What music genre is the purest or most untainted?

Classical music.

Especially virtuoso performances.

Classical.

However, it completely depends upon the person. Any music can be passionate and sincere. Do you want unedited music? Music without any added affects or amplifications? Then classical is my #1 suggestion. But “tainted” and “impure” are completely subjective because there’s no absolute definition of what taints something and what makes something “impure”.

Another question: Why are you looking for music that is “pure”?

Interesting question. I wonder what you would consider tainted. Tainted by what? In order to get to a medium in which you can hear it, it is going to go through at least some tainting and commercializing, even if it’s Gregorian chants, ancient traditional Indian devotional music, or African gospel singing. But I would have to guess that folk music and religious music performed in the most traditional manner by authentic practitioners rather than paid performers and concert artists would be some of the purest and most unsullied music you’d hear. It might not satisfy a contemporary musical taste that is tuned to what comes out of recording studios, but I think it would be genuine.

[ Edit ] I am a lifelong lover of classical music, but I wouldn’t nominate it for this question. I don’t see how any commercial performance can be “pure.” But maybe what we need is some definitions.

For pure, sincere and passionate music you’d probably have to go with folk music. Untouched by commercialism and simply with the meaning of generations and tradition.

Classical music is also a very good choice.

Australian indigenous music. No, wait, Hindu Classical Music. No, wait, Jazz. Um, the Blues? No, bluegrass! Uh, nope, the Pipes of Pan. I know! Bouzouki! Uh, no, well, maybe…

It’s Jazz. While there are many styles of jazz, the Golden Age of Jazz was in the fifties and sixties. if you don’t like jazz, well then, you have no taste. =)

End of discussion.

Chant, aka plainsong. Two pitches max. Just voices. As long as you don’t listen to any mp3s by Enigma, you’re golden.

Baby music or foreign music which you don’t understand what their saying but sounds good.

Gregorian Chant. Typing that into pandora gets you a pretty good gregorian-chant radio station.

@aphilotus thanks for that, now I have a new radio station at pandora. }:^)

How about Bluegrass, especially the stuff that is only played locally by bands that play for the pure joy and have no albums to promote. Wait, that might be an oxymoron.

Try acoustic solo pieces, like this.

Mind you, I’d like to know what you idea of “tainted” is, could help us a bit.

To be untainted, the musician couldn’t be making a living off of their music, meaning it would have to be amateur/not very good. Well, not necessarily. But it wouldn’t be professional.

I’m assuming that tainted music would be motivated by money or ambition . . . ? There’s a lot of good music that would be considered tainted, then.

bluegrass!!!!!!!!!!!! man do i love bluegrass.

Indigenous ritual chants.

@evelyns_pet_zebra Many performers of bluegrass and the related “old timey” music are “reaching back” to the roots, and in most cases, are playing for the pure joy of playing. However, the genre itself is derivative, from Irish and Scottish folk songs which came along with early settlers of the Southeastern US, added to the blues, which influence almost every genre of music played in the States.

I disagree with classical music being untainted. The tempered tuning used by classical instruments is not a pure tuning, but is an “almost” tuning. In a “natural” tuning, a B played in the key of G, for example, would not be in tune with a B played, say, in the key of E. Tempered tuning assigns a standard frequency to all notes that is close enough that a B is a B, whether it is in the key of G or the key of E, or even the key of C.

you should look into The Avett Brothers, if you don’t know of them. They’re folksy with a bit of bluegrass. I’m listening to them now and I’ve been on a toal kick lately. I can’t get enough of them…every song sounds so good and genuine and like you can tell they just absolutely love what they’re doing and singing about. Passionate. I dunno, you can be the judge.

I second the notion that bluegrass is very “pure.”

The majority of people I know cringe when they hear bluegrass and consider it hokey hillbilly music but I really enjoy it.

There’s just something so pure and beautiful about it; it seems like bluegrass performers try real hard to stick to the traditional sound and aren’t too influenced by whatever popular whim the mainstream music industry happens to be promoting.

Tainted by Tempered Tuning! Sounds like a reality show that should be on Bravo at 10! 9 Central!

First we have to agree on how we define “pure” and “untainted” as they relate to music.
People will have varying opinions on what sort of music they feel qualifies as pure and/or untainted. Those are value judgments that are not quantifiable by any objective standard.

Blues.

Bluegrass
Field Hollers
Gregorian Chants
Andean quena music
Traditional Native American chants
Flamenco
The music of Django Reinhardt
Rockabilly

And probably some other stuff that I can’t think of right now.

I like taint. I pay extra for it.

Inuit throat singing. Untainted, because I can imagine the cavemen doing it.

@efritz Well, if you want music that is untainted by greed and is done for the pure joy of it, there is plenty of that over here Very few people on that site make any $$$ off what they do, and while it is all over the map genre wise, it passes the ‘tainted by greed’ test. As for not very good, that is a personal judgement. Some of the artists at the site are fucking awesome in my opinion!

@deni wow, another bluegrass fan. I was introduced to it as a very young boy (at a company picnic for my Dad’s work) and I have loved it ever since. Thanks for the heads up on The Avett Brothers, I’ll check em out.

@markyy: Inuit or Tuvan? I know about Tuvan throat singing (tibetans do it too), I didn’t know about Inuits doing it.

@evelyns_pet_zebra ah, its wonderful! i love upbeat music, and bluegrass is just so real to me. let me know what you think about the Avett Brothers! I hope you like them.

Classical music, in my opinion, is too adulterated by superstar soloists, conductors, and the “high culture” aspect of it really puts it out of reach for a lot of people.

Jazz can be the same, if less so. I think there are one or two artists out there who are really just in it for money.

But to answer your question, I feel like a lot of new underground electronic, indie and hip hop (Aesop Rock, Flying Lotus, Why?, Hop Along etc. (and that’s a big etc.)) is pretty pure. Because, if you think about it, what do they really have to gain from their success? There is little fiscal attachment to the music; on the contrary, many new bands go on to split up and follow other careers. They tour, and write, etc. purely for the joy of music, and that seems best to me.

just to be clear, I am still a strong proponent, listener, and player of classical and jazz, but I feel that today’s classical and jazz scene has been too muddied by amateurs just in it for the money

I had to stop and think about this one for a second, at first I thought that Classical was a good choice, but then @Jeruba‘s comment made me think otherwise. Then it donned on me that the answer is all or none.

What I mean is whether you enjoy classical, blues, country, techno, hip-hop, etc. every genre is going to have artists that are true to their art form as well as artists that “sell out” and play/sing/compose for money and fame.

I guess the question then would be, “Which music genre has the lowest volume of sellouts?”

@drClaw psst, it’s dawned, not donned. }:^)

I am a music lover and have performed many genres, and to be honest, it doesn’t make any difference to me how “tainted” the form is, as long as I enjoy listening or performing it. Part of the enjoyment of any live performance (and many recorded performances, for that matter) is the energy and pure delight of the performer. ‘Tain’t the purity that counts, except for this discussion.

Most of the 50 to 100 different genres that are regularly heard in the US are some mix of two or more older types, with a little blues thrown in for good measure. This mixture of rhytms and tonalitieis what makes music so wonderful and amazing. Even classical (small “C”, as opposed to Classical, specific to the “Classical” era) borrows from different genres. Listen to Ives or Bartok, for a couple examples. Even Beethoven based a lot of his pieces on popular melodies, either from the era or from other traditional sources.

orchestra. nothing more beautiful…

there is nothing bastardized in that, no artificial emotion, and no melodic cop-out. This is one of the only pieces I feel that is nothing but intense, unadulterated passion from start to finish.

@evelyns_pet_zebra Thanks!