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

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

3. 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?

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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

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