Nowadays modern music culture is represented by a number of trends – academic music, rock, pop music, jazz, folklore, world music. Although each of these branches can be analyzed independently, but sometimes there are developments that require a definitive generalization term that would allow them to consider these directions more systematically, creating a space for a comparative approach. In order to denote a set of directions that have no common features with academic music, the following terms were used in domestic art studies such as pop music, entertainment, light, mass, third-generation music. According to our conviction, their use was limited to some extent within the scientific discourse of the XX century, but with the changing socio-cultural realities, revision needs their further application. According to our belief, it is expedient to make the following headings, such as: academic, non-academic music and folklore, which have fundamentally different outgoing essential positions, by conducting a typology of musical directions. The formation of music of a non-academic tradition can be noted in the culture of the New time. Non-academic music can be considered as endowed with the following criteria: first of all, it is often created by unprofessional composers. When it comes to the rock work, it is mostly the result of collective creativity of the group’s performers. When it comes to jazz, there is a slightly different situation. The main genre used in nonacademic music is a song (in rock direction and pop direction). However, jazz works are based on a somewhat different principle, because vocal, vocal-instrumental and instrumental compositions are rarely associated with virtue available in the song genre, but often embodied in the form of theme-improvisation on it, which became traditional for jazz. If the musical form of the fixation of a work is more characteristic of academic music (though since the second half of the 20th century, within the framework of “concrete” and “electronic” music, there are many examples of the existence of an audio recording work), while for non-academic music, it is the audio version that is characteristic and much less often – a note that is usually created after the song has gained popularity and has become a wider public. The note text is mostly published by the official representatives of the group or performer, which is more common in the Western world or is distributed by the electronic version of the musical text. It should be noted that a number of researchers continue to perceive non-academic music as being of a lower quality. It is clear that academic music has a much smaller audience than non-academic. However, when trying to substantiate the need to change the priority of academic music, one should not diminish the benefits of non-academic. Existing attempts to determine the totality of trends in contemporary music require rethinking. Due to the development of practice, it is necessary to revise the terminology field. There are such areas as academic and non-academic music, which exist at the level of folklore. Non-academic music is a concept that combines jazz, rock, pop and world music. This direction involves the presence of one or more performers who present their own works or other composers who are not related to the academic field. Characteristic is the existence of works not in the music, but in the audio or video format, often unprofessional level of performance, the refusal of sustainable traditional genres and forms and targeting a wide audience.