What would be utimate llist of metadata to allow accurate Classical Classification

[paultaylor]

Hi, I wonder if any of you would be interested in helping me creating a list of the ultimate metadata for Classical. To allow me (and others) to develop better Classical support for my music tagger software as it seems Classical ethusists are poorly served by current software. As a mainly Pop/Rock listener the artist/performer/composer are often the same thing and its usually easy to categorize this type of music. But Im trying to get a better handle of Classical and would love some input on this, in the past many tools have put the same composer as the album artist to compensate for tools lack of support for the composer field but this is totally inadequate.

Clearly a classical piece can have composer/orchestra/main performer/conductor and other soloists and instrumentalists and these could be stored in different metadata fields but it is difficult to decide what should be be stored as the album artist and track artist. My own view is the albumArtist may could be any of composer,orchestra,main performer,conductor depending on who is the most high profile of them, probably mirroring where the CD would be stored in a record shop (i.e V for Vivaldi, or K for Kennedy, Nigel) but is this right, I cant form a definite option about track artist.

Then there is the music title itself, my plan was to have seperate Work and Part of Work fields as well as the Title but then my knowledge fails me, are there any additional fields required ?

Any thoughts ?

 

[Vincent Kars]

The only piece of software known to me handling Classical proper is MusiChi
http://www.musichi.eu/

There are a couple of problems
The meta data supplied by the internet databases if often incomplete and different.

Sonate für Klavier und Violine F-dur Opus 24 [Frühling]
Sonata No. 5 "Frühlings - Sonate"
The Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major “Spring”, Opus 24

Of course we would like to see it spelled uniform e.g.
Sonata for violin & piano No. 5 (Frühling) op. 24

In the past composer was a problem as it is a tag available in most tagging schemas but a lot of media players simply didn’t support it.
Today many do so if your media player doesn’t, get a decent one.

Album Artist is in general single value and Artist multiple values
I make a bit of an arbitrary decision by choosing one as leading or if it is a populare combunatie both for the album artist e.g.

Album Artist: Kremer/Argerich
Artist: Kremer, Gidon [Violin]; Argerich, Martha [Piano]

Or
Album Artist: Rousset
Artist: Scholl, Andreas [Countertenor]; Bonney, Barbara [Soprano]; Rousset, Christophe [Conductor]; Les Talens Lyriques

We need a tag for the composition.
As far as I know this has to be a custom tag as it is not part of most tagging schemas

Movement are in general stored in the title tag but the combination Composition-Movement is used as well.

A good read

http://blog.musichi.eu/post/2874852211/the-zen-of-classical-music-tagging-part1-the
http://blog.musichi.eu/post/3617245298/the-zen-of-classical-music-tagging-part-2-with

Bit more on my website: http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/TG/Tagging.html

 

[paultaylor]

We need a tag for the composition.

By composition do you mean work ? https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Classical/Works

Movement are in general stored in the title tag but the combination Composition-Movement is used as well.

Is the same as part ?

A good read
http://blog.musichi.eu/post/2874852211/the-zen-of-classical-music-tagging-part1-the
http://blog.musichi.eu/post/3617245298/the-zen-of-classical-music-tagging-part-2-with

It certainly is, Im reading it now thanks.

 

[Vincent Kars]

You got it

Work=Composition=Sonata for violin & piano No. 5 (Frühling) op. 24
Movement=Part= 1- Adagio, 2 - Allegretto etc

 

[caesar]

You may want to check out the information architecture from the 3 beez wax system for ideas on how to organize your collection. Here are some links to start, and you can also explore more on his site:
- http://www.3beez.com/features/genres.html
- http://www.3beez.com/features/works-v-tracks.html

 

[Vincent Kars]

I'm afraid 3beez is by and large about asking $4900 for a PC
http://www.3beez.com/purchase/purchase.html

 

[caesar]

I'm afraid 3beez is by and large about asking $4900 for a PC
http://www.3beez.com/purchase/purchase.html

I have no doubt they are. But I think they have a solid information architecture for classical music that could be leveraged

 

[Vincent Kars]

Better look here: http://www.musichi.eu/
39,- will do