Music genre

Music genre refers to the categorization of music into distinct groups based upon a shared prose, form, instrumentation or other convention.

The number of known musical genres is ever changing and is deeply tied to the musical pieces cultural identity, history, the artists and the audiences beliefs pertaining to the music. For example, the genre of country music has grown from the old Southern-American traditions to include many more instruments, singing styles, and cultural conventions such as story telling. This change in the original underlying genre's music begins to describe a broad range additional like categories referred to as subgenres. Subgenres of country music for example may include bluegrass, honky-tonk, and even country-pop and country-rap.

A subgenre is not always readily identifiable by inexperienced listeners and is sometimes considered less official, less important, or arbitrary by casual listeners. Examples of a subgenre can be viewed in House music's further categorization into Ambient house, Acid house, or Chicago house.