Genrenology - An absurd obsession of musical taxonomy

Genrenology: it means "the study of genres" and is by far one of the most absurdly complex, often frustrating, and keenly important areas of musical classification.

There is a massive problem with music: there is too much. A bland statement as it first appears, the reality is that it's honestly true. There are so many artists, albums, songs, bands, remixes, mixes, collaborations, collections, conjunctions, styles...one would think that finding a song should be easy given the amount of information that exists to identify it. No. It isn't. The ".mp3" file format has been revised twice now to include more and more erroneous information per file. This is a wonderful attempt at at the very least reducing the confusion over music, unfortunately there are well over 30 sound file formats, and at least half a dozen that are very popular, in competition with "mp3". 

I decided that I would start a personal project, which may become part of a larger one, with the goal of creating a singular, universal identification system capable of making sense of the worldwide musical mess.

There is at least 3 orders of magnitude more species of living organisms than there are similar of music. I started with the brilliant organization system of biology, to which the system is known as taxonomy. 

I like this system, it's relatively simple, address all exceptions known thus far, and is universally agreed upon. My problem with it is the use of latin, which is actually a good thing because it makes it a unique system, seperable from others. This is something important to note I venture.

So, I thought about how the taxnomy system works. 

It starts with the principle definition of the largest catagory: Life.

Life is any self-perpetuating chemical reaction. This definition works for everything we define as being alive, so it is a good definition.

Now I wanted to see if I could apply the same principle to the category in question: Music.

Music is "I looked it up first: (from Wikipedia) How to define music has long been the subject of debate; philosophers, musicians, and, more recently, various social and natural scientists have argued about what constitutes music. The definition has varied through history, in different regions, and within societies. Definitions vary as music, like art, is a subjectively perceived phenomenon. Its definition has been tackled by philosophers of art, lexicographers, composers, music critics, musicians, semioticians or semiologists, linguists, sociologists, and neurologists. Music may be defined according to various criteria including organization, pleasantness, intent, social construction, perceptual processes and engagement, universal aspects or family resemblances, and through contrast ornegative definition." ...well shit! Fail.

Ok, so appearantly the confusion in the music classification system starts here, at the definition of music. Great! If no one can agree on how to define music, than it can never be classified.

My frustration provokes thought. I'm a problem solver, this is what I do. Ok, so...what is music

Let me try breaking it down:

1) Music only involves sound. There are no exceptions.

2) Music is designed by man to communicate emotion. This is more than likely going to be debated by many, but both historically and currently, the fact holds true.

Thus, music is the artistic use of sound to communicate emotions.

Unfortunately music is a type of art, and art is technically undefinable because art involves everything, and anything that involves everything is infinate, and something that is infinate is undefinable. Thus, scientifically speaking, music is undefinable because it is a type of art.

Technically, this is true. However, I dissagree that art is not definable, rather, i believe art has a specific definition. That is, art must serve a purpose to be considered art. This eliminates exceptions like the blank canvas scenario: "If I were to frame a blank canvas, could I call it art?" "Only if you explain why you framed a blank canvas, and somehow associate that information with the object itself" 

-- This is a work in progress.