss, appreciate and ultimately, understand music.

This is different than most other words often used to describe music, as most of them are adjectives borrowed from the lexical libraries of our other four senses, IE——a “pretty voice”, a “tasty lead” or a “hard beat”——all small-picture descriptions, useful for sure, but those three things could describe anything from Led Zeppelin to PinkPantheress. Even emotional adjectives are limited in the scope of information they can convey. I often tell people that I listen to “scary” or “silly” music, and they almost never understand what I mean by that, unless I show them examples. Even then, emotional adjectives are incredibly subjective, as I might find The Unicorns fun and silly, but someone else might find them obnoxious and goofy. (if they have bad taste, ofc… ;3 )

Genre is an objective framework through which we can engage with music. It’s also a tool that requires some study in order to wield correctly, but not as much as some other kinds of words music appreciators have created, especially because it doesn’t require knowledge of how to play, perform, compose or read music. In contrast, we’re not going to be covering but only occasionally bumping into the concept of Music Theory—the study of how music is created and how it “functions”. There are hundreds, if not thousands of terms that you could learn to frame the smallest of pictures you didn’t even think possible within the study of Music Theory; but to reiterate, I’m a big-picture-kinda worm and I’ll make one out of you too.

Herein begins my musicological diary, an exploration of how I understand music using genre theory, and a repository for other acts of… *blegh*—“music journalism” that I’ll likely be sorry for one day.

With love and hunger,

—worm (>….<)