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Religious or sacred music:is about religious matters or related to any religion

Secular music:It is all nonreligious music and,therefore,about any other topic regarding human beings and their concerns.

Art music:we usually understand as “classical” music.

Popular music:It is a type of music targeted for a wider audience and generally more widespread and accepted.We have to distinguish between traditional or folkoric music and pop or easy listening music.

Descriptive music:It is a kind of instrumental music that generally describes an event or phenomenon.For instance,a storm,a battle,birds singing,etc.

Program music:instrumental music based on the description of a program or plot,usually literary.

Dramatic music:It is all music that sings or expresses a text and,therefore,all vocal music.It can be represented (like the opera),or not (like the song).

Abstract or absolute music:instrumental music that does not prefer to anything outside the piece itself.

The Arab culture resorts to a kind of soloist music which greatly emphasizes the melody and a type of nasal singing.

The music from Black or Sub-Saharan Africa has a col Tective nature connected to the dance and the life of its different communities.

Eastern culture has an extraordinary diversity of kinds of music bound to its different regions and traditions.

Chinese music is closely bound to its legends and rituals. Melodies with pentaphonic scales as well as string and wind instruments are the most common.

The music from India is improvised. It is built upon scales called «ragas» associated with different feelings. Soloist instruments (wind or string) accompanied with percussion are the most common.

In Indonesia music is bound to religion and dance. Its main characteristic is the use of ensembles exclusively formed by percussion instruments.

Religious music from Tibet, performed by monks living in monasteries to accompany their rituals, employs a vocal technique called «<diplophonic» singing.

2.1. Middle Ages

It is a period that lasted from the 5th until the 15th centuries. During era convents and monasteries became the great centers of culture. Monks were almost the only ones who knew how to read and write. the Gregorian chant, turned into the Church’s official type of singing.

2.2. Renaissance

It is a period that lasted from the 15th until the 16th centuries. During this era there was a come back to the classic models of Antiquity and a great cultural development enhanced by the invention of the printing press.

Religious vocal music employed polyphonic forms like the motet. Its main composers were Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594) and Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611).

Secular vocal,its main composers were Claudio Monteverdi (1557-1648) and Juan del Enzina (1468-1529).

2.3. Baroque

It is the artistic period that lasted from the 17th century until the first half of the 18th century.

Baroque art is full of contrasts and overdone ornaments. Baroque music also looks for contrasts: changes in the dynamics, the rhythm, the timbre, and it also uses ornamentation in the melodies.

The great composers of history emerged: Antonio Vivaldi (1687-1741), J.S. Bach (1685-1750) and G. F. Haendel (1685-1759). The great vocal music forms were born: the opera and the oratorio.

The orchestra was also born. And with it the first large forms of instrumental music: the suite and the concerto.

2.4. Classicism

It is the period that covered approximately the second half of the 18th century. It meant a return to the Classical Antiquity’s ideals of beauty and proportion trying to avoid the complexity of the Baroque.

Vocal music. The favorite kind of this era was the opera buffa.Instrumental music found its perfect model with the sonata.

The main composers from the Classicism are F. J. Haydn (1732-1809),W.A. Mozart (1756-1791) And Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).

In the rest of arts, this period is known as Neoclassicism because, after the Renaissance, it was the second time that the classic mod els of Greece and Rome were picked up.

2.5. Romanticism

Is the period that lasted practically during the whole 19th century, an era guided by the spirit of the French revolution (which praised mankind’s freedom and the expression of its ideas and emotions).

The opera prevailed.Its main composers were Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1911) and Richard Wagner (1813-1883).

Small intimate forms like the lied and many pieces exclusively destined for piano appeared. The most important composers were: Franz Schubert (1797 1828) and Robert Schumann (1810-1856), Frederic Chopin (1810-1846) and Franz Liszt (1811-1886) for their piano music.

Great instrumental music forms like the symphony and the concerto, made the most of the grandeur of the orchestra and the virtuosity of soloist performers. The main composers were Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and P. Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).

2.6. 20th and 2th centuries
• Impressionism: Claude Debussy (1862-1918) and Maurice Ravel (1875-1937).
• Expressionism: its main characteristic is the pessimist.Its main composer is Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951).
• Dodecaphonism: it is a composition technique created by Schoen berg.
• Serialism: it extends the concept of dodecaphonic scale to all parameters of sound. Pitch, duration, intensity and timbre are worked on in series. The main representatives are Alban Berg (1885-1935), Anton Webern (1883-1945) and Pierre Boulez (1925).

• Electronic music: Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928).
• Aleatoric music: the performer improvises on his own. Its pioneer and main representative is John Cage (1912-1992).
3. Popular music
From the beginning of time, mankind has used music to accompany daily chores, to keep themselves entertained or to celebrate important events that happened in the community.
Before sound recording and reproduction systems existed, or even the modern media, music was transmitted orally, making room for collective creations which we call folkloric or traditional music.
With the appearance of modern society and technology, the birth of a new popular music was possible. Its main purpose was its commercial broadcasting. We can generally call it pop music or urban popular music.

3.1. Traditional music
Traditional music preserves the most primitive and primary characteristics of music:
• It has a concrete social function.
• This music is accepted and assumed by everyone.
• They are anonymous creations.
• It is orally transmitted.
Spain’s traditional music repertoire
The muñeira in Galicia, the asturianadas in Asturias, the mountain song in Cantabria, the zortziko in the Basque Country, the sardana in Catalonia, the folies in Valencia or the flamenco in Andalucía.
Spain’s traditional music instruments
Among typical instruments of specific areas we can highlight the bagpipe in Galicia and Asturias, the hurdy gurdy in Galicia, the txistu or three-hole-pipe, the alboka and the accordion in the Basque Country, the rebec and the dulzaina in Castilla y León, and the timple in Canarias.
3.2. Urban popular music
Black people provided polyrhythm, the pentaphonic scale and the characteristic improvisation of its music. White people provided the harmonic system based on the degrees I, IV, V, formal structures and the typical instruments of its marching bands.

Main styles

• Blues: it is a type of melancholic song that appears with the fusion of black people’s labor songs and white music’s harmonic structure. It responds to a 12 measure 4/4 form, divided into three 4 measure phrases upon the chords of I, IV and V.

The harmonic structure of blues would later be the base of rock and roll and much of the yet to come popular music.

• Jazz: it is a style based on instrumental improvisation upon a series of chords and syncopated rhythms.

• Rock and roll: great figures of the history of popular music emerged: Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry.

In the 1960’s the main styles of popular music were born. Those were the years known as the golden age».

• Soul: We can highlight figures like Otis Redding, Ben E. King or Aretha Franklin.

• Folk: Folk music will give birth to the protest song,main representative is Bob Dylan.

• Pop: it is based on the rhythm and electric guitars of rock and roll, and the melodic importance of the folk song. The true creators of pop music were the Beatles, who knew how to reach all audiences.

Rebellious youth

Teenagers used this music as a reflection of a new lifestyle op posed to the culture and tradition of their elders.Elvis Presley(1935-1977).

Pop for everything

Many times, pop and rock are used in distinctly, because rock is also a kind of popular music, result of the media.The Beatles (founded in 1957 and dissolved in 1970).

• Rock: The band that inaugurated this style was The Rolling Stones.

Since the 1970’s, many styles appear as a result of the evolution of rock and pop, and the introduction of new electronic media applied to music.

• Heavy metal: Among the most representative groups, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, AC/DC and Motörhead, are the ones that stand out.

• Funk:Among its main figures we can high light James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Prince.

• Disco: great figures were Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer and bands like Boney M or Bee Gees.

• Punk: most representative bands are: Sex Pistols, Clash and Ramones.

Techno: groups that stand out are Eurythmics, Depeche Mode or Span dau Ballet.

• New wave: We can highlight bands like Police (led by Sting), Talking Heads and U2.

• Grunge: it is a style that mixes hard rock with punk.Its main representatives are Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

• Electronic music: Among the main styles of electronic music, techno and house stand out.

• Hip hop: Among its main figures we can highlight Public Enemy, Notorious Big and Eminem.

4.1. Music for theatre

Incidental music

This music is composed in relation with a theatrical play. It enhances the development of the play by presenting different scenes or just as background music. Among the most famous examples we can point out Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (upon the novel by Shakespeare) and Peer Gynt by Grieg (composed for Ibsen’s drama).

Music and narration

Incidental music can be considered a type of program music because it helps describing a literary program; in this case, a play.Movie soundtracks are also incidental music at the service of film discourse.

Musical

The musical is a spoken play that introduces songs and dances influenced by the styles of popular music. This music is developed in a dreamy and hopeful atmosphere which contrasts with the true action of the scene.Among the most recent musical films we can high light Les Misérables, The Beauty and the Beast, The Phantom of the Op era, Evita, Moulin Rouge, Chicago or Mamma Mia.

4.2. Music for film

• Diegetic music: it is the music itself that appears on the screen (a record player, a dance orchestra, etc.).

• Non-diegetic music: no source of music appears on the screen and, therefore, the composer has freedom to create the background music he considers best.

Popular musical

Unlike opera, the musical is a popular work destined for consumption, that uses an appealing stage performance and accessible music for all audiences, as its main attractions.

The soundtrack

The soundtrack of a film has three different parts: dialog, sound effects and background music.However, the term «soundtrack is usually employed to refer just to background music.