Faceted music: towards a model of music classification Deborah Lee ISKO UK conference UCL, 5th July 2011

Outline Theme 1: scores and literature Theme 2: facets Theme 3: “other” musics Theme 4: classification and retrieval Theme 5: classification schemes Concluding remarks

Theme 1: scores and literature Printed materials: scores and literature Practical vs. conceptual Outward appearance = Two separation methods: Same classmarks, with extra symbol Different classmarks 3rd dimension?

Lots of possible facets, but ... Theme 2: facets Faceted classification very significant to music classification Lots of possible facets, but ... … discourse focuses on a few Different facets for scores and literature: Scores: “medium” and “form” Literature: “composer” ... No time to go into faceted classification today, but ... Examples of medium or form: Medium, e.g. Piano solo and form, e.g. A Waltz 4

Theme 3: “other” musics Classification of non-Western, non-classical musics Particular problems with e.g. jazz and popular music Why? Can’t keep up with rapid changes in music/culture Problems with structure of classification schemes Non-sympathetic classification ...  materials badly arranged on shelves ...  readers cannot find them

Theme 4: classification and retrieval Retrieval = ->centre<- of all classification Different readers use collections in different ways “listener” vs. “user” (McColvin and Dove) “musicologist/researcher” vs. “performer” (Line) Different types of readers prefer different facets

Theme 5: classification schemes Three types of classification scheme Large number of special and home-grown schemes in music libraries Why? Music is fundamentally difficult to classify? Existing schemes inadequate for music? Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) = scheme discussed most often Dewey issues? Theme 1, theme 2 etc.

Concluding remarks 1 2 3 4 5 Theme 1: scores and literature Theme 2: facets Theme 3: “other” musics Theme 4: classification and retrieval Theme 5: classification schemes 1 2 3 4 5

Concluding remarks Pattern emerges ... Sets of protagonists, e.g. Theory: “librarian” and “musicologist” (= allies) Users: “performer” and “musicologist” (= opponents) Music classification model: crosses boundaries of musicology, music librarianship and knowledge organization

Contact email: deborah.lee.1@city.ac.uk Questions Contact email: deborah.lee.1@city.ac.uk ?