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Genre Samples & Guidelines Experimental, avant-garde, free improvisation, and other related genres are very broad categories of music, yet you can find an abundance of information on the Internet that describes these styles and provides references to many representative artists and audio samples. Before submitting your music as an audition for performing at this music festival, you should review the information below to determine whether your music really fits into one of the appropriate genres. Unfortunately, it is difficult to accurately define these styles of music because of the "fuzziness" of their boundaries, but it is generally not difficult to determine whether a band or performance does not fit into one of the genres. This is one of those interesting situations where you can't ascertain what something is, but can determine what it is not, in which case you end up compiling enough "is nots" to roughly define the musical work. For instance, the group Phish and other similar jam bands, though they incorporate interesting and amazingly mind-blowing sections of free group improvisation into their pre-composed music, would not be considered experimental, avant-garde, or free improvisational bands in the strict sense of these terms. In other words, incorporating experimental, avant-garde, or free improvisational elements into your music doesn't necessarily mean that you are an experimental, avant-garde, or free improvisational band or artist per se. Even so, this is a slippery and fuzzy area of artistic categorization. Another possible rule of thumb you might use to tell whether your music fits into any of the above mentioned genres is to ask yourself: Is my style of music something that could potentially sell thousands of copies of CDs in record stores and do well in a dance club? If so, then your music probably isn't avant-garde enough to be considered experimental. These styles of music are bascially unpopular by majority public standards! This is about as philosophical as this page will get in defining these genres of music, or at least defining what they are not. You'll just have to judge yourself whether your music fits the bill. For starters, you should read the descriptions of following genres of music at the All Music Guide website. You might also want to read this article on experimental music. The above information will still give you only a broad understanding of the type of music this festival will feature. Hence, to narrow the focus a bit, once you have read the above genre descriptions, you should listen to the samples of music below. If you still have doubts as to whether your music is appropriate for this festival or whether you should submit your work, feel free to contact Krispen Hartung to discuss the topic in greater detail. Artists in Blue also perform at the Boise Experimental Music Festival
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