The Challenges of Music Taxonomy

November 9, 2011 / Melody Smith / Comments Off on The Challenges of Music Taxonomy

Classification in music continues to be complicated. Musical taxonomy is challenging as even the most disconnected and isolated genres manage to refer to each other. Look at Wikipedia to the various genres and you will find even more genres and sub-genres, with ironic mash-up names.

This not so normal topic was brought to our attention by PopMatters in their article, “Is Chillwave Necessary? An Interview with Paul Duncan of Warm Ghost.” Classifying artists under a new genre does more than explain the music you hear. When new genres spawn as the result of a distinct sound, that classification serves very much as a tribute to the artist or artist’s creative ability. However, genre classifications can actually reduce and damage artistic achievement depending on the comparisons.

Melody K. Smith

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Melody Smith

Melody K. Smith has provided organizational, social media and digital communication services to a large non-profit for the past twenty years. Prior to that she championed employee engagement and communications in the healthcare field. She holds a Bachelors degree in Marketing. When not wrangling and writing TaxoDiary content for your reading pleasure, Melody writes fiction, rescues dogs and throws legendary dinner parties.