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Generations of music
Thesis: Music always is changing and is shifting towards a much less creative and more
electrical genre.
All things on Earth change. Adapting to fit the surrounding environment is a natural
occurrence in life. Music is no different, from prehistoric days to current time, music is always
changing. Music in prehistoric times was based around drum based sounds most likely for
religious purposes. Current music is becoming more and more electronic and music as a whole
is entering into a more electronic phase. The previous waves of music have been relying more
through skilled instrumentalists creating music and showcasing the range of skill they would
have in their instrument and not as much as what sounds they are able to create on their
computer. Todays music does not require as much effort from musicians with talent, the public
would rather hear a jumbled melody created from a computer than a skilled guitarist performing
a guitar solo.
When the rock and roll wave of music was introduced in the 50s music listeners began to
show more of an interest in the electric guitar. Because of this new wave of music many people
began to play the guitar and play music with heavier sounds. Once rock and roll was introduced
it had replaced the interest held in jazz for many people. The genre of rock and roll had
developed to become more heavy in the 80s and continued to be a popular wave of music until
the 90s. The 80s did feature a softer form of music called pop but it was more of a mix of rock
and roll and todays pop genre. It was still reliant on the bands instrumental talent.
In the 90s the wave became moved into a lighter sound that was more focused on softer
sounding instruments playing alongside the focus mainly on the vocals. This shift in the music

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wave was more pop than featured in the 80s and was lighter and less reliant on the instruments
being played by the band. Pop did not have its listeners as interested in the instruments playing
as much as the vocals, with this new wave not as many groups went by a band name but went by
their lead singer's stage name, this led people to want to become the next singing sensation. With
music listeners all wanting to become famous for singing rather than playing an instrument this
led to many people wanting to have their breakout to becoming the next pop singer sensation and
the television show American Idol had many people audition to try to play a role in this wave of
music.
During the time pop was catching on the genre hip-hop was catching on and growing its
smaller audience. It was becoming popular but had not been the popular wave of music while
pop was spreading until later 00s. The genre began to appear in pop songs with a featured rapper
typically taking the bridge for a brief intermission from the pop. The idea of mixing pop and rap
caught on fast and many pop hits had a rapper featured in the song. From the mixture of pop and
rap many people began to listen to rap more and enjoy it, today the genre of pop is still popular
but the shift of the wave moving to the rap genre now. Majority of hits today are under the rap
genre with a few hits under the pop genre but the number of pop hits are falling and the rap hits
are rising making the current wave of music the genre of rap.
Pops success grew when rock was the current wave and slowly became more popular as
the interest in rock declined. Rap did the same thing with pop and is now the current wave. The
genre that has been in the background of the waves of music now has been more of an electronic
genre. Electronic music has been growing more popular during the past decade being included
subtly in pop and rap. The electronic genre is slowly creeping up to become the next wave of
music to replace rap. Many hits now have electronic influences from melodies made from

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computers to singers using auto-tune. Many careers in music today are djs making simple beats
from their laptop where they feature a popular singer to sing a few lines while the dj takes the
away the job musicians would normally have to create the sounds. Eventually this genre will
progress to the point to where instruments are obsolete in regards to the electronic genre wave of
music.
The shifts in the waves of music can happen rather sudden. In an article by The New
York Times, a former guitarist during a short lived phase of punk in the early 2000s was found in
a crowd playing two synthesisers with distorted speech in the background. After he set up a loop
of his playing he then began to bring out his guitar and play in the background of the loop. This
is an example of how musicians can be caught in the current popular wave and then be dropped
as soon as the next one comes around. The guitarist had to adapt to the current wave of music in
order to still have a career as a musician, he had to change his old sound and learn to adapt a new
one and learn to combine the electronic sounds that could be made by a synthesiser and his guitar
in a way that entertained the current wave.
Due to this electronic genres advancement in popularity there has been an apparent
decline in interest for learning an instrument. Less people who take an interest in music are
willing to spend the time to master an instrument but either would want to develop their vocal
skills or learn to use programs on their computer to hop into the upcoming electronic wave.
Because of this loss of interest the price of guitars have significantly increased to meet profit, the
price of a Gibson Les Paul standard model in 1980 was about $2,250 (adjusted for inflation) and
in recent years the price of the same updated model of the Gibson Les Paul standard was about
$3,750 according to an article from Reverbs website.

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The popular genre during the shifts in the waves of music can vary from state to state.
The top rated genre will vary but the shift of music as a whole will still mostly change.
According to an article by digital music news, the genre country has the most states as the most
popular genre based from touring activity. However, this is not the shift that is occurring. The
electronic wave has been influencing the other genres to make them have more electronic sounds
and become more similar.
Due to this there are less people who could potentially be receiving all of the benefits that
learning an instrument. There are several benefits for learning a guitar that have been proven to
be true such as reducing stress, building confidence, building patience, help increase a persons
creativity from playing scales and improve memory. For someone who is willing to put in an
effort and stay determined to learn an instrument will help them develope determination for other
areas in their life. Playing an instrument can give a sense of satisfaction to others, being able to
spend time to master a challenging song and to perform it in front of peers flawlessly will help to
build confidence and will likely improve attitude.
Not everybody is on board with the new wave of music, in a poll done by 60 Minutes
American adults were interviewed about music, one topic they were questioned on was the worst
decade of music. The results showed that forty two percent of people hated this this decade of
music the most. Ther rest of the data was distributed almost equally between the previous four
decades. This survey can show that people do not see this generations music as being creative or
entertaining for them. From this poll we can assume that the people who show interest in the
wave of music are younger people.
On May 9th, Ajay Kalia wrote the article why do we listen to less pop music as we get
older?. In the article Kalia tries to answer the question of why older people dont listen to this

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generations music from looking at information provided by age groups that listen to certain
Spotify playlists that show with the pop playlists it is listened to by primarily teenagers. The
amount of listeners for this genre decrease with age after the twenties and would have very few
listeners who were past their thirties. Kalia blames this on having their taste in music maturing
over time to where they are just no longer interested in the genre anymore.
In an article written by Mark Stern, he attributes the reason many people do not like
today's music is because people like the music from their generation from the nostalgia of
listening to their music when they were teenagers. This is because for adults the memories of
ages twelve to twenty-two were the memories that contained more joy. Stern also adds the
theory that music heard at a younger age is more memorable because it is connected to emotional
situations that are better remembered from a younger age that can be connected with the genre
and songs with the memories. As adults the prefered music is more mature and doesnt fit the
category of music which is popular today. This article connects with the article written by Kalia
in the sense that adults are less likely to listen to the genre pop as much as teenagers because pop
was not as popular when most adults were teenagers and this generation of teenagers will most
likely not like the next generation of music as much as they had liked the current generation of
music.
In the article written by Jordan Taylor Sloan, Scientists Prove That Pop Music is
Literally Ruining Our Brains, Sloan makes the claim that the majority of todays music is
uncreative and states research shows that pop music has been using a similar method of what The
Beatles did to get to the top charts. Pop music uses the same chords, less diverse vocals and
unmeaningful lyrics. With many of the popular songs today they all have similar simple chord
progressions, which are commonly G, C, D and then E minor. They do not stand out much from

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the other songs today with only having few lyrics in the verses, if there are different lyrics for the
verses, and then have a chorus and sometimes will have a bridge for popular pop music. The
music today follows the same generic formula to receive popularity. There is not much
distinctiveness between the top charters today. With less reliance on instruments and more
reliance on electronic sounds created by computers this can cause much of todays music to all
blend together and sound similar.
Music is still a large part of todays society and will continue to grow more despite the
lack of creativity of todays music. Electronic sounds may temporarily replace instruments but
will only be for a short time. Once the electronic wave of music is over instruments will likely
rise back into popularity. The future of music is full of possibility and opportunity, if musicians
will work hard to make their music creative and stand out then more musicians will follow and
strive to create new sounds that are unique, not just following a formula to gain popularity.
When people mature their taste in music they will want to hear music that is more meaningful
than the repetitiveness which is common among todays society.
When a professional music director at West Asheville Baptist Church, Philip Greene, was
interviewed he showed some positives to the electronic sound shift. He stated that any church
fifty years ago would all be playing the same songs out of the hymnals and playing alongside a
piano and organ. In todays time there has been more variety of genres used within the church to
reach out to individuals and connect with them through music. Due to the waves of music there
is also worship music with those genres as well including reggae, hip hop, rock, alternative,
electronic, country and more. These genres available have made it possible to make the sounds
expand to reach the people with the gospel within the community. He also stated the electronic
sounds can give variety and fullness to the sound on the stage.

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Greene continued to explain that more current worship songs containing a higher tempo
typically rely on some sort of electronic element that is very difficult or impossible to recreate on
ordinary instruments. Some of the electronic sounds are vital to the songs feel and can make the
song stand out from other songs that would use only regular instruments. This can be beneficial
for adding variety.
The downfall that was mentioned by Greene was that studios would rely on technology
more so than talent, someone can just download software onto their computer and spend time to
make beats and call that their instrument rather than use the skill of an actual instrument. Many
other churches use multitracks for their worship which put in all the sounds and would sing along
to the words but this would defeat the purpose of using talented musicians. Using newer sounds
can waste good musician talent just for the benefit of having a multitrack play the part that could
be played live.
Greene had questioned whether or not that is the electronic shift good for the church
worship community. There is the positive that worship can be more versatile to connect with
people of different cultures and has a wide capability of what sounds can be made. On the
negative side, the music can be distracting from the central topic of the music, with all of the
various beats made and the fillers in the song it can be distort the message the song is meant to
be sending.
The apparent problem mentioned by Greene is that every performance is meant to sound
radio-like. This means musicians do not try to make anything new or exciting for live
performances but just rinse and repeat everything and do their music exactly how it would sound
on the radio or the CD. This applies to many artists today, all that is being focused on is creating
one unique or catchy loop and repeat that throughout the entire song.

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Loops are riffs that are repeated throughout parts of a song like in every chorus or every
verse. In some of todays generation of music the same loop is used throughout the whole song
with little to no variation on the sound. This reduces the creative process in creating the music
and does not make the music as significant. What some groups do is play loops instead of
having instruments playing on stage. Loops cost less that having another musician on stage so
what groups will do is play a loop over the instrument so that there will be no errors and cost less
to give that radio-like sound.
For creativity to grow within music more there must be more variety. Continuing with
the electronic wave of music and not having any creative shifts will not contribute to the impact
music has on society. The electronic wave does not promote creativity within music but
encourages repetitiveness and reliance on machines to create music and not genuine talent. For
any long lasting impact for music to have on society, music must be meaningful and creative.
Once the electronic wave of music passes, if the new genre shows its creativity and doesnt rely
on computers to do the musicians job then music will begin to pick back up on leaving an impact
that promotes creativity.

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Works Cited
Greene, Philip. "Electronic Wave and the Church." Personal interview. 11 Nov. 2016.
Resnikoff, Paul. "The Most Popular Music Genre In Every U.S. State..." Digital Music News.
N.p., 10 Nov. 2016. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.
Rubin, Mike. "For New Age, the Next Generation." The New York Times. The New York Times,
15 Feb. 2014. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.
Schu, Peter. "Guitaronomics: Have Guitars Become More Expensive Over Time?"Reverb.com.
N.p., 18 May 2016. Web. 12 Nov. 2016.
Sloan, Jordan Taylor. "Scientists Prove That Pop Music Is Literally Ruining Our Brains." Mic.
N.p., 25 Oct. 2015. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.
Stern, Mark Joseph. "Why Are We So Nostalgic for Music We Loved as Teenagers?" Slate
Magazine. N.p., 12 Aug. 2014. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

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