Do you want to stand out in the vast ocean of artists by creating a brand new genre? Good idea! I made this article and a free genre generator tool to help you.

As much as it pains me to say this, ChatGPT is just as good... probably better...  for coming up with new genres. So check that out too!

But if you want to get into the nitty gritty? By the end of this article, you will know how to create a new genre by hand.

Want pros to help you create your new genre? Get started here.

What Makes A Genre?

The Confusion

There’s often confusion about what makes a genre. This is because the word “genre” is often used to explain the overall sound AND/OR the theme of a group of similar music.

When I say the overall sound, I mean the types of instruments, style of playing, and the effects that are applied to all the layers.

When I say the theme, I mean the lyrical content or the overall message. For example, labeling a song as “gospel” doesn't really have to do with the sound of the song. It has to do with praising God. This is why we have Country Gospel and Gospel Bluegrass.

In my opinion, there should be two different labels for categorizing songs. One label we can apply for the sound of the songs in a category. And one label for the theme.

But for now, “genre” can mean either of these things.

That being said, with my music genre generator, I consider a genre in terms of the overall sound. Meaning how the song is performed and produced… not the theme or lyrical content.

The “Genre-less” State of Music

Most people listen to MANY genres of music at this point. Technology has fundamentally changed how the music industry and music consumption works.

The result? More artists are blending genres together to account for people’s diverse tastes. The boundaries between genres is falling away.

It's not uncommon for pop elements to show up in “hip-hop”. And It's not uncommon for hip-hop elements to show up in “pop”.

For example, Olivia Rodrigo’s song “Good 4 U” features 808 bass parts, an acoustic drum kit, and fuzzy electric guitars. Plus vocals that are mixed like punk OR pop depending on the section of the song. Quite a blend! And it works… that song has been #1 on the charts for a bit now.

Anyway, it's never been a better time to get a little experimental. It's never been easier to reach listeners who might enjoy whatever crazy stuff you end up making.

How to Make A New Genre

How do you go about generating a new genre? The easy way is to use the tool I made for that.

The Framework

My basic idea is that you can easily create new genres by combining elements of existing ones.

And since many elements of music are constant between genres, we can focus on those as a starting point.

1. Vocals - the singer
2. Lead instrument - often guitar or lead synth. Usually in the “riff” or “drop”
3. Melody Layer - often added “under” vocal or lead part. Any melodic instrument
4. Drums - kick, snare, hi-hats, toms, cymbals
5. Percussion Layer - shakers, bongos, randomly sampled crap
6. Pads - Drawn out with little high-end. Think strings or soft synths
7. Bass - usually bass guitar, stand up bass, synth bass

Get ready for post-psychedelic-ska-core-bluegrass!

This list of 7 elements (instrument types) is not true across all genres, obviously. But I think this is a really good list of elements we can use to build our new genre idea.

To add an extra level of weirdness, let’s say each instrument type gets assigned a tone genre and playstyle genre.

So you could get Drums that are played in the style of Classic Reggae with a Dubstep tonality.

Or Dubstep playstyle with a Bebop Jazz tone.

You can do this process for all the different instrument layers and you will end up with a unique new genre.

Putting Pen to Paper

You don’t even need a genre tool like mine to do this… just go thru and write this down, replacing “x” with a genre that interests you.

• Vocals performed in the style of x with the tone of x
• Lead instrument performed in the style of x with the tone of x
• Melody Layer performed in the style of x with the tone of x
• Drums performed in the style of x with the tone of x
• Percussion Layer performed in the style of x with the tone of x
• Pads performed in the style of x with the tone of x
• Bass performed in the style of x with the tone of x

If you don’t feel like writing it down, or thinking of genres for that matter, read on...

 

How My Music Genre Generator Works

I’m going to help you generate a new genre. All in the click of a button!

I scraped a list of about 1000 genres. Jut in case you’re wondering where I got them, Wikipedia is where.

When you click the “New Idea” button, the tool generates 14 random numbers between 1 and 1000.

 

Why do we need 14 numbers?

There are 7 instrument layers. These are the layers I felt are most typical across music genres. And because we need a play style and a tone for each layer, we need to generate 14 random genres.

The output looks like this, where x is one of our 1000 random genres.

• Vocals performed in the style of x with the tone of x
• Lead instrument performed in the style of x with the tone of x
• Melody Layer performed in the style of x with the tone of x
• Drums performed in the style of x with the tone of x
• Percussion Layer performed in the style of x with the tone of x
• Pads performed in the style of x with the tone of x
• Bass performed in the style of x with the tone of x

HINT: NOT SURE WHAT ONE OF THE GENRES IS? YOU CAN USE GOOGLE FOR AN ANSWER. I RECOMMEND GOOGLING “< INSERT GENRE NAME> PLAYLIST” THAT WAY YOU CAN LISTEN TO STUFF.

This tool gives you a starting point, but one thing to keep in mind is that instrumentation can and often does change throughout a song. In many cases, for example, producers will switch between bass guitar and 808 basses for certain sections.

Another thing to watch out for… What if it recommends drums for a genre that doesn’t feature drums? Don’t have drums, I guess.

The generator is fairly simple in design, but this is a usable random genre generator for music. And I think using the 7 different instrument layers keeps it from being too random.

Pick and Choose Ideas for Your Genre

Obviously, going thru 14 total genres to make a new genre would be a fair bit of work.

This is why you can, and probably should, disregard certain parts of the genre output!

Honestly, even using the recommendation from just one layer could give you cool results. Example: Drums with dubstep play style and a bebop jazz tone.

So yeah, feel free to pick and choose.

And if all of the random results suck? Just click the “New Idea” button again.

Getting More Help

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Click here to start a song. We work in any genre. Even ones that don't exist yet! It's not free, but it's affordable and it's music that's truly yours.