16 Music in the Dewey world

Music, developed through the Dewey sections 780 to 789, is one of the subjects that ought to satisfy any enthusiast, except that it is let down by its euro-centrism, as in many other fields (Religion, for instance).

Let’s look at the wealth of detail and faceting that is provided. Sections 780 and 781 provide for general aspects. For starters, 780 Music can be related to any other subject through the expedient of tagging on any three-digit number (the Section heads, in other words) through the connector -0-, yielding a fulsome range 780.0001 – 780.0999.  One is tempted to extend it beyond the prescribed 3-digit limit by adding further digits from the schedules, and why not standard subdivisions too!

If this were not enough, 780 is itself developed through standard subdivisions  by 780.1-780.9, which have a number of specialized modifications of the standard concepts like 780.26, “Texts, treatises on music scores and recordings” rather than -026 Law in the standard subdivisions (Table 1). In developing 780.9 Historical, geographic, persons treatment, there is provision for historical periods which appear tailored mainly to western music, and only one entry (I am talking from DDC 22) of an actual geographical region, 780.94 Music of Europe. I suppose we should take the diplomatic liberty of assuming that numbers like 780.95, 780.96 and so on are not precluded, or indeed 780.954 for South Asia or 760.951 for East Asia and so on.

The numbers under section 781, that is 781.1 to 781.8 (there appears to be no 781.9), have a number of general topics, termed “General principles and musical forms”, such as 781.1 Basic principles, 781.2 Elements of music, 781.3 Composition, and so on to 781.8 Musical forms. For instance, 781.26 Tonal systems, which provides among other numbers, 781.264 Other modes, including Indian ragas (my area of interest). The interesting thing is that an “Add as instructed” provision is attached to the entire range 781.2 to 781.8, which provides for adding on standard subdivisions as modified under 780.1-780.9, as well as “General principles” from the range 781.1-781.7 using connector 1 (this is a bit circular!). Thus, “adding from” 781.43 Performance techniques, we can form 781.26’1’43 Performance techniques for tonal systems (inexplicably, the “add” instruction is not provided for 781.264 Other modes, including Indian ragas, but I think we should stretch it a bit anyway since it is provided for the numbers 781.263 Medieval church works and 781.265 Macrotonality – dare we think the unthinkable, that Dewey has a mistake?).

Another productive number is 781.6 Traditions of music, which provides for a diversity of cultures and styles: folk, pop (which is called, properly, Popular music), country, and even 781.68 Western art (i.e. classical) music, and 781.69 Nonwestern art music. The numbers, in the range 781.63-781.69 Other traditions of music, have “add” instructions:  standard subdivision as modified under 780.1-780.9, historical periods, etc. connected through a 0, and special subjects (facets) connected through a 1, taken from General principles under 781.1-781.5, and stylistic influences from 781.62-781.69. There ia also a cryptic suggestion that one should not add numbers using connectors 0 or 1 more than twice, immediately countermanded by a suggestion in parentheses that you can add as many times as you desire. Such are the joys of the Dewey world!

Things get really interesting when we cross over from the general principles and move to the numbers 782 to 788, which cover various ways of producing music, starting with the human voice: 782 Vocal music, 783 Music for single voices, and then 784 to 788, Instruments and ensembles classed by type (keyboard, percussion, string, wind, and so on). Most of these are tagged with an “Add as instructed under 784-788”, enabling us to attach numbers from standard subdivisions through connector 0 (you guessed it, as modified in 780.1-780.9!), and general principles, musical forms etc. through connector 1 from the range 781.1-781.7 or 784.18-784.19 (this is really specific; they could have given a more liberal selection!). Again there is the cryptic instruction that you can do this only twice, or any number of times.

The last section after the different types of instruments is 789 Composers and traditions of music, except that the whole section is placed in brackets and the suggestion is given to “prefer” 780-788. Here is where the rub lies, as the very last number in the whole range, 789.9, refers to “Non-western art music”; and the problem starts really if we have different tradition that we would like to group separately.

As long as we have only western music to deal with, 780-788 is more than sufficient, it is a surfeit. But if we want to develop any other traditions separately, then a mighty effort is required to cobble together parts of numbers from the other ranges, somewhat like the strange insect (stuck together from various species) that those clever boys asked Darwin to identify (he is supposed to have asked them “Did it hum when you caught it, boys?” and when they confirmed that it did, he pronounced it a Hum Bug). The problem starts with tagging the traditions: suppose I want to have two, the north Indian classical (Hindustani) tradition and the south Indian (Karnatik) tradition, I can do it by adding geographical facet numbers, thus 789.9’00954 for Hindustani and 789.9’009548 for Karnatik (from Table 2). So far so good, but then the problem is that the “add as instructed” note provided for the range 789.3-789.9 has the limitation that I can add other facets (through connector 01) like general principles, stylistic influences, musical forms, and (through connector 1) voices and instruments, but only to the base number like 789.9, and not to the geographical facet  789.9’00954 or 789.9’009548 or whatever. What can be added to the geographical facet numbers (-3 to -9 in Table 2 ) are other facets introduced by the connector -0- from Table 1 Standard subdivisions, which are pretty much defined already. There is a provision  for developing facets specific to a subject through the connector -04 Special topics, which could have been utilized to add on all the music-specific facets like styles, instruments, and so on, but Dewey prescribes that -04 subdivisions should come first, much before geographical facets under -09; this would have to be countermanded.

The natural pattern of arranging books on music with many traditions like Hindustani (which we will call H) and Karnatik (K) and others like Western (W), would be to group each tradition separately. Under each, say H tradition, we would like to put books on general principles first, then books on styles or genres, then books dealing with each type of instrument, including performers (or even composers) specialised in each (biographies, memoirs, discographies, etc.), and so on. Then to the next major tradition (say, K), and likewise further on. If we try this under 789.9, we get stuck after the geographical facet, and cannot revert back to the music facets. We would have to put the music facet first, then the geographical facet, which would make no sense on the shelves (imagine composers in formal dress rubbing shoulders with pundits in silken pajamas!). I resolve this impasse by cheating: instead of geographical faceting, I represent each tradition by a letter, thus 789.9H and 789.9K, then add the music facets through connectors 0 or 1 or whatever is provided in the Dewey schedules. This is neither standardized nor consistent with the rest of the schedules (there would be clashes if the same letter were appropriate for more than one tradition), and we should ask Dewey to provide a robust connecter (maybe -04-) to connect to the technical facets after the geographical tag (Dewey apparently recognizes only two traditions: western classical 789.8, and non-western classical 789.9!). 

Similarly, one is stumped by the relative lack of choice of non-western instruments, if we wish to group books (or recordings) by instrument. For example, the Indian tradition has a number of different instruments that could go under 787.82 Round-backed (plectral) lute family: sitar, surbahar, sarod, veena, rudraveena, and other local variants. They would all be jumbled together since there are no specific numbers. Once again, I cheat by inserting an alphabetic code of 5 or 6 letters in the number: 787.82sitar,,,,, 787.82sarod..., 787.82rudra... etc. Or, since I separate the traditions, 789.9H'1'782sitar...., 789.9H'1'782sarod.... 789.9K'1'782veena.... and so on. Further numbers can be added through connectors 01 or 1, using the "add as instructed under 789.3-789.9" provision, to tag on even finer subdivisions of topics, like performances, or techniques, or history, and so on.