Didnt know what to title this one.  Basically, I was wanting to know if anyone out there could maybe do an overview of the beats and characteristics of the different genres?  For example, Reggaeton has a very specific timing and beat layout (see Creating A Reggaeton beat. www.warbeats.com). So does hip hop, breakbeat, techno, etc...  If anyone knows the basic formula for some of these styles it would very useful to alot of us, I would bet.

Ok, I think i can help here, as I have studied this at school. It's not as complete set this is how it's done, more like, this is the general outline which you can change at will.

The tempo has an effect on this also.

Starting off with the common 4/4 time.
Steady Rock is a steady 1 3, 1 3 beat, generally fairly slow.
Upbeat Rock is a heavy 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4 beat, which runs quite fast.
Jazz is 2 4, 2 4 beat, and generally slow, but faster than the blues, which is also the 2 4, 2 4 beat.

In 3/4 beat, this  is more for classical music;
Waltzes and other traditional dances are in 3/4, and have a heavy 1st beat, giving it an om-pah-pah sound, which goes effectively with a vamping bass (low-high high, with the chords), but the vamping bass is not restricted to 3/4, as long as it has that low/high contrast. Also, the 3/4 meter isn't restricted to classical music, but isn't used that often in modern music.

Next; 6/8, which is quite different to 3/4;
This is also used largely for classical music/for weddings etc. but works quite well into modern music.
It has a swaying motion of 1 2 3, 4 5 6, but the 1 and 4 are slightly accented. For this swaying motion, it is used in jazz, blues and rock music (eg. house of the rising sun), as it can replace a dotted rhythm to achieve the swaying effect without complicating the rhythm. For this fact, the song is generally quite slow.

Then, 9/8, quite uncommon, although it is used in Waltzes (much like 3/4 with crotchet triplets). Pretty much a time for classical music, doesn't really feature much in modern music.

Also, for a challenge, 7/8, as in a song by Radiohead, I haven't heard this song, and am unaware of the title, but it is the only one to my knowledge using that time signature.

Hope that cleared it up a bit, although I can't help you too much with the hip-hop, reggaeton, breakbeat and techno (I think techno is quite flexible in the beats arrangements etc.)

WB

Thanks man, I love to learn any thing new about music and I just have.

I loved the way  PinkFloyd did  the song  Money   in  7/4   good  job WB

Glad to help out. I've been meaning to post something like this on here for a little while now...
But these are only generalizations on the structure, the best way to learn is to try out new ways of writing songs, and mixing and matching time signatures etc.

Cheers!

WB

I play songs in my orchestra with 7/8.....blasted hard to count, too.
Especially when the song switches between 7/8, 6/8, 9/8, and 2/4 constantly.

lol yeah, i'm playing in the band for the musical Chess at the mo (anyone?) and there's a few naaasty time sig changes, i.e. going from bar to bar 5/8 to 7/8 to 3/4 to 5/8 to 9/8 :S erk!

also, some passacaglias and chacconnes (scuse spelling) have sort-of-accented second beats, so it's occasionally more weight on beat 2 than 1 if in 3 time.

any help with standard dissonances for writing a romantic miniature in the style of someone like chopin or schumann? :S

hmmm, I haven't really looked into miniatures too much. If you know how they go, the characteristics of the composers shouldn't be too hard to fit in.

I don't know about their uses of dissonance, but I found this on the guys, dunno if that'll have the right info...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schumann

The wiki on Chopin has a little on his style, Schumann had a list of works etc.

I doubt this will help, but for dissonance in general

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonance_and_dissonance#Dissonance_and_musical_style

I think that if that doesn't help, there's quite a few external links from there that may help. If not, maybe try picking things out by ear (it's what my music teacher would want me to say) general characteristics. I'd say their styles would be quite dissimilar though, coming from opposite times of the romantic era.

Also, if this doesn't help you, it may teach others something, so, this is all I can think of at the moment, nothing too specific though.

Cheers!

WB

(P.S. I had to analyze part of Schumann's Song Cycle, Dichterliebe [poet's love, I think...], although it's not a miniature, it was still knowledge worth knowing)

Thanks twill all be very useful argh i've got to have it finished by saturday, i've only got 4 lines and it took me as many hours!
also doing a piss-take remix of pachelbel's canon, to add to all the ones already out there