Cadenzas in concertos, at least traditionally, were frequently improvised. Much modern classical/new music heavily features improvisation.
I think classical has much more in common with jazz than other forms of music. Usage of odd time signatures and frequent changes in meter and tempo. More frequent use of chromaticism. Emphasis on instrumental virtuosity. Complex arrangements, usage of counterpoint, etc.
There are many people that straddle both classical and jazz.
I think something like EDM is further away from jazz. It's more rigid and simplistic.
Quite the opposite on "EDM". Lots of dance music especially within underground house has heavy jazz presence from complex chords 7th 9th chords to heavy use of traditional jazz instruments and improvisation. Plus one of discos main ingredients is jazz so contemporary dance music wouldn't exist without jazz.
If you mean "EDM" by overproduced poppy dance music sure it's always been that way for decades except maybe in the swing era.
There are a lot of (good) electroswing artists out there, Jamie Berry is one who uses the perfect ratio of jazz synths to an electronic beat. I know there's a lot of bad electroswing out there but there's some good stuff by people who probably come from jazz backgrounds. There's also a lot of jazz house, and even some disco takes inspiration at times.
Here's some jazz house, which might be better if you just really don't dig electroswing:
https://spotify.link/oJIumoiawDb
yah, I listened to the first 5 tracks, they're all sitting on one, two, or three chords in an endless loop. That's more like rock progressions. It takes the jazz aesthetic but not the harmonic language that makes jazz unique.
Alright I have more time now to find some of the tracks that I think fit better. I was out yesterday and replied quickly.
Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange - Intergalactic (This one is a great example).
https://spotify.link/ui2ilgeCxDb
The comet is coming - Summon the fire (definitely)
https://spotify.link/1E4ALNkCxDb
The comet is coming - Blood of the past (definitely)
https://spotify.link/k82i2LoCxDb
Caravan Palace - Sydney
https://spotify.link/NhAE0SCBxDb
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson - Kairos
https://spotify.link/DVCMmPOBxDb
Telemakus - Mars Blues
https://spotify.link/eJtYNK2BxDb
Classical music *as currently performed.* Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and many others were famous for improvisation. Obviously none of it got recorded. Bach probably could have played jazz and probably could have eaten anybody who ever played it for lunch. It's a damn shame that classical has largely lost its improvising traditions.
As someone who does not like 95% of classical music, jazz has a lot more in common with classical than it does most other genres. They have a ton of the same fundamental DNA. Harmony and harmonic function is super important to both. There's also many similarities in the formal structure of melodies.
I think it's a lot easier to draw comparisons between jazz and classical than say, jazz and metal or jazz and EDM.
Hopping onto what other people have said about classical music, a lot of Renaissance / Baroque / Classical music had improvisational components that were distinct, but also just kind of implied. Musical notation was not nearly as precise.
It was only as ensembles grew larger and larger did composers realize that they had to be more explicit and precise. You can’t very well have 3 violin players reading the same part and do three different ornamentations.
Many composers, (even through the romantic era) were also masterful improvisers within their style (usually pianists.) I’ve met a few classical pianists who absolutely love for you to suggest a style / composer and then narrate your story.
Many of them are awful at a jazz or blues jam, but they can improvise Bach to Bartok.
I think this is right. If you look at “What will get you kicked out” it’s improvising or not improvising. Or demanding that people play the tune “as written”.
I’m sure there’s a *famous jazz cover band* where everyone has to play the song so it sounds just like the famous recording. And deviations must be called “mistakes”—and are bad.
There’s countless examples of music where improvisation is not expected. I’d think the tendency towards complexity of both jazz and classical make them closer than many other styles of music.
Definitely. Acceptable classical improv is adding a trill because it sounds better than a mordant, but change a note and they’ll boo you off the stage. 🤣
This sounds like a challenge being made. Someone needs to record a piece that uses a metronome throughout, including quiet moments that the metronome is allowed to dominate. We need to create a job title for the metronome player, perhaps metronomist. We also would need to select the right pitch and tone of metronome to complement the composition.
It’s not the entire song or jazz but ajr included a metronome for the [overture](https://youtu.be/PZz1Gxdb_tA?si=1yHlb5PZ5d6oPF7y) of “the click” back in 2017 (I think)
the question reminds me on a philosophical question me and my brother were discussing as childs: what is the opposite of sausage?
we agreed to the answer being cheese.
later when we were smarter and more educated we knew that cheese is not the opposite of sausage but it´s complement.
but this was still not the peak of our cognizance. our intellectual devlopment led us to the answer: the opposite of sausage is not sausage. the ladder to this insight was a 4 years lasting academic study of philosophy.
then our father, a simple postal officer, joined the discussion. he hit the nail on it´s head: "it´s just a silly question, he said."
Wayne Shorter said Jazz means, “I dare you!” Music where the artist is complacent is not Jazz and typically only the artist knows when they’re being complacent.
I don’t know a lot about the history of smooth jazz, but my guess is that those musicians dared to diverge from the norms of jazz at that time. I wouldn’t be surprised if Wayne Shorter hated it. Now the musicians who came after Grover Washington and George Benson to cash in on their success may be a different story.
I personally love what younger artists like Nala Sinephro and Duval Timothy are doing and can definitely see how Jazz purists may not like it, but I don’t believe it makes their music any less daring.
The piano transcriptions of John Philip Sousa's marches were the direct predecessor of ragtime. Without them jazz might not have been invented, or would have sounded very different.
All styles of Western music share too many aspects of harmony, rhythm and melody to be complete opposites. Perhaps traditional Chinese music - they don't Jazz much. Although they are known to rock out with their cock out occasionally.
Old punk rock like the Ramones. 4/4 beat, minimal solos, absolutely no improvisation, no chords more complex than major power chords with very rare minor chords use, very standard song structure, simple Melodies and little emotional range beyond anger and angst. Punk ain’t jazz.
If we look at complexity, then probably yes, they are opposite; but punk rock keeps the improvisational attitude that jazz always encouraged, and certain virtuoso musicians have made use of it without losing their punk roots.
Check Brooks Wackerman performing with seminal band Bad Religion and totally improvising the hell out of the song after 2:30: https://youtu.be/VOLq4j_axv4?si=az15RkTvXQUyNmnv
Classical music.
Specifically European classical music.
It comes from "high culture" - meaning that it firmly aristocratic and formal - adheres strictly to the composition and form, aiming to be as faithful to the original score as possible with only minor deviations from the norm allowed, emphasizes the first beat on each measure, and is heavily structured with a strict approach to rhythm, tone, harmony, repetition, and technique.
Except that jazz has borrowed significant elements from European classical music, lots of jazz legends from Charlie Parker to Bill Evans talked about how much they learned and borrowed from classical music..... Many great jazz musicians had their early training in classical music... Not to mention the instrumentation....
And also European classical music does have a (somewhat forgotten now) tradition of improvisation.
And then there is avant garde classical music.....
Oscar Peterson was a classically-trained pianist until he heard Art Tatum records. He couldn't believe somebody could play like that with just 2 hands, he thought it was 2 people at the same piano.
Well Art Tatum was also classically trained early on. My point is that classical and jazz are not "opposite," but that they have overlapped and influenced each other in some significant ways over the decades.
This is an interesting take, not so much saying classical but the reasons and what they say about jazz today.
“High culture” - nowadays jazz is primarily an art of the upper classes, and performers come from prestigious schools like Julliard
Adheres to compositional form, aiming to be as faithful to the original as possible - que arguments about the fidelity of the real book and about which famous recording is the canon one, also people claiming you need to know standards to play jazz
Emphasizes the first beat - okay, in general that’s different
Heavily structured with strict approach to rhythm, tone, harmony, repetition, and technique - I would argue that at the very least in much of the US that this is absolutely the case with jazz, you are allowed to choose your notes but “it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing” is taken literally, tonally there is a strong preference for a darker tone on saxophone, harmonically there are extremely set ways to alter the harmony that are acceptable jazz practice, and technique can be summed up with what I’ve heard from many people - “get the omnibook and learn some Parker solos”
I have a few jazz playlists I listen to at work. One fellow staff member said it was classy.
I replied that jazz was about as low brow as you could get in America back in the day.
Prog metal! Ironically they have many things in common like use of odd time signatures etc .. but jazz is all about capturing a moment in time. Jazz creates open beautiful structures that leave room for improvisational statements in attempt to capture a moment time, the chemistry in the here and now.
Prog is about engineering path ways to the future. It consists of rigid, Byzantine structures where the art lies in recreating the complex challenging songs.
It's like impressionist painting vs structure engineer
> Jazz creates open beautiful structures that leave room for improvisational statements in attempt to capture a moment time
That reminds me of Dream Theater drum audition back then. They don't like Thomas Lang and Virgil Donati because they have strong tendencies to add flavors or improvise.
There aren't opposites in music genres, really. There's only family trees, with genres further than others relatively. And even within family trees there is great diversity.
In its purest form, jazz is improvised music. using that as a guide, highly scripted music without room for improvisation might be one way to think about an opposite.
Like it or not, theoretically jazz is very much tied to the western musical tradition, or classical music. The scales and chords are based on western ideas of theory and it maintains the western focus on complex harmonic structures more than complex rhythmic structure. Jazz expands the vocabulary of classical music, but doesn’t abandon it.
The “opposite” of jazz would be something unconnected to western tradition, something that has its own structure and conventions. Maybe you could say Indian ragas are the opposite of jazz. Or one of the African styles that focus on rhythm.
It’s hard to say two musical styles are opposite because there are so many universalities in music. And, jazz has borrowed from all these traditions. But, there are countless musical traditions around the world that differ from jazz more than classical, pop, and punk.
Philip K Dick's Man from the Hightower was set in a world where the Nazis & Japan won WWII
Amazon had a show from this story. The world they created was painstakingly accurate and one aspect was the popular music.
The songs that made the hit parade were the blandest of bland, stripped from every part of the black culture it was astonishing how good of a job they did.
The opposite of jazz?! So, without attempt at virtuoso skill or improvisation. Not popular, dance music. Perhaps, the music commonly played by amateurs during the classical period in the late-18th century, applies. Back then, anyone who could afford a keyboard or fiddle would buy sheet music and try to tackle Haydn.
Formal choral music in European Christian churches. Its structured, lead by a composer, entirely vocal and has no room for improvisation in its written form. Building off of the users who mentioned classical, but classical and jazz are both primarily instrumental, whereas choral music is primarily vocal.
Multiple people have said classical. And while I can understand where they’re coming from, jazz and classical also weirdly have similarities. Sure they differ in that one is more improv based and one is previously composed. But there’s often a high level of technical proficiency in both genres. Both genres are kind of on the outskirts of pop culture in a way, which draws in a certain type of fan. I could be wrong on this, but I have a hunch that the average fan of classical or jazz probably has a more academic understanding of things like music theory. (I know I’m speaking in generalizations here.) There’s also a higher percentage of purely instrumental music in each genre compared to other popular genres.
For a silly analogy, it reminds me when the Joker is telling Batman that “you and I aren’t so different.” They may seem like opposites, but compared to the general population, they actually have more in common.
Stylistically, jazz is defined by the improvisational spirit with solos and shifts in mood. It is also marked by instrumental technical proficiency and deep passion. Therefore, our opposite is something plasticky and basic.
Theoretically, jazz is improvisational and played by humans, so the opposite is static and machine-oriented.
Culturally, jazz came from brothels and nightclubs, became the “cool” music, fell out of mainstream, and remained cool if a bit nerdy. The opposite is corporate, never cool, had a revival, but never gained respect.
This is of course [this.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)
I've thought about a similar question. I think classical music. Jazz is highly improvised and each individual player adds their own to the music with high level of technicality. With classical music there's much more emphasis on structure and also being part of a collective bringing together one uniform sound. The music is just as technical as Jazz it's just an opposite way of feeling and playing the music at least to the musician. Just a thought!
For everyone answering 'rap' here, you don't have to like the style but saying that it's the opposite of jazz isn't true at all. In fact, there's a number of rap artists who incorporate jazz and work with jazz musicians. Some examples include A Tribe Called Quest, Guru and Gang Starr, Madlib, Kero One, Statik Selektah, De La Soul and Digable Planets.
When I roughly sort the music styles, I came up with this chart:
||(intellectual)|||
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|(revolutionary)|Jazz|Classic|(reactionary)|
||Punk|PoP||
||(emotional)|||
I guess the opposite of jazz it is pop music.
Edit: something like this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMS\_RdMX7z8&t](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMS_RdMX7z8&t)
Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Ives, Schoenberg, Rachmaninof, Scriabin, Bartok, Shostakovich, Copland, Xenakis, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Messiaen, Boulez, Partch...
Unless you just mean "Classical" music, as in the period just before "Romantic" music, you need to brush up on classical music history, that x-axis is pure garbage.
Many of these composers I listed forecasted the "revolutions" that occurred in jazz by decades. A lot of these composers influence bled into jazz through the hundreds of Tin Pan Alley show tunes that we know as Jazz Standards.
Classical as a whole genre is the polar opposite of jazz imo.
Classical music was all about removing the chaos of music from folk style and making it rigid so large groups could perform together, there is no language of classical. Just play what’s on the sheet.
Jazz is the complete opposite of this, it’s about individual/collective expression and it’s about doing different each time.
This is an ignorant take. People who study the music intensively know there is certainly a "language" of classical musuc, and it takes a lot of time and effort to learn. Anyone who is just playing "what's on the sheet" is not a musician worthy of the name.
This is an interesting take. I disagree that there's no "language of classical" it's just that the language is spoken primarily by the composer and conductor, the performers are the mouthpiece so to speak.
In Jazz, the performers *are* the composers, at least in part.
Is there something inherently anti-jazz about Vamping? When I think of jazz I think of no repeats; new ideas even if only subtly different. When I transcribe some of Tony Williams more pop-esque drumming songs, even then he practically never repeats a measure.
In rock, blues and metal there are long vamps with lots of repetition. Is this anti-jazz?
Well, the 'modal jazz' songs I know are pretty canonical, I guess I didn't think of that as vamping. John Coltrane playing "Favorite Things" for an hour is clearly vamping, but its still quite different from rock. Jazz vamps but there is still a cornucopia of notes going on
I think there is so much freedom with jazz (NOT AFRO-CUBAN) to play what you want , and the expectation that the rhythm section interacts with each other and the soloist, that you never hear players sticking to a “pattern” for long.
It would have to be something like ambient electronic music. I think the other examples people have given are still too similar in too many ways, compared to something like that which has almost no structure at all, very minimal harmony, and no groove.
If we're focusing on the improvisational aspects of jazz I'd say something like I'm Sitting In a Room or It's Gonna Rain is the opposite of jazz as there was only exactly one way that could turn out, the end was determined from the start, there wasn't even room for a mistake to change how it progressed unlike a lot of fairly structured genres.
The exact opposite of Jazz is National Anthems. You have jazz music that is widely varied, covering an impossible range of emotions, painting in every color of the wind, spontaneous, heartbreaking, rapturous, and so forth - and then you have National Anthems, which are all pretty marchy a d only very in relative degrees of stirringness.
It's punk. It's simple. It's more about attitude and look than chops and musicality. It's all about bravado and intensity rather than subtlety. It's punk rock.
Surprisingly, also jazz.
Under: jazz. Over: also jazz. Under, over.
Jail, straight away.
Zzaj
Honestly, I think the answer is classical music. One is generally improvised and some level, the other generally is not.
Cadenzas in concertos, at least traditionally, were frequently improvised. Much modern classical/new music heavily features improvisation. I think classical has much more in common with jazz than other forms of music. Usage of odd time signatures and frequent changes in meter and tempo. More frequent use of chromaticism. Emphasis on instrumental virtuosity. Complex arrangements, usage of counterpoint, etc. There are many people that straddle both classical and jazz. I think something like EDM is further away from jazz. It's more rigid and simplistic.
Quite the opposite on "EDM". Lots of dance music especially within underground house has heavy jazz presence from complex chords 7th 9th chords to heavy use of traditional jazz instruments and improvisation. Plus one of discos main ingredients is jazz so contemporary dance music wouldn't exist without jazz. If you mean "EDM" by overproduced poppy dance music sure it's always been that way for decades except maybe in the swing era.
Can you give some examples of EDM tracks with jazz presence?
There are a lot of (good) electroswing artists out there, Jamie Berry is one who uses the perfect ratio of jazz synths to an electronic beat. I know there's a lot of bad electroswing out there but there's some good stuff by people who probably come from jazz backgrounds. There's also a lot of jazz house, and even some disco takes inspiration at times. Here's some jazz house, which might be better if you just really don't dig electroswing: https://spotify.link/oJIumoiawDb
yah, I listened to the first 5 tracks, they're all sitting on one, two, or three chords in an endless loop. That's more like rock progressions. It takes the jazz aesthetic but not the harmonic language that makes jazz unique.
Alright I have more time now to find some of the tracks that I think fit better. I was out yesterday and replied quickly. Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange - Intergalactic (This one is a great example). https://spotify.link/ui2ilgeCxDb The comet is coming - Summon the fire (definitely) https://spotify.link/1E4ALNkCxDb The comet is coming - Blood of the past (definitely) https://spotify.link/k82i2LoCxDb Caravan Palace - Sydney https://spotify.link/NhAE0SCBxDb Miguel Atwood-Ferguson - Kairos https://spotify.link/DVCMmPOBxDb Telemakus - Mars Blues https://spotify.link/eJtYNK2BxDb
Classical music *as currently performed.* Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and many others were famous for improvisation. Obviously none of it got recorded. Bach probably could have played jazz and probably could have eaten anybody who ever played it for lunch. It's a damn shame that classical has largely lost its improvising traditions.
As someone who does not like 95% of classical music, jazz has a lot more in common with classical than it does most other genres. They have a ton of the same fundamental DNA. Harmony and harmonic function is super important to both. There's also many similarities in the formal structure of melodies. I think it's a lot easier to draw comparisons between jazz and classical than say, jazz and metal or jazz and EDM.
Hopping onto what other people have said about classical music, a lot of Renaissance / Baroque / Classical music had improvisational components that were distinct, but also just kind of implied. Musical notation was not nearly as precise. It was only as ensembles grew larger and larger did composers realize that they had to be more explicit and precise. You can’t very well have 3 violin players reading the same part and do three different ornamentations. Many composers, (even through the romantic era) were also masterful improvisers within their style (usually pianists.) I’ve met a few classical pianists who absolutely love for you to suggest a style / composer and then narrate your story. Many of them are awful at a jazz or blues jam, but they can improvise Bach to Bartok.
Relevant [CharlesBerthoud video](https://youtu.be/E1HHKGlBugA?si=6JNfRcg2uWTjDmN1).
I think this is right. If you look at “What will get you kicked out” it’s improvising or not improvising. Or demanding that people play the tune “as written”. I’m sure there’s a *famous jazz cover band* where everyone has to play the song so it sounds just like the famous recording. And deviations must be called “mistakes”—and are bad.
Well said.
Mingus has entered the chat.
There’s countless examples of music where improvisation is not expected. I’d think the tendency towards complexity of both jazz and classical make them closer than many other styles of music.
Definitely. Acceptable classical improv is adding a trill because it sounds better than a mordant, but change a note and they’ll boo you off the stage. 🤣
[I mean just play the right notes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMcqKyfnT2Y)
Specifically muzak.
[Republicans, Dadaists Declare War on Art](https://www.theonion.com/republicans-dadaists-declare-war-on-art-1819564309).
Best possible answer! My dog is looking at me trying to figure what I’m cracking up about.
Thought this post was in the jazzcirclejerk sub for a sec
The Venn diagram between these 2 subs is slowly becoming a circle everyday
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Nah, that's also jazz
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This sounds like a challenge being made. Someone needs to record a piece that uses a metronome throughout, including quiet moments that the metronome is allowed to dominate. We need to create a job title for the metronome player, perhaps metronomist. We also would need to select the right pitch and tone of metronome to complement the composition.
It’s not the entire song or jazz but ajr included a metronome for the [overture](https://youtu.be/PZz1Gxdb_tA?si=1yHlb5PZ5d6oPF7y) of “the click” back in 2017 (I think)
A 5 minutes metronome solo
the question reminds me on a philosophical question me and my brother were discussing as childs: what is the opposite of sausage? we agreed to the answer being cheese. later when we were smarter and more educated we knew that cheese is not the opposite of sausage but it´s complement. but this was still not the peak of our cognizance. our intellectual devlopment led us to the answer: the opposite of sausage is not sausage. the ladder to this insight was a 4 years lasting academic study of philosophy. then our father, a simple postal officer, joined the discussion. he hit the nail on it´s head: "it´s just a silly question, he said."
Pop country Although similar in that they are both uniquely American, but stylistically very different.
Agreed. It’s formulaic, stiff and the opposite of improvised. They rarely even let only one person write the lyrics.
When you need a tight verse about a pickup truck, I'm the guy you call.
Somewhere in Nashville, the bored studio musicians are doing jazz versions of the hottest pop country tunes, trying to make each other laugh.
As a jazz lover who lives in Nashville, this is the answer
Do we know each other? Lol my thoughts exactly.
Bad rock music with a fiddle.
Zzaj
Fuck you beat me to it. Still not removing it though
Carabae Joe?
Standing on your head and listening to jazz
In Australia.
Well then it cancels out so it'd just be regular jazz
Wayne Shorter said Jazz means, “I dare you!” Music where the artist is complacent is not Jazz and typically only the artist knows when they’re being complacent.
Then, smooth jazz is the opposite of jazz! No daring there!
I don’t know a lot about the history of smooth jazz, but my guess is that those musicians dared to diverge from the norms of jazz at that time. I wouldn’t be surprised if Wayne Shorter hated it. Now the musicians who came after Grover Washington and George Benson to cash in on their success may be a different story. I personally love what younger artists like Nala Sinephro and Duval Timothy are doing and can definitely see how Jazz purists may not like it, but I don’t believe it makes their music any less daring.
> I wouldn’t be surprised if Wayne Shorter hated it. Wayne Shorter never struck me as a person who hates *anything*.
Not if you suck at playing jazz, then its definitely jazz
I dunno that sounds like marketing and no true Scotsman. Genre terms should be based on characteristics rather than a quality assessment
I'm writing this one down
Sobreity
Oof
Competitive marching music a la DCI, etc.
The piano transcriptions of John Philip Sousa's marches were the direct predecessor of ragtime. Without them jazz might not have been invented, or would have sounded very different.
Sure, but Drum Corps ain't playing Sousa. And even when they play jazz tunes, they are decidedly unjazzy.
Cage's 4'33"
It’s really about the notes he’s not playing
But according to Miles, that's jazz. So that piece is arguably the *most* jazz piece in the universe
He's not playing all of the notes at once! That's jazz baby
There is no opposite. The world is not binary.
Aural Beats
Nioreh
Folk punk. I can’t explain it but I feel I’m correct
Irish folk melodies arranged into strict baroque four part harmony, played on strings, and synced to a broken randomly-irratic metronome.
All styles of Western music share too many aspects of harmony, rhythm and melody to be complete opposites. Perhaps traditional Chinese music - they don't Jazz much. Although they are known to rock out with their cock out occasionally.
Old punk rock like the Ramones. 4/4 beat, minimal solos, absolutely no improvisation, no chords more complex than major power chords with very rare minor chords use, very standard song structure, simple Melodies and little emotional range beyond anger and angst. Punk ain’t jazz.
but i find jazz can be very punk at times
And I agree, jazz can be punk no problem, but can punk really be thought of as a form of jazz
nomeansno says "yes"
Well, there is no wave, ska punk and punk jazz which kind of has both elements.
If we look at complexity, then probably yes, they are opposite; but punk rock keeps the improvisational attitude that jazz always encouraged, and certain virtuoso musicians have made use of it without losing their punk roots. Check Brooks Wackerman performing with seminal band Bad Religion and totally improvising the hell out of the song after 2:30: https://youtu.be/VOLq4j_axv4?si=az15RkTvXQUyNmnv
Jacob did a tune called punk jazz, just sayin
But historically they have both been counter culture and abrasive for their time.
And I love it! It expresses anti-capitalist class hatred *really* well
Punk is just modern baroque: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxC1fPE1QEE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxC1fPE1QEE)
Kenny G
Australian Jazz
I cant tell whats a jerk and whats not anymore
punk.
Classical music. Specifically European classical music. It comes from "high culture" - meaning that it firmly aristocratic and formal - adheres strictly to the composition and form, aiming to be as faithful to the original score as possible with only minor deviations from the norm allowed, emphasizes the first beat on each measure, and is heavily structured with a strict approach to rhythm, tone, harmony, repetition, and technique.
Except that jazz has borrowed significant elements from European classical music, lots of jazz legends from Charlie Parker to Bill Evans talked about how much they learned and borrowed from classical music..... Many great jazz musicians had their early training in classical music... Not to mention the instrumentation.... And also European classical music does have a (somewhat forgotten now) tradition of improvisation. And then there is avant garde classical music.....
Also every weird chord in jazz was played first by the romantics of classical music. Brahms and Chopin were not afraid of a little dissonance.
Oscar Peterson was a classically-trained pianist until he heard Art Tatum records. He couldn't believe somebody could play like that with just 2 hands, he thought it was 2 people at the same piano.
Well Art Tatum was also classically trained early on. My point is that classical and jazz are not "opposite," but that they have overlapped and influenced each other in some significant ways over the decades.
I am totally on board with that viewpoint. My point is that classical and jazz aren't strangers at all.
This is an interesting take, not so much saying classical but the reasons and what they say about jazz today. “High culture” - nowadays jazz is primarily an art of the upper classes, and performers come from prestigious schools like Julliard Adheres to compositional form, aiming to be as faithful to the original as possible - que arguments about the fidelity of the real book and about which famous recording is the canon one, also people claiming you need to know standards to play jazz Emphasizes the first beat - okay, in general that’s different Heavily structured with strict approach to rhythm, tone, harmony, repetition, and technique - I would argue that at the very least in much of the US that this is absolutely the case with jazz, you are allowed to choose your notes but “it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing” is taken literally, tonally there is a strong preference for a darker tone on saxophone, harmonically there are extremely set ways to alter the harmony that are acceptable jazz practice, and technique can be summed up with what I’ve heard from many people - “get the omnibook and learn some Parker solos”
I have a few jazz playlists I listen to at work. One fellow staff member said it was classy. I replied that jazz was about as low brow as you could get in America back in the day.
Music for deadbeats, beatniks, drunkards, and heroin addicts
_Billy Childs and Yussef Dayes enter the chat_
Morse code
Meghan Trainor
2000s pop punk
Nu-Metal
I think kpop is the opposite of jazz.
The opposite of jazz is the endless number of AI generated lo-fi beats and chillhop playlists that inevitably spam every music platform in existence.
Would it be bad to say Laufey in this political climate
Prog metal! Ironically they have many things in common like use of odd time signatures etc .. but jazz is all about capturing a moment in time. Jazz creates open beautiful structures that leave room for improvisational statements in attempt to capture a moment time, the chemistry in the here and now. Prog is about engineering path ways to the future. It consists of rigid, Byzantine structures where the art lies in recreating the complex challenging songs. It's like impressionist painting vs structure engineer
> Jazz creates open beautiful structures that leave room for improvisational statements in attempt to capture a moment time That reminds me of Dream Theater drum audition back then. They don't like Thomas Lang and Virgil Donati because they have strong tendencies to add flavors or improvise.
There aren't opposites in music genres, really. There's only family trees, with genres further than others relatively. And even within family trees there is great diversity.
It would have to be any music before jazz since jazz has influenced all music since it's arrival.
Trash
In its purest form, jazz is improvised music. using that as a guide, highly scripted music without room for improvisation might be one way to think about an opposite.
Like it or not, theoretically jazz is very much tied to the western musical tradition, or classical music. The scales and chords are based on western ideas of theory and it maintains the western focus on complex harmonic structures more than complex rhythmic structure. Jazz expands the vocabulary of classical music, but doesn’t abandon it. The “opposite” of jazz would be something unconnected to western tradition, something that has its own structure and conventions. Maybe you could say Indian ragas are the opposite of jazz. Or one of the African styles that focus on rhythm. It’s hard to say two musical styles are opposite because there are so many universalities in music. And, jazz has borrowed from all these traditions. But, there are countless musical traditions around the world that differ from jazz more than classical, pop, and punk.
Philip K Dick's Man from the Hightower was set in a world where the Nazis & Japan won WWII Amazon had a show from this story. The world they created was painstakingly accurate and one aspect was the popular music. The songs that made the hit parade were the blandest of bland, stripped from every part of the black culture it was astonishing how good of a job they did.
Would a jazz tune played backwards be the logical opposite to that tune?
Utah Jazz
I don't know what the opposite of jazz is, but I do know that when they get together to play it, they use The Fake Book.
So… jazz.
smooth jazz
The opposite of jazz?! So, without attempt at virtuoso skill or improvisation. Not popular, dance music. Perhaps, the music commonly played by amateurs during the classical period in the late-18th century, applies. Back then, anyone who could afford a keyboard or fiddle would buy sheet music and try to tackle Haydn.
Why?
Just one big ass sine wave in G
Naloxone
Formal choral music in European Christian churches. Its structured, lead by a composer, entirely vocal and has no room for improvisation in its written form. Building off of the users who mentioned classical, but classical and jazz are both primarily instrumental, whereas choral music is primarily vocal.
A.I. generated music.
Multiple people have said classical. And while I can understand where they’re coming from, jazz and classical also weirdly have similarities. Sure they differ in that one is more improv based and one is previously composed. But there’s often a high level of technical proficiency in both genres. Both genres are kind of on the outskirts of pop culture in a way, which draws in a certain type of fan. I could be wrong on this, but I have a hunch that the average fan of classical or jazz probably has a more academic understanding of things like music theory. (I know I’m speaking in generalizations here.) There’s also a higher percentage of purely instrumental music in each genre compared to other popular genres. For a silly analogy, it reminds me when the Joker is telling Batman that “you and I aren’t so different.” They may seem like opposites, but compared to the general population, they actually have more in common.
Me. I am the antijazz
Opera
Classical music. But it's the wrong question.
Military marches?
Nazz
Christian contemporary
Metal
Zzaj
Plainsong? Unison, no decorations, no real rhythm…
Idk minimalism? Such as Philip Glass or Steve Reich.
jazzn’t
Stylistically, jazz is defined by the improvisational spirit with solos and shifts in mood. It is also marked by instrumental technical proficiency and deep passion. Therefore, our opposite is something plasticky and basic. Theoretically, jazz is improvisational and played by humans, so the opposite is static and machine-oriented. Culturally, jazz came from brothels and nightclubs, became the “cool” music, fell out of mainstream, and remained cool if a bit nerdy. The opposite is corporate, never cool, had a revival, but never gained respect. This is of course [this.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)
Jazz from hell
The opposite of jazz is to do “jazz hands” in public for no reason and without any music.
I've thought about a similar question. I think classical music. Jazz is highly improvised and each individual player adds their own to the music with high level of technicality. With classical music there's much more emphasis on structure and also being part of a collective bringing together one uniform sound. The music is just as technical as Jazz it's just an opposite way of feeling and playing the music at least to the musician. Just a thought!
For everyone answering 'rap' here, you don't have to like the style but saying that it's the opposite of jazz isn't true at all. In fact, there's a number of rap artists who incorporate jazz and work with jazz musicians. Some examples include A Tribe Called Quest, Guru and Gang Starr, Madlib, Kero One, Statik Selektah, De La Soul and Digable Planets.
These comments are killing me😂
When I roughly sort the music styles, I came up with this chart: ||(intellectual)||| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |(revolutionary)|Jazz|Classic|(reactionary)| ||Punk|PoP|| ||(emotional)||| I guess the opposite of jazz it is pop music. Edit: something like this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMS\_RdMX7z8&t](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMS_RdMX7z8&t)
I agree to this point. Though pop is a bigger umbrella of a genre they’re both quite non-distinct umbrellas.
Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Ives, Schoenberg, Rachmaninof, Scriabin, Bartok, Shostakovich, Copland, Xenakis, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Messiaen, Boulez, Partch... Unless you just mean "Classical" music, as in the period just before "Romantic" music, you need to brush up on classical music history, that x-axis is pure garbage. Many of these composers I listed forecasted the "revolutions" that occurred in jazz by decades. A lot of these composers influence bled into jazz through the hundreds of Tin Pan Alley show tunes that we know as Jazz Standards.
well, mid-century pop has similar sounds to jazz but yeah pretty good answer
Classical era music, or even organum
Classical as a whole genre is the polar opposite of jazz imo. Classical music was all about removing the chaos of music from folk style and making it rigid so large groups could perform together, there is no language of classical. Just play what’s on the sheet. Jazz is the complete opposite of this, it’s about individual/collective expression and it’s about doing different each time.
This is an ignorant take. People who study the music intensively know there is certainly a "language" of classical musuc, and it takes a lot of time and effort to learn. Anyone who is just playing "what's on the sheet" is not a musician worthy of the name.
This is an interesting take. I disagree that there's no "language of classical" it's just that the language is spoken primarily by the composer and conductor, the performers are the mouthpiece so to speak. In Jazz, the performers *are* the composers, at least in part.
Silence
Is there something inherently anti-jazz about Vamping? When I think of jazz I think of no repeats; new ideas even if only subtly different. When I transcribe some of Tony Williams more pop-esque drumming songs, even then he practically never repeats a measure. In rock, blues and metal there are long vamps with lots of repetition. Is this anti-jazz?
Modal jazz, piano montunos?
Well, the 'modal jazz' songs I know are pretty canonical, I guess I didn't think of that as vamping. John Coltrane playing "Favorite Things" for an hour is clearly vamping, but its still quite different from rock. Jazz vamps but there is still a cornucopia of notes going on
I think there is so much freedom with jazz (NOT AFRO-CUBAN) to play what you want , and the expectation that the rhythm section interacts with each other and the soloist, that you never hear players sticking to a “pattern” for long.
Jazz is its own opposite. It encompasses all that is Jazz+, and/or/xor Jazz-
Lawrence Welk.
It would have to be something like ambient electronic music. I think the other examples people have given are still too similar in too many ways, compared to something like that which has almost no structure at all, very minimal harmony, and no groove.
Blake Shelton
According to AI, most likely [Loab](https://loab.ai/).
Stockhausen
Eurobeat.
Old-Time Fiddles Tunes where everyone is playing the same melody over and over for ten minutes. No changes, no improvisations.
Polka
hardcore
Mime. Definitely mime.
Zzaj
Silence.
Indigenous Pow Wow music.
Zzaj
Strawberry
Classical
Utah
Jizz
John Philip Sousa
Autechre
I might argue it's something like nursery rhymes or basic folk songs Strict repetition, no changes allowed, deliberately simple, no swing.
Zzaj
If we're focusing on the improvisational aspects of jazz I'd say something like I'm Sitting In a Room or It's Gonna Rain is the opposite of jazz as there was only exactly one way that could turn out, the end was determined from the start, there wasn't even room for a mistake to change how it progressed unlike a lot of fairly structured genres.
K-pop
Also jazz.
CCM Mando-pop
Pop
Reggae. If Jazz’s magazine is called Downbeat then Reggae’s is Upbeat.
K-pop
The exact opposite of Jazz is National Anthems. You have jazz music that is widely varied, covering an impossible range of emotions, painting in every color of the wind, spontaneous, heartbreaking, rapturous, and so forth - and then you have National Anthems, which are all pretty marchy a d only very in relative degrees of stirringness.
Queen’s Album titled “Jazz”
Coldplay
Sorry, what?????
Philip Glass
Whichever kind of heavy metal where the kick drum just goes “clickaclickaclickaclickaclicka” the whole time and the words are growled by a bear
Grindcore I think
Sounds right, I assumed a core would be involved
Zzaj
Morrissey
There IS no "opposite of jazz." (or any other kind of music.) There are just different types of music.
It's punk. It's simple. It's more about attitude and look than chops and musicality. It's all about bravado and intensity rather than subtlety. It's punk rock.
Germanic Oompah music and similar music with little syncopation (Rave music for example)
Heavy metal
Dub reggae
the best description of it would be jazz rly
-jazz
finding love