Music Genre Family Tree Project

Large paper or poster board

Markers or colored pencils

Phone for playing music clips and looking up genre history

Start with a big piece of paper. Draw a tree trunk at the bottom with two root systems: "African Musical Traditions" and "European Classical Music." Everything grows from these.

Draw the first major branches growing upward: blues, gospel, folk, classical, jazz.

From blues, draw branches to rock and roll (1950s), R&B, and soul. Add representative artists: Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles.

From rock, branch into punk, heavy metal, alternative, and indie. From each, sub-branches can grow even further.

From soul and funk, draw branches to disco and hip-hop. From hip-hop, branch to trap and electronic. The tree keeps growing.

As you add each genre, pause and listen to a 30-second representative clip. Put a face and a sound to each name.

Color-code by era so the visual tells the story of time passing: older genres near the roots, newer ones at the branch tips.

The key insight is that no genre exists in isolation. Every style of music was influenced by what came before it. When kids see the connections, they understand music history.

Include non-Western traditions: Indian classical, Afrobeat, K-pop, reggaeton. The tree has more branches than any one culture.

Some connections are surprising: country music shares roots with blues. Electronic music borrowed from jazz improvisation. Hip-hop sampled everything.

Let your child add their favorite current artists and trace their genres back through the tree to the roots. "Where does Billie Eilish's music come from?"

This is a living document. Add to it over months as you discover new genres and connections. The tree keeps growing, just like music itself.