| Style | Description |
|---|
| Speedcore | Speedcore is a form of hardcore techno that is typically identified by its high rate of beats per minute and aggressive themes. Tracks can range from 250 BPM all the way up to 1000 BPM. Speedcore tracks often contain elements of its musical brethren - Gabber, Breakcore, Industrial hardcore and Terrorcore. |
| Speed metal | Speed metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music originating in the early 1980s that was the direct musical progenitor of thrash metal. When speed metal first emerged as a genre, it increased the tempos that had been used by early heavy metal bands such as Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple, while retaining the melodic approach used by these bands. Many elements of speed metal are rooted in the music of UK's NWOBHM bands while fusing their stylistic approach with the music of 1970's punk rock. |
| Spirituals | A spiritual (or Negro spiritual) was a song created by American slaves before emancipation, or a subsequent arrangement of such a song. |
| Spouge | Spouge is a style of Barbadian popular music created by Jackie Opel in the 1960s. It is said to be primarily a fusion of Jamaican ska with Trinidadian calypso, but is also influenced by a wide variety of musics from the British Isles and United States, include sea shanties, hymns and spirituals. |
| St. Louis blues | The St. Louis blues is a type of blues music. It is usually more piano-based than other forms of the blues, and is closely related to the jump blues, ragtime and piano blues. Typically, a small number of singers, a pianist and a few other instruments (used primarily for rhythm) make up a band. |
| Steelband | Steelpan (also known as steeldrums or pans, and sometimes collectively with the musicians as a steelband) is a musical instrument and a form of music originating in Trinidad and Tobago. Steelpan musicians are called pannists. |
| Stoner metal | Stoner rock and stoner metal are interchangeable terms describing sub-genres of rock and metal music. Stoner rock is typically slow-to-mid tempo, low-tuned and bass-heavy. The music incorporates elements of psychedelic and blues-rock into a heavier, more repetitive and riff-centred style. Melodic vocals and 'retro' production are also common traits. The genre emerged during the early 1990s and was pioneered by the Californian band Kyuss. |
| Stoner rock | See Stoner metal |
| Strathspeys | A strathspey is a dance tune in 4/4 time (usually set to quavers or eighth notes). It is similar to a hornpipe but slower and more stately, and containing many snaps. A so-called Scotch snap is a short note before a dotted note. |
| Stride | Stride, also known as New York ragtime, is a pioneering jazz piano style. The distinctive technique was originated in Harlem during World War I by Luckey Roberts and James P. Johnson. It was partially influenced by ragtime but as a jazz piano idiom, features improvisation, blue notes, and swing rhythms which its predecessor did not. The practitioners of this style practised a very full jazz piano style that made use of classical devices. |
| String | String is a genre of Thai music roughly equivalent to western pop. Its origins lie in American R&B, surf rock artists like The Ventures and Dick Dale, Exotica, rockabilly and country and western brought over by American and Australian Soldiers serving in Vietnam in the late 1950's and early 60's when on R&R. |
| String quartet | A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string instruments—usually two violins, a viola and cello—or a piece written to be performed by such a group. The string quartet is one of the most prominent chamber ensembles in classical music. |
| Suomirock | Finnish rock (also known as Finnsrock/Finnrock/Finrock) refers to rock music made in Finland. The initial rock and roll boom of the 1950s was preceded by a long tradition of popular culture. Suomirock (or suomirokki) associates to Finnish rock sung in Finnish. |
| Surf music | Surf music is a genre of popular music associated with surf culture, particularly Orange County and other areas of Southern California. It has two basic subgenres: (1) Surf pop music, including both surf ballads and dance music that includes a vocal line. Sometimes called "beach music" as it was popular amongst non-surfers as well. (2) Surf rock, generally instrumental in nature with an electric guitar or saxophone playing the main melody |
| Surf pop | See Surf music |
| Surf rock | Surf rock is a style of music that originated in the USA that mixes elements of surf music and rock music. The most influential styles on surf rock were general rock 'n' roll, pop rock and surf music. While in the 1960s surf music and rock 'n' roll were distinct styles, associated with competing dance styles and representing distinct and competing youth cultures, the development of rock music since then has built upon both styles. |
| Swamp blues | Swamp blues is a form of blues music that is highly evolved and specialized. It arose from the Louisiana blues and is known for its laidback rhythms which dominate a music that is simultaneously funky and often lighthearted — for a blues sub-genre. Influences from Cajun music or black Creole zydeco music can also be heard in the sound, which has long been based out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. |
| Swamp pop | Swamp pop is a musical genre indigenous to the Acadiana region of south Louisiana and an adjoining section of southeast Texas. Created in the 1950s and early 1960s by teenaged Cajuns and black Creoles, it combines New Orleans-style rhythm and blues, country and western, and traditional French Louisiana musical influences. Although a fairly obscure genre, swamp pop maintains a large audience in its south Louisiana and southeast Texas homeland, and it has acquired a small but passionate cult following in the United Kingdom, northern Europe, and Japan. |
| Swingbeat | See New Jack Swing |
| Swing music | Swing music, also known as swing jazz, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930's and had solidified as a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States. Swing is distinguished primarily by a strong rhythm section, usually including double bass and drums, medium to fast tempo, and the distinctive swing time rhythm that is common to many forms of jazz. |
| Sygyt | type of xoomii (Tuvan throat singing), likened to the sound of whistling |
| Symphonic black metal | Symphonic Black Metal is a fusion genre, combining elements of black metal and symphonic metal. Traits from black metal are present, as blast beats, shrieked vocals, and overdriven guitars are still used. |
| Symphonic metal | Symphonic metal is a term used to describe heavy metal music that has symphonic elements; that is, elements that sound similar to a classical symphony. |
| Symphonic poem | A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in one movement in which some extra-musical program provides a narrative or illustrative element. This program may come from a poem, a story or novel, a painting or another source. |
| Symphonic rock | Symphonic rock is a subgenre of rock music, and more specifically, progressive rock. Since early in progressive rock's history, the term has sometimes been used to distinguish the more sophisticated classically influenced progressive rock from the more psychedelic and experimental offerings, though some use the term to refer to any type of progressive rock. |
| Symphony | A symphony is a musical composition, often extended and usually for orchestra. "Symphony" does not imply a specific form. Although many symphonies are tonal works in four movements with the first in sonata form, and this is often described by music theorists as the structure of a "classical" symphony, even some symphonies by the acknowledged classical masters of the form Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven do not conform to this model. |
| Synth pop | Synthpop is a subgenre of New Wave in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It is most closely associated with the era between the late 1970s and early to middle 1980s, although it has continued to exist and develop ever since. Kraftwerk (from Germany) and Yellow Magic Orchestra (from Japan) are often hailed as the pioneers of the style. |
| Synth rock | The term "Synth rock" serves as a musical genre classification, but synth rock music can also be categorized under different genres, usually as a subgenre of New Wave. Synth Rock closely resembles and is related to synthpop. |
| Synthpunk | Synthpunk is a music genre name invented by Damian Ramsey in 1999 as an attempt to retroactively identify a small sub-genre of punk music from 1977-1984 that involved musicians playing synthesizers in place of guitars. The word is an intuitive portmanteau of the words "synthesizer" and "punk" (or "punk rock" or "punk music"). |
