Tagging classical music

[DavidHB]

(22-02-2014 18:03)simoncn Wrote:  

(21-02-2014 11:22)joster Wrote:  From reading the link I understand that Groups and Compositions are just the same. A single tag/field used to keep the different parts of a musical work "together". You can name it Group or Composition.

Yet, on your tagging scheme you use a "Group tag" (point 8) and a "Composition tag" (point 9)

I've updated this section to try to clarify why these are different tags.

Thank you, Simon for the updating, which is helpful. It took me some time to get my head round the reasons for having both Group and Composition tags (which will often contain the same data), and I think your amendments provide useful clarification.

It seems to me that the key difference between these tags is the point at which they are typically used in the browsing sequence. Composition, as the User Guide explains, is just a tag like any other. It will normally be used to identify the set of albums or items from which you will make a selection; so it is logically 'outside' the album (or if you prefer, before it in the selection sequence). Group, on the other hand is a subdivision of the contents of an album, and as such is contained by, and therefore 'inside', it.

What this means, I have found, is that while virtually all classical tracks can usefully have a Composition tag, not all need a Group tag. Every track is or is part of a composition, and it is often useful to be able to find out whether the collection contains a particular work or to display a list of alternative recordings of a given composition. Group tags only need to be written when it is sensible to group tracks together, for example the movements of a symphony. By contrast, compilation albums where each track is a separate work do not usually need to be grouped.

Where both Group and Composition tags are used, I find that either the contents of both should be the same for a particular work, or the contents of Group need to be somewhat more detailed than those of Composition. An example of the latter case is a recording of a complete opera, which I tag as a single album. The Composition tag will normally only contain the title of the opera, while the Group tags also identify each act or section.

My aim in all this is to have a smooth browsing 'workflow' on my control point (usually Bubble DS in my case); the decision of how much or how little to include in any tag is largely about how it will display and help me make selections. While (as this thread has demonstrated) views about the use of individual tags will vary, I would guess that most users would work to this same general principle.

David