Music Styles and Genres

Free Soundtrack Music Category Descriptions: The Free Soundtrack Music archive is intended as a stock music library where video producers can locate pre-recorded musical compositions or sound clips to fit the mood and atmosphere of a given film scene, advertisement, computer game, promotional video, business presentation, instructional video, or home movie. In addition, F.S.M. tracks can be used as background music for websites, live presentations, live theatre or in any place of business or live event without having to obtain legal clearance or pay royalties. The F.S.M. web site is the perfect film student resource or production music source for any independent media producer with limited financial resources. The F.S.M. stock music library is organized into four soundtrack categories:
Suspense: Mystery and intrigue. Sci-Fi, horror and the supernatural. The "Suspense" soundtrack category is intended as the repository for background music which can help nudge viewers to the edge of their seat. Often grating and unsettling, the sound clips and compositions featured here would tend to blend well with dark and edgy dramatic productions.
Themes: The "Themes" category contains music recordings with strong melodic and compositional attributes. More dramatic than textural, theme music is strongly suggestive and tells a story all on it's own. To be used effectively, theme music should be matched closely to the dramatic intent of a given scene or production.
Action: Mood music to stimulate and inspire feelings of movement, urgency and excitement. Music accompaniment for quick moving scenery, chases, or any kind of physical or visual activity. Primarily upbeat and uplifting, a song from the action soundtrack category would make good background music for business presentations, advertisements or instructional videos.
Atmospheres: The "Atmospheres" category contains audio recordings which tend to be more subtle and textural than the music found in other soundtrack categories. The emphasis is on creating an ambient context: While some of the compositions are melodic, others could be seen as audio wallpaper to add minimal sonic coloration to specific film or video scenes. Environments: This keyword can be used to search for sound recordings of physical locations or audio events (so far examples include "Fireworks Explosions", "Factory Machine Noises", "City Street Sounds" and "Campfile By The Lake"). These ambient soundscapes can be used in the process of video production to create sonic environments or realistic situational soundbeds on which to overdub voice-overs or actor's dialogs.
Keyword Descriptions: The F.S.M. stock music library also provides a list of keywords organized into 3 categories: Emotions, Music Genres and Usage:
Emotions - Music compositions which evoke particular types of emotions: anticipation - dramatic build-up or feeling of expectation upbeat - positive, reassuring, "good vibes" dreamy - surreal or dreamlike, could be pleasant or unsettling, but contains an element of fogginess or unreality motion - movement, running, walking driving or any kind of motion: might be of particular use to video game programmers as background or theme music (in a medium which is primarily action - oriented) chaos - jarring, confusing, unsettling, fragmented happiness - cheerful, inspiring, positive aggression - hard-edged, menacing, unsettling excitement - energizing, enthralling tension - adrenalin, anxiety, manic fascination - mysterious, sparks the imagination mellow - low key, slow, groovy sentimental - fond memories romantic - love, relationships, wedding videos melancholy - sad or meditative whimsical - cartoonish, slapstick, silly, kids shows fear - background music for horror or stark, disturbing imagery intrigue - Spy movies, documentaries, conundrums and diabolical plots alienation - displacement, anxiety, confusion	Music Genres - The director may be looking for a piece with a "dancefloor" sound. Even some genre blending music styles like "neoclassical" are available in the F.S.M music library. Other featured musical genres include: rock - anything from three chord thrash metal to dinasour stadium rock: the main ingrediant being electric guitar orchestral jazzy - old school hipsters sax, bass and cool piano etc. techno - synthetic, sequenced, robotic funky - "My Spine is The Bassline" lounge - martini-sipping, smooth and luxurious hip-hop - street level beats and boom boxes ambient - minimal, hypnotic , repetitive and often synthetic exotic - ethnic, asian, world music etc. industrial - harsh, clanging, overdriven, grating and mechanized pop - wide appeal, slick, the opposite of introspective electronica - gizmos and whirligigs, decks and boards, mashups and mixups... in a word: synthetic.
Usage - Usage keywords will be usefull for locating a piece of music for a specific type of production. Currentlt, the Usage category of soundtrack music provides four options: the "business" keyword can be used to find background music suitable for product promotion advertisements, corporate training videos or business presentations. "Business" production music is intended to be upbeat, inspirational and generally more light-hearted than music for film scores or other more dramatic productions. the "cinematic" keyword provides track listings of a type more appropriate for film music. These tracks might be inspirational, introspective or visually suggestive as they are intended to support the dramatic conent of the productions they might be used in. "relaxing" music is a category of compositions with a quiet and calming effect and generally less demanding of attention than other categories may be. "soundscape" is meant to designate soundtracks which may or may not be musical: in which elements of composition may be "found sounds", readymade noises or synthetic warps and swoops - anything which contributes more to a general tone or auraul landscape than plot-driven or otherwise formally structured song composition. The "random" keyword is provided to generate a completely random listing of tracks from anywhere within the freesoundtrackmusic.com library. 10 random tracks are generated on each search request. New for 2012: Additional dramatic categories will help video editors to more accurately identify music backgrounds and themes which fit more directly into the dramatic character of their productions. The inital "cowboy" and "sci-fi" cinematic genres began in late 2011 will be joined by "detective" and "cartoon". Of course all of the new dramatic music categories will retain the unique and distinctive character of FSM's royalty free music library: when we speak of "cowboy" - you will likely hear something with a Spaghetti Western Music feel and the interpretation of a "detective" movie musical ambience might tend towards a psychedelic treatment inspired by a film like Werner Herzog's The Bad Lieutenant.