Morsels of music, morsels of music knowledge organization

Deborah Lee, City University London (UK)

Abstract | Music is a perennially complex subject to classify, especially when considering Western, art music.  One of the interesting aspects of Western art music classification is contemplating the connections between music-as-knowledge and music knowledge organization.  However, this prompts an important question for classification: what are the elemental units of knowledge for music? This is followed by asking, when music is classified, what exactly is being classified and what difference does this make to classification? This paper starts by questioning the musical unit beyond the world of facets such as medium, form/genre, function, and so on.  The second part considers the musical work.  It starts with a discussion about the musical work, for example from discussions in music philosophy (such as by Goehr), and from information science (such as by Pietras and Robinson).  The idea of a musical work is compared with the concept of a bibliographical musical document.  The third part turns its attention to another possible music classification unit: the musical theme.  The idea of themes as an identifying and classificatory feature for music is explored, including considering the knowledge organization contained within formats such as thematic catalogues and dictionaries of musical themes.  Furthermore, the idea of thematic reuse, including in pot-pourris, is considered from the perspective of knowledge organization.  Finally, the paper ends with a visualisation of how the idea of musical works, musical documents and musical themes fit together in terms of being units of classification. This paper is a preliminary work, which seeks to ask questions which are fundamental to music classification, and set the scene for future research in this area.

Bio | Deborah Lee is a visiting lecturer at City, University of London, where she leads the Information Organisation module.  She was awarded a PhD in Information Science in 2017, from City, University of London. Her doctoral thesis was supervised by Professor David Bawden, and is entitled “Modelling music: a theoretical approach to the classification of notated Western art music”.  Her research interests include music classification, the theory and aesthetics of classification schemes, music as information and the pedagogy of cataloguing education.  Deborah has written articles for journals including JASIST, Journal of Documentation, Knowledge Organization, Journal of Library Metadata, Art Libraries Journal, Information Research, and the Proceedings of the Document Academy.  Deborah is also the Joint Acting Head of the Book Library and Senior Cataloguer at the Courtauld Institute of Art.  Deborah gained a BA in music from the University of Oxford, an MMus in historical musicology from Royal Holloway, University of London, an MA in information services management from London Metropolitan University, and a PGCert in higher education teaching from City, University of London, and she is also a FHEA.

Event Timeslots (2)

Day 2 | Friday, June 21
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Deborah Lee, City University London (UK)

Day 2 | Friday, June 21
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Deborah Lee, City University London (UK)