Three Kingdoms

I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to remember the source for this, but I learned the following during my time in the music program at the University of Missouri. I’m fairly certain it would have been in Dr. Michael Budds’s American Music class.


Music, all music, fits into one of three categories.

The first is Fine Art music. This is music that is composed and performed by trained musicians for an elite or cultivated audience; music that is considered to be an elevated art form.

The second is Popular music. This is any music created for entertainment.

The third is Folk music. This is any music that is tied in with everyday life experiences in some fashion. This can include music associated with specific life events, or music involved in life’s more mundane or ordinary pursuits.


This will be the primary, fundamental subdivision in the Universal Music Classification system. These three categories will form the base from which all of the various styles branch out.

Gap in Coverage

First of all, my apologies for the lack of posts lately. When I get to the last few weeks of each semester, I don’t seem to have time for anything other than paper writing.

As far as the next step for Universal Music Classification, I’ve decided that a sort of top-down way of designing the system would probably be best. That is, it will probably come together most effectively by starting with the most general categories and working toward the more specific. In the next post, I’ll give my vision for the first and most general subdivision of music by its stylistic characteristics. Future posts will then refine the categories further.

Thanks for your patience.

Jazz

Subdivisions, per the Wikipedia entry:
Dixieland
Bebop
Big Band
Cool Jazz
Hard Bop
Modal Jazz
Free Jazz
Latin Jazz
Post Bop
Soul Jazz
Fusion
Small Combo
Asian American Jzz
Avant-Garde
Chamber Jazz
Continental Jazz
Gypsy Jazz
Mainstream Jazz
Mini-Jazz
M-Base
Neo-Bop
Orchestral Jazz
Stride
Swing
Third Stream
Traditional Jazz
Tratitional Pop
Vocal Jazz

There are also a wide range of Fusion genres that I'll save for later.

Shaking the Tree

So after careful consideration, I have yet to answer the question that I posed in my last entry. It remains unclear to me just what form the finished product will take. But what I decided is that there is one aspect of UMC that I can go ahead and work on, and that’s the “term tree,” the hierarchical structure of style names that shows the relationships among the various genres. I have a feeling that as I develop that, the form of project will take shape; something useful will present itself in the process.

So here’s what I need help with right at the moment: I need genre terms and subdivisions to put into the “term tree.” Pick a style you’re familiar with and tell me what sub-genres go with it. For example, sub-genres of jazz include big band, small combo, free jazz, avant garde, cool jazz, funk jazz, smooth jazz, and so on. Sub-genres of rock include classic rock, alternative, heavy metal, etc. Sub-genres of blues include Memphis, Chicago, Delta, etc. Don’t be afraid to list styles that could be considered subdivisions of more than one larger style. For example, fusion could be a sub-genre of both rock and jazz. Texas blues-rock fits under both blues and rock (not surprisingly).

I’ll stress that this is the part where I’m going to need lots of help. The goal here is to fill in the “tree” with every possible musical style known to humanity (!). I’m an expert on some of those. But I need the help of those who are familiar with the styles I don’t know, whether you’re an expert, enthusiast or casual fan. All I need right now is a list. Your contributions can be posted to Comments.

Is There a Problem Here?

In looking over what we've got so far, I can't thinking that this system isn't quite doing what it should be. Would the entry on bluegrass be helpful to someone who was unfamiliar with the style? Further, is that the idea of this project to begin with?

At first, I thought that the values in the fields are too concise; there's not enough detail to explain how all of the characteristics that make up bluegrass fit together. So would it be better to have fewer fields but have longer, prose, explanations in each? My fear there is that records will begin to look like Wikipedia entries. There would be no point is duplicating what's already been done by Wikipedia; that certainly is not the purpose here.

So what is? The concerns I'm having seem to bring up fundamental questions about Universal Music Classification. What exactly is the point of the system? How do I best set it up to accomplish its purpose, once I'm clear on what that is?

What I had initially envisioned is a bibliographic tool; a system that would help librarians or music collectors organize music by style. It is intended to do that by telling you what style a given piece of music is by looking at its musical characteristics. Accordingly, a prose explanation of the style is not what is needed; again, Wikipedia has that covered already. Instead, I'm seeing two possible forms that this could take that would make it a useful tools for classification.

The first would be as a sort of flow chart; a series of questions about the given piece that would ultimately lead the user to the proper genre. It might start by asking whether there are any electric instruments; if so, then the system would rule out acoustic-only styles like bluegrass or anything pre-twentieth-century. Questions could be designed that would narrow the possibilities until only one possible styles remains; the piece would then have to be that style.

There is, however, an issue with this. One of the problems that catalogers face in terms of recorded music in particular is that the information object (tape, CD, etc) and its packaging often have limited information about the music itself. What if the next question the system presented you with was about the music's time frame of origin, but you didn't know that information about it? A flow chart has the potential for dead ends.

The second possibility would be set up a list of words/concepts associated with each style. So your list of words to go with Rock would include things like: guitar, drums, electric, loud, backbeat, etc. In other words, there would be a list of ideas associated with Rock. This way, the user could enter a keyword based on what was known about the music, and the system would return all of the possible styles that are associated with that keyword. The user could continue entering known characteristics of the music until the system returns only one style that has all of the given characteristics.

What each of the above ideas hinges on is not what makes up a style, as much as what distinguishes one style from another; that's what this system is really all about. I'm going to look at each of these ideas more closely and try to decide which approach would work better (or whether some combination of the two might be possible). This will clearly alter the system in a pretty fundamental way, so it's not a decision to take lightly. As always, I appreciate any feedback you might have.

Record: Traditional Bluegrass

Term: Bluegrass, Traditional

Time Period: 1939-present

Geographic Area:
Origin: Appalachian Mountains
Current: United States

Voice:
Number of voices: 1-5
Vocal Character: Informal, regional accent
Lead/Ensemble Relationship: Ensemble sings harmonies on choruses

Text/Lyrical Content: Everyday experience; love and loss; family; Christian spirituality

Instrumentation:
Lead Instrument: Any of fiddle, acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin, resophonic guitar
Ensemble Size: Small
Ensemble Makeup: Exclusively acoustic; various combinations of fiddle, acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin, resophonic guitar, string bass

Musical Characteristics:
Dynamics: Somewhat quiet to somewhat loud
Harmonic Character: Western major and minor chords, embellished with seventh
Melodic Character: Western major and minor scales, focusing on pentatonic notes, accented with “blue” notes
Rhythmic Character: Backbeat. String bass plays on downbeats, with a distinctive mandolin "chop" on the offbeats.
Tempo: Somewhat slow to very fast
Structure/Form: Verse/chorus, often with introduction, bridge and improvised instrumental solos

Performance:
Venue: Radio, concert hall, social gathering, festival
Intended Audience: Rural Americans

Purpose: Entertainment

Term Relationships:
Broader Terms: Bluegrass, Americana, Popular Music
Narrower Terms: Bluegrass Gospel
Related Terms: Mountain Music

Scope Notes:

Record Template

Term:

Time Period:

Geographic Area:
Origin:
Current:

Voice:
Number of voices:
Vocal Character:
Lead/Ensemble Relationship:

Text/Lyrical Content:

Instrumentation:
Lead Instrument:
Ensemble Size:
Ensemble Makeup:

Musical Characteristics:
Dynamics:
Harmonic Character:
Melodic Character:
Rhythmic Character:
Tempo:
Structure/Form:

Performance:
Venue:
Intended Audience:

Purpose:

Term Relationships:
Broader Terms:
Narrower Terms:
Related Terms:

Scope Notes: