Using Effective Sub-Genre Tags for Electronic Music

There are many sub-genre categories for the vast and general term Electronic or Electronica music. When tagging I like to categorize the terms as follows:
Genre: Electronic
Sub-Genre: Ambient, Ethereal, New Age, Downtempo/Chill Out, Lounge
Genre: Electronica
Sub-Genre: Techno, House, Deep House, Tech House, Progressive House, Electro House, Dubstep
Trance, Rave
Since the realm of Electronic music is ever changing and new sub-categories tend to pop up, it is helpful to stay informed of these specific styles and knowing some of the traits and influential artists that play major roles within these sub-genres.

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Strategies for Effectively Using Mood Tags for Your Songs

When tagging moods, I like to approach this with a strategy or plan that is similar to the logic of deductive reasoning (more general to more specific). By using general mood tags such as “Happy” or “Sad” and choosing tags that specifically fit under this category can help to effectively describe the intention of a song. Using mood tags in relation to Genre/Sub-genre tags can help the process.

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Finding Effective Genre and Sub-Genre Tags for Hybrid Tracks

One of the most challenging jobs when tagging music is giving the proper genre tags to tracks that are of mixed styles. I have run across mixtures of Orchestral, Pop and Rock, Jazz and Electronica, Folk and New Age and the list goes on. There are many strategies behind categorizing these tracks. The most sensible way, would be to have both a Genre and Sub-Genre category/field, or Genre and 2 Sub-Genre fields. These fields can also be labeled as “categories” and “sub-categories” or “Styles”.

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Industry Usage Keywords: Earthy and Organic

The terms “Earthy” and “Organic” are used to describe music that creates a bright and warm feel and usually found on commercial spots that create an outdoorsy image. Imagine a scene in a golden field or a flowing river with sunshine, sunset or sunrise. The mood is often characterized as happy, carefree, lighthearted, bright, cheerful, feel-good, satisfied, breezy, and sometimes even lazy.

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General Music Keywording Techniques

Music Keywording Techniques
This is a brief guide to help artists create for themselves, a tagging protocol for their music library. After tagging music for Pandora and currently tagging and collecting metadata for licensing companies, I have gained some important and vital techniques for music keywording/tagging.

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