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Definitions.
1) Common roots.
EMC Level 1 Frames are the wider and higher sets of EMC Entries and represent the pivotal cultural movements in popular music.
These sets, that are currently ten, include genres and metagenres with even very marked differences in sound features, lyrics and styles, but each of them are mainly originated by one or more of the following �types of roots:
ethnic;
geographic;
cultural.
Example:
The frame African American Musiccontains four sublevels called Broad Genres:
Blues;
R&B and Soul;
Jamaican Music;
Hip Hop;
Even if these movements are characterized by relevant differences between their sound features, they are all pionereed, directly or indirectly, by the African musiciansthat moved to Northern America during the nineteenth century, mainly to the United States and Jamaica,carrying the ancient music traditions of their motherlands.
Note:
Specific features parameters as languages, types of performers, sounds rules, music techniques, lyrics, themes, tempo, audience, �etc.. are more deeply analyzed more the levels get lower (or high if you consider the number). �So, higher is the number of the level and �deeper is the evaluation of artists and works.
2) The sublevels of Frames : �"Broad Genres".
Each of the current ten Frames collects an average of three to four wide sets of Genres called �Broad Genres�.
The total number of Broad Genres should not exceed 30/40 maximum, to let the Users have a quick and easy approach to EML with these two levels.
Note:
The number of Frames and of all the EMC Levels are not determined a priori by any Author's calculations.
The dimension of each level has arised spontaneously during his observation of the historical cultural panorama of the movements and genres of international popular music.
It's more realistic saying that the number of the levels and the distribution of the entries are a consequences of what he has observed and not the contrary.
3) Origin of term "Frames".
The word Frames in EML derives by framework a conventional term that Wikipedia describes in this way:
"A framework is a generic term commonly referring to an essential supporting structure which other things are built on top of. �
Another meaning �for the origin of Frame or Music Frame in EML is the term "conceptual framework", as used in philosophy, in social science or in any kind of research:
"A conceptual framework is an analytical tool with several variations and contexts. It can be applied in different �categories of work where an overall picture is needed. It is used to �make conceptual distinctions and organize ideas. Strong conceptual �frameworks capture something real and do this in a way that is easy to �remember and apply.�
The idea of provide:
conceptual distinctions;
organized ideas ;
something captured �in a way that is easy to remember and apply;
are the pillar of this level.
But let's keep on reading how Wikipedia describes the types of conceptual framework:
�Several types of conceptual frameworks have been identified, and line up with a research purpose in the following ways:
Pillar questions � exploration or exploratory research;
Descriptive categories � description or descriptive research;
Practical ideal type � analysis (gauging);
Models of operations research � decision making;
Formal hypothesis � explanation and prediction;�
(read the full article in Wikipedia).
Surely, the description 1, 5 and 6 do not fit to the purpose of the Music Frames;
Pillar questions � exploration or exploratory research : �Submit question or ask for interviews to experts , artists and pros �to describe and list categories and genres �in a kind of "exploratory research" gives not only the idea of what this and other levels have been created for, but it's a synthesis of all the EML Project purposes.
Descriptive categories � description or descriptive research: �currently this is a "personal website" that the Author created not to share his infinite culture and knowledge about the music, but to create a little platform, a "white space" in which be able to collect informations, propose a pattern of ideas and list of items, and let them grow thank to the intellectual contribution of expert of any divisions of music intended as art or industry.
Descriptive research
Obviously, the third description , a �descriptive research� usually applied to social science research, fits more to the idea of "taxonomy" and so to a system of classification, that is the core of EMC.
Let's see how Wikipedia describe this term:
"Descriptive science is a category of science that involves descriptive research; that is, observing, recording, describing, and classifying phenomena.
Descriptive research is sometimes contrasted with hypothesis-driven research, which is focused on testing a particular hypothesis by means of experimentation."
"David A. Grimaldi and Michael S. Engel suggest that descriptive science in biology is currently undervalued and misunderstood: "Descriptive" in science is a pejorative, almost always �preceded by "merely," and typically applied to the array of classical �-ologies and -omies: anatomy, archaeology, �paleontology, taxonomy, etc.. �and the various disciplines of zoology, to name a few.
First, an �organism, object, or substance is not described in a vacuum, but rather �in comparison with other organisms, objects, and substances.
Second, descriptive science is not necessarily low-tech science, and �high tech is not necessarily better.
Finally, a theory is only as �good as what it explains and the evidence (descriptions) that �supports it."
"Ilkka Niiniluoto has used the terms "descriptive sciences" and "design sciences" as an updated version of the distinction between basic and applied science. According to Niiniluoto, descriptive sciences are those that seek to describe reality, while design sciences seek useful knowledge for human activities".
The Author's approach in defining Frames and other levels
To describe Author's exploratoriy and descriptive approach to define Frames and conseguently the other levels we must make it clear that EML :
is not an academic research;
is not a works based or proposed by any institute of research of musicology;
has between its major purposes (the core mission) to share what the Author and his collaborators have listened and will listen for their own pleasure or for a specific aim;
has as its major purpose to simplify the User's approach to searches of music contents in web;
has NOT as purpose to redefine the science-based taxonomy system or to criticize the current approach to this topic of musicologist;
So, Frames and Clusters, are totally arbitrary terms, used only in EML in reference to the first andthird levels of EMC Classification. These levels must be seen as huge pre-filters for the items of the respective sublevels : Broad Genres, and Genres.
Note:
Do not search for the word �Rock Frame� on the web because you will find frames for photos made of stone, cliffs, slate plates but no musical movements.
In many cases the terms used for the entries in this level are comparable to what in standards are considered �broad genres or genres.
4) Origin of the terms used for the Frames Entries .
The definitions and meaning of the terms used for this level are in most of cases the same as in standard taxonomy.
Example: Pop Music, Folk & Country, Dance Music etc..
Only �Rock Frame is a totally out of standard terminology of music taxonomy.
Note:
We call all the entries in this section EMC Entries.
Often, we use the term "metagenre" when we refer to the EMC Entries in the Level 1 ,2 and 3 because they are "umbrella" of genres, the basic units of the taxonomy system.
5) Use of the terms.
The meaning of the name used for the entries are mainly the same as the meaning that they have in standard taxonomy.
Example : in EMC and in EML the world Pop Music means practically the same as in the conventional �classification.
The only differences is that we use it in a hierarchical context, as a level that is distinguished formally by its three sublevels, the Broad Genres: ��Western Pop�, �Latin Pop� and �International Pop�.
6) Selecting Parameters.
Frames have been created:
to summarize the vastness of the artistic production of popular music since 50s to current days, in about ten main cultural areas of music and cultural movements;
to create groups of Broad Genres, the most significant level of EMC, as it represents the limit of gender rules, in sets juxtaposed according to cultural traditions but also according to distinctions that concern the sub-levels themselves;
to melt these Broad Genres in order to create a a pre-filtering levels for a quick access to the Artistic Overviews;
as all the EMC Classification, Frames has to be intended as �sections of this website�, created to simplify the search, redirecting the users to artists and works with having similar features, and not to generate a standard in music;
without necessarly similarities in sound and styles features, nor in their contemporary genres, nor in their roots, �but with a strict relationship between the cultural habitat of their pioneers;
in some cases, at the contrary, a pivotal genres can be the roots itself that have generated all the further cascade of genres or styles; for example the genre �Rock and Roll� for �Rock Frame� that we could have also been called �Rock Derived Movements� but was a little too long!
understanding that the type of performer is only one of the characteristics of the lower levels, but that in some cases it is impossible not to ignore this type of evaluation in distinguishing two or more Frames or in the choice of the Frame in which to insert a broad genre and consequently its sub-levels.
searching for closeness and relations between artitst and producers' strategies ; for example, a DJ could also have a lot of rock sounds in his tracks but his repertoire will always be catalogued in Dance, for the almost exclusive use of its repertoires in dance club or by professional DJ to include in their mixing lists: different could be the valuation of a single track or album; in this case we have two main evaluation, �but each artist is always included in just an unique Frame;
selecting genres with almost the same formation (example �rock band� in all its variations) ; this feature leads to the distinguish between genres �having same cultural roots; this characteristic contrasts with what was said in point 1 regarding the homogeneity of cultural or geographical origins or ethnic traditions of genres within the "Frames", but it is necessary as it generates strong differences in the formative structures of the performers, in production objectives in techniques, tools and types of audience can lead to the inclusion of genres with similar cultural roots in different Frames - featured article "Why new definition in old taxonomy system?";
when has not been possible to compress in a single Broad Genres a movements with too many genres �and degrees of variations in sound rules; the most emblematic case is that of �Jazz�, which, although clearly having its foundation in the African-American music of the late nineteenth century, its genres and subgenres are so many, as not to allow the Author to compress �Jazz� as movement in a Level 2 Broad Genres, and was therefore made a Frames in its own right. The same could be said for Blues, but the development of Broad Genre as the "R&B and Soul" and indirectly also of the "Hip Hop" is so deeply related to the Blues that it needs to be structured as a level 2 movement.
EML Author. Paolo Busellato �August 13th , 2022