Tagging classical music

[DavidHB]

@Alpina_Lux.

Please forgive me if I do not respond point by point to your interesting commentary on the points I made. I'd like to stay as nearly as possible within the parameters Simon set out when he started this thread, so I'd rather not engage in a one on one discussion, interesting as that would be.

In two respects I have to back track. Firstly, now the links are in place (and thank you for that), I have found the material as presented by the MusiCHI people (or is it just one person? I'll refer to them in the plural for the present) interesting and readable. I don't agree with it all, but that's neither here nor there; Simon made it clear at the top of the thread that there is room for more than one view.

Secondly, my clear first impression that there was an element of arrogance in what I thought was the dismissal of the file system was, I now acknowledge, quite wrong. Actually, what the MusiCHI people say about file organisation (not a subject yet greatly discussed in the thread) makes a lot of sense to me (and is close to my own practice). The important point is that they make it clear that, while careful file organisation is not a substitute for tagging/indexing, it is necessary in its own right. I do agree with that.

You quite properly challenge me about the needs of beginners. I agree that this thread is for everyone, but, as the technology (or at least the process of our learning to live with it) is relatively new, we are all beginners to some degree. When I got into the process, I already had half a century of playing around with hi-fi, four decades of computing and network experience and over ten years with digital images and the associated metadata under my belt, but I still found that there was a lot of learning to do. The advice on this forum to start small with the digital music library and learn by trial and error on a relatively small number of files seems to me to provide the best way for newcomers (or older hands who are trying to sort out a disorganised library) to stay sane.

The other reason for thinking about the needs of beginners is that they are the future of the hobby, and the moment of beginning is often the moment of greatest challenge. The friendly hi-fi dealer who can be a huge help in most respects, may not necessarily (in my experience) be so confident on the computing, storage and networking aspects of the system (including tagging). If newcomers look for help in forums such as this one, I think we would all want them to find it.

As regards the interesting question of attention span, we may have to agree to differ. As one who has been justifiably criticised for lengthy communications in the past, I now think that it is a courtesy to consider what the reader's attention span might be and to try to stay within it. I am not insulted when people make things easier for me to understand and absorb, and hope that others, generally, feel likewise.

That is a sensible cue for me to bring this post to an end. If there are any points on which you feel I ought to respond further, do ask.

David