Around a decade ago, classically-styled music experienced a resurgence within popular culture. This music would, in the future, become known by its fans as epic music.
A Brief History
Epic music traces its roots from the trailer music and movie scores industry. Originally, most composers produced music for a publishing house, usually as an employee. The composers did not receive royalties or licensing fees from their works as their works were owned by the production company. It would not be until the 2000s would truly independent movie score composers emerge.
Growth
The genre known as epic music exploded into popularity mainly due to a wonderful organism called the Internet. It used to be that people watched and wondered what, where, and who were all the composers that wrote all the music they heard in the movies, on advertisements, or at the Olympics. But with the advent of the Internet in the 2000s, people could begin searching and (usually illegally) listen to epic music. And thus, a community was born. Interestingly enough, piracy was ultimately beneficial for the industry, as listeners became fans who wanted to directly buy their music.
The Flavors Of Epic Music
Orchestral
Most epic music pieces have an orchestral element to it. The orchestra is often the foundation on which the other flavors are built on. It is also possible for a piece to be purely orchestral.
World
This flavor of epic music adds musical elements of certain cultures to the orchestra. This sub-flavors of this include Celtic/Nordic, East Asian, or African. World music is popularly used in adventure music.
Vocal
There are two sub-flavors. The first is purely choral, in which a choir performs alongside the orchestra. This is, by far, the most common sub-flavor, as it is present in many scores. The other sub-flavor is lyrical in nature, usually with a solo vocal, and is usually sung with orchestral or hybrid music.
Hybrid
Hybrid involves adding elements of rock or electronic genres of music in top of the orchestra. I find this to be the defining difference between traditional classical music and epic music. Hybrid rock is used most often in battle music.
Why You Should Listen To Epic Music
One of the problems with lyrical music such as pop, rap, and country is that they are terrible background music in study or reading sessions. It’s not that these music genres are bad themselves, but that it is difficult to take in information from a book or focusing on homework when someone is talking to you. Lyrical music is, in some ways, just glorified talking. In contrast, epic music rarely incorporates lyrics (or at least lyrics you won’t understand), and thus serves as wonderful background music in studying, writing, or reading situations.
Some Artists
• Two Steps From Hell
• Immediate Music
• Audiomachine
• Adrian von Ziegler
• Antti Martikainen
• Eurielle
• Extreme Music
• ReallySlowMotion
• Hans Zimmer
• Peter Crowley
