| Style | Description |
|---|
| Raga rock | Raga rock is a generic term used to describe rock and roll records with heavy South Asian influence, either in construction, timbre or use of instrumentation, such as sitar and tabla. |
| Ragas | Rāga (in Sanskrit "Raga" is literally "colour" or "mood") and (rāgam Carnatic music) refers to melodic modes used in Indian classical music. In Indian music, a series of five or more musical notes upon which a melody is founded. In the Indian musical tradition, ragas are held in different times of the day. Indian classical music is always set in raga. Non-classical music such as popular Indian film songs sometimes use ragas in their compositions. |
| Raggamuffin | Raggamuffin music, usually abbreviated as ragga is a sub-genre of dancehall music or reggae, in which the instrumentation primarily consists of electronic music; sampling often serves a prominent role in raggamuffin music as well. |
| Ragga-zouk | Ragga-zouk is a fusion of reggae, dub music and zouk. |
| Ragtime | Ragtime (alternately spelled Rag-time) is an American musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1899 and 1918. It has had several periods of revival since then and is still being composed today. Ragtime was the first truly American musical genre, predating jazz. |
| Rai | Raï is a form of folk music, originated in Oran, Algeria from Bedouin shepherds, mixed with Spanish, French, African and Arabic musical forms, which dates back to the 1930s and has been primarily evolved by women in the culture. The word raï is Arabic for “opinion.” |
| Ramkbach | Ramkbach or Ram Kbach is a genre of Cambodian pop music and a popular Khmer dance style. Ram Kbach has a slower emotional melody similar to Thai music, whereas the Jamrieng samai music category of ramvong has a faster tune. |
| Ranchera | The ranchera is a genre of the traditional music of Mexico. Although closely associated with the mariachi groups which evolved in Jalisco in the post-revolutionary period, rancheras are also played today by norteño (or Conjunto) or banda (or Duranguense) groups. |
| Rap dogba | Rap dogba is a gangsta rap-influenced Hip hop style which first gained popularity in Cote D'Ivoire in the late 1990s, pioneered by the rapper Angelo Dogba, from which the style takes its name. |
| Rapcore | See Rap rock |
| Rapping | Rapping (also known as emceeing, MCing, spitting, or just rhyming) is the rhythmic spoken delivery of rhymes and wordplay, one of the elements of hip hop music and culture. |
| Rapso | Rapso is a form of Trinidadian music that grew out of the social unrest of the 1970s. It has been described as "de power of de word in the riddum of de word". Though often described as a fusion of native soca with American hip hop, rapso is uniquely Trinidadian. |
| Rara | Originating in Haïti, rara is a form of festival music used for street processions, typically during Easter Week. The music centers on a set of cylindrical bamboo trumpets called vaksen (which may also be made of metal pipes), but also features drums, maracas, güiros (a percussion instrument), and metal bells, as well as sometimes also cylindrical metal trumpets which are made from recycled metal, often coffee cans. |
| Rave | Rave music consists of forms of electronic dance music that are associated with the rave scene. Most often, the term is used to describe music that depends heavily on samples, loops and synthesizers, and is high in energy. |
| Rebetiko | Rebetiko, plural rebetika, (Greek ρεμπέτικο and ρεμπέτικα respectively) is the name for a type of urban Greek music. |
| Reel | In Scottish country dancing, reel music is transcribed in 4/4 or 2/4 time signature. All reels have the same structure, consisting largely of quaver movement with an accent on the first and third beats of the bar. A reel is distinguished from a hornpipe by consisting primarily of even beats. |
| Reggae | Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. |
| Reggaeton | Reggaeton (also spelled Reggaetón, and known as Reguetón and Reggaetón in Spanish) is a form of urban music which became popular with Latin American (or Latino) youth during the early 1990s and spread over the course of 10 years to North American, European, Asian, and Australian audiences. |
| Rekilaulu | Finnish rhyming sleigh songs |
| Renaissance music | Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. Defining the beginning of the era is difficult, given the lack of abrupt shifts in musical thinking during the 15th century. The process by which music acquired "Renaissance" characteristics was a gradual one, and musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s. In addition, the Italian humanist movement, rediscovering and reinterpreting the aesthetics of ancient Greece and Rome, influenced the development of musical style during the period. |
| Rhyming spiritual | The rhyming spiritual is a religious genre of music found in the Bahamas, and also the songs, usually spirituals, and vocal-style within that genre. |
| Rhythm and blues | Rhythm and blues (also known as R&B or RnB) is a popular music genre combining jazz, gospel, and blues influences, first performed by African American artists. |
| Ricercar | A ricercar (or ricercare, recercar; the terms are interchangeable) is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term means to search out, and many ricercars serve a preludial function to "search out" the key or mode of a following piece. |
| Rímur | Icelandic heroic epic songs |
| Ripsaw | Ripsaw is a musical genre which originated in the Turks & Caicos Islands, specifically in the Middle and North Caicos. A very closely related variant, rake-and-scrape, is played in the Bahamas. Its most distinctive characteristic is the use of the common handsaw as the primary instrument, along with various kinds of drums, box guitar, concertina, triangle and accordion. |
| Rock | Rock music is a form of popular music with a prominent vocal melody accompanied by guitar, drums, and bass. Many styles of rock music also use keyboard instruments such as organ, piano, mellotron, and synthesizers. Other instruments sometimes utilized in rock include harmonica, violin, flute, banjo, melodica, and timpani. Also, less common stringed instruments such as mandolin and sitar are used. Rock music usually has a strong back beat, and often revolves around the guitar, either solid electric, hollow electric, or acoustic. |
| Rock opera | Rock operas, concept albums, song cycles and oratorios all differ from a conventional rock album, which usually includes songs that are unrelated to each other in terms of storyline. The rock opera style sometimes overlaps with concept albums, song cycles and oratorios. |
| Rock and roll | Rock and roll is a genre of music that evolved in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to the rest of the world. |
| Rockabilly | Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, and emerged in the early-1950's. The term "rockabilly" is a portmanteau of "rock," from rock and roll, and "hillbilly", the latter a reference to the country music (often called "hillbilly music" in the 1940s and '50s) that contributed strongly to the style's development. Other important influences on rockabilly include Western Swing, blues music, boogie woogie, and Jump blues. Although there are notable exceptions, its origins lie primarily in the Southern USA. |
| Rocksteady | Rocksteady is a music genre that was most popular in Jamaica, starting around 1966, and its reggae successor was established around 1968. |
| Romantic music | Romantic music is used in common parlance loosely to indicate any kind of music, of any age or provenance whatever, supposed by a user of the phrase particularly to express, or tending to encourage, tender emotions of intimate personal attraction, attachment, or "love." |
| Rondeaux | The rondeau (French; plural form rondeaux) was a Medieval and early Renaissance musical form, based on a popular contemporary poetic form. |
| Ronggeng | a folk music from Malacca, Malaysia |
| Roots reggae | Roots reggae is a subgenre of reggae that concerns itself with the life of the ghetto sufferer. Lyrical themes include poverty, social issues, resistance to government oppression, repatriation, and Rastafari. |
| Roots rock | Roots Rock is a term used to describe "a style of rock music that draws material from various American musical traditions including country, blues, and folk." |
| Ruem trosh | Cambodian traditional music |
| Rumba gitana | French Gypsy music |
| Runolaulu | Finnish folk songs |
| Runo-song | Estonian folk music |
