This website includes elements of traditional music, popular music, church music and concert music.
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These terms are also very difficult to define and involve an awful lot of cross over. To make searching for new and unknown pieces easier a number of categories have been attributed to each piece, most broadly the four already mentioned. While these terms are tricky at the best of times, these should make sense to the average musician and categorise pieces in their most obvious guise, and not necessarily in their most exact. As often is the case with music, the boundaries between these categories are very blurred and as such what appeared to be the most obvious category, based on the intent of the composition and not necessarily the content, has been assigned. |
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These categories are not necessarily a judgement of the piece and should not be taken as definite. However, they do work to link similar pieces to make it easier for the user to find suitable pieces if he/she does not already know exact pieces
to look for. They should be seen more as categories of suitability as opposed to categories of definition. |
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Traditional |
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Somebody once said that this word is now ‘forever imprisoned between quotation marks.’ It is a very sticky term and is now often avoided. However, it is a useful genre term for this site and as such has been chosen for one of the main categories. In this instance Traditional has been taken in its most broad sense and includes anything that was intended to be performed in a traditional setting, was collected as traditional or has been composed in a traditional idiom. Carvals have been included in this section (as opposed to being included in Church music). |
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Popular |
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Again this is a very difficult term to deal with, but would appear to be that which was intended to be played or heard recreationally,
cheaply and by large quantities of people. This would include anything from the music of the dance halls, parlour songs and ballads and
carries right through to modern rock music. Many of the more
popularised Victorian settings of Traditional songs have been included in this section as they were intended for this type of performance
and not for use in a traditional setting. |
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Church |
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This section includes anything that is of a religious nature but is not obviously traditional (e.g. Carvals have been categorised as Traditional), popular or concert.
These pieces may be of any denomination or age. |
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Concert |
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These pieces are categorised as Concert if they are of a recognised classical genre (symphony, oratorio etc) or appear to have been
composed for an orchestral or formal concert setting. Again there will be certain elements of crossover with the other categories. |
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Each of the categories is then split further into other categories for searching such as instrumentation and language. These categories
are very loose and have been chosen to narrow down a search without limiting it. For example, under
instrumentation the category ‘Orchestra’ may have been ascribed. However, this does not necessarily mean a large symphony orchestra, but
may just be a small ensemble or chamber group. However, when searching it may be useful to see all of these
pieces. When searching it is best to use the category closest or similar to that which you are looking for. |
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