Musical Taxonomy/A Cladistic approach...

[The Silent Cellist]

Well, I just want to get this idea out there. I thought I'd dabble in Ethno-musicology at one point. I'm really into Evolutionary Biology, and I made an observation regarding the taxonomy of music, and its flaws. I think i've come up with a better system. In the past, taxonomy employed a system called Linnaen taxonomy. A brief description from wikipedia:

"Linnaean taxonomy is a method of classifying living things, originally devised by (and named for) Carl Linnaeus, although it has changed considerably since his time. The greatest innovation of Linnaeus, and still the most important aspect of this system, is the general use of binomial nomenclature, the combination of a genus name and a single specific epithet to uniquely identify each species of organism. For example, the human species is uniquely identified by the binomial Homo sapiens. No other species of organism can have this binomial. Prior to Linnaean taxonomy, animals were classified according to their mode of movement.

All species are classified in a ranked hierarchy, originally starting with kingdoms although domains have since been added as a rank above the kingdoms. Kingdoms are divided into phyla (singular: phylum) — for animals; the term division, used for plants and fungi, is equivalent to the rank of phylum (and the current International Code of Botanical Nomenclature allows the use of either term). Phyla (or divisions) are divided into classes, and they, in turn, into orders, families, genera (singular: genus), and species (singular: species)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linnaean_taxonomy

Now certain parts of this system are still used today, although I imagine it is more out of simplicities sake. The thing is, that were talking about an 18th century theory hear, that is historically inaccurate. A lot of revisions have been made to the original idea, but I believe where it comes from makes a big difference. Whats interesting though, is that the taxonomy of music, and maybe even art in general, utilizes this system. Look at the way Jazz is. It totally mimics that system:

Genre-Jazz
-sub-genre-Bebop

So on and so forth. The funny thing is, is that there isn't actually a type of music called "Jazz." You got this obscure title, and then a bunch of sub-genres reaching out from it. But really theres no Jazz. Its a series of sub-genres that make up Jazz. So I propose the Phylo-code as an alternative. The phylocode is this:

"Phylogenetic nomenclature (PN) is an alternative to rank-based nomenclature. Its two defining features are the use of phylogenetic definitions of biological taxon names, and the lack of obligatory ranks. It is currently not regulated, but the PhyloCode (International Code of Phylogenetic Nomenclature) is intended to regulate it once implemented.

Note that monophyly of taxa is considered desirable by most scientists accepting evolution as the prime force driving biological diversity;; The "-phyly" refers back to the 19th-century concept of "branches" of an evolutionary tree - a phylogeny - shift from creationist to evolutionary theories. Paraphyletic taxa are generally tolerated and occsionally endorsed by some under Linnean nomenclature, while they are not possible under PN."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogenetic_nomenclature

Basically it looks like this:

So in a nut shell, instead of relating music by some vague morphological similarity, you relate music types by there evolutionary ancestors. Something to affect of:

Gospel:...........
..........Ragtime
Bluegrass:........ .
...........Blues

I don't know if that would be entirely accurate as to what actually influenced certain styles or not, but you get the idea. So does it really matter? I don't know. There's a huge debate in the science fields over it, so there must be something to it. And if music genre's really do reflect the Linnean system of nomenclature, then it isn't completely rediculous to suggest that a system similar to the phylocode could be implemented in other systems of classifications as well. Only time will tell. I would say, that I believe you could solve things with a system like cladistics. The wonderful thing about cladograms, is that there completley customizable, unlike the current system. In the current system, you always have to struggle to fit something in, creating this huge labeling problem. You almost have to change the system just to allow anything new to come. It prohibits change. Its extremely conservative. So when you get some sort of new type of music that people can't describe, people intuitively struggle to try and get it to fit within the system that they've known for there whole life. So then we end up with weird terms that don't even make since like "punk rock jazz metal." Maybe at that point its just something new? But in the Linnean system of nomenclature, it is very difficult to have something new, because then the system has to change. Its just retarded in my opinion. So I suggest this new system. I'm not really explaining it that well, but hopefully it made since to you. I say let History decided the outcome of musical styles.

[The Silent Cellist]

Ok the part with the gospel ragtime thing, doesn't make any since. I couldn't get it to work. Basicall it was supposed to be gospel and bluegrass branching off into ragtime, then ragtime to blues. I have to stress that that isn't suppoessed to be accurate, it was a random guess, I was just making a chart. It could have been anything. The technicality doesn't matter.