17 Classifying recorded music with Dewey

Actual music comes in various media – tapes, plates (LPs, for example), discs of various types (laserdiscs, audio CDs, DVDs), and so on. I don’t think anybody would think of mixing these objects with books on the shelves – they will collect dust, and be of different sizes and shapes from books, that will call for different handling. So the actual physical media tend to get stored in separate locations, probably under a shutter  or door of glass or other material.

My usual approach to such classification issues is to first visualize where I would put them normally. In this case, I’m pretty sure that I would like to stack the LPs separately, singles separately, the tapes separately (by size, but I have only micro-cassettes), then CDs (and DVDs and video discs with them, probably). Within each type, I’d probably arrange them in the standard Dewey Decimal order for 580 Music, just as if they were books (treatises, texts). All that remains is to give some mark or tag to show what type of recording media each item is. A simple way, obviously, is to prefix each number with a code symbolizing the type: LP (Long Play platter), EP (Extended Play), SP (Short Play), ACD (Audio CD), VCD (Video ditto), MC (Micro Cassette) or CC (Compact ditto), DVD, MP3, and whatever else you want. Of course, this will split a particular performer’s works among a number of locations or catalogues, so if we wish to keep them together, we could add the type of physical media (LP etc.) after the Dewey number and performer, so that a mechanical listing (by a computer, for instance) would list a particular performer’s ACDs, then LPs, and so on. 

For Western music, it is usually convenient to classify by genre and instrument (represented by the appropriate Dewey number) and composer, represented by the initial letters of the name, then the musical form (if desired), year, and serial number, if needed. Of course things can’t be always simple, and some “local” innovation may be called for to group symphonies together, or violin concertos together, and so on. For Hindustani classical, it’s usually the instrument that is the distinguishing facet, then the performer (not the composer), then year. Since each item may have pieces in a number of genres, it may not be so important to specify this in the classification number; the manufacturer’s name and the item’s serial number may be more useful to distinguish similar pieces. Enough letters would have to be carried for names to distinguish them clearly. For Western names, the surname is usually the entry point (Beethoven, rather than Ludwig, although the Bachs would need both the family name and the individual’s names). For Indian names, the surname is usually boring, because, like the old king who gave each of his three daughters half his kingdom, half the names are Kumar, half are Singh, and the remaining half are Khan (more or less!); I find it much better to enter with the first name, e,g, Ali Akbar, Allauddin, Rashid, and so on for the Khans. Thus an audio CD of a vocal recital by the Hindustani classical singer Rashid Khan would be ACD-789.9H’1’32 (for solo voice) followed by RAS 2011, and maybe the serial number. Or if I wanted a combined list for all media by the artist, 789.9H’1’32 RAS 2011 ACD, 789.9H’1’32 RAS 2010 DVD, and so on (this is a purely local innovation, not standard as per DDC!).  

Dewey declares under 580 that it “does not distinguish scores, texts, or recordings”, but goes on right thereafter (in the usual delightfully contradictory style we have come to love) to offer a choice of three methods of doing so.  One is to prefix a letter or other symbol, such as R for “Recording”, M for scores, etc. to the usual Dewey number for a treatise (which is the first method illustrated above). The understanding is that one goes to the appropriate storing place for each type, say the “Recordings Room” for R’s. In my institute’s library, they have put all the annual reports, project documents, and such like, in a separate room, and the catalogues show this location by the prefix D for Docs. Thus, Beethoven’s violin concerto could be classified as R- 787.2 (for Violin), followed by ’1’86 (for Concerto from 784.186), followed by composer, giving say R787.2’1’86 BEE 1964.  Of course, this would scatter Beethoven’s works all over the shelves, so to keep each person’s works in one place, we may have to alter the order in which these elements are entered: R-BEE-787.2’1’86 OIS (for Oistrakh, the violinist) 1964 (a rather non-standard way of achieving it!).

The second method provided by Dewey to segregate recordings is to add to the number for texts, the numbers following 78 in the range 780.26-780.269. As mentioned earlier, standard subdivisions of 780 Music are modified in places to cater to the special requirements of the subject. 780.26 is actually 78 with the standard subdivision -026, which in Table 1 is actually Law (but not recommended for developing numbers, preferring to use the main numbers 341-347). Under 780 Music, however, the standard subdivision -026 (actually, -26, as the zero is already provided by the base number 780) and its further subdivisions are used for a different purpose: “Texts, treatises on music scores and recordings”. Under this, then, 780.266 is “Sound recordings of music”. The number, when used normally, would refer to treatises about recordings (like the various guides to recorded music),  but Dewey is suggesting that we use the latter part of these numbers for the recordings themselves, or for the scores: 787.2’0266, recordings of violin music. This standard subdivision -026 can be used wherever an “add as instructed” from 780.1-780.9 is provided: thus, 787.2’1’86 (for Violin Concerto) followed by ’0266 (for Recordings), 787.2’1’86’0’266 BEE 1964 and so on, neat! Standard subdivision -0267 likewise referes to “Video recordings of music”.  (As far as can be made out, we have the option of adding suffixes through connectors -1- or -0- any number of times).

The third option suggested by Dewey is to class recordings under 789, and instructions at that number suggest using an alphabetic mark for composer, followed by the numbers after 78 in the range 780-788.

I must confess that I have not actually gotten round to classifying my recorded music under Dewey or other system. What I have is a list of these items (LPs, cassettes, CDs etc.) grouped by composer in the case of Western classical, and by performer in the case of Hindustani music. This is maintained physically in a loose-leaf ring binder of half the normal page size, so that pages can be added for new names or items as needed. The same information is also entered in a computer database (I use Lotus Agenda® about which I will talk later), which is based on DOS, and has never been ported to the Windows environment, alas! Since many of these albums (as they are technically called) combine say concertos and sonatas, or Hindustani khayal and thumri, and so on, there is not much scope for following strictly the Dewey order of musical forms; however, I broadly class vocal forms first, followed by the main instruments in the Dewey order. Mixed albums, of course, are located in front (or top). The lot are kept in various shoe boxes (ideal for CDs!) arranged alphabetically (by first name of artist for Hindustani, standard family name of composer for Western), and the LPs, of course, are stacked in a cupboard.   

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.