Tagging classical music

[Mike48]

Simon,

Thanks for the reply. A couple of points:

- The requirement that Grouped tracks be sequential -- is this a requirement of your library software? of Minim? of the UPnP standard? Just wondering why this is so.

- Re: Author. I checked the JRMC database definition. It turns out that Artist is in fact a semicolon-delimited list, not a single value.

If I had realized that at first, I never would have added a People field (while tagging jazz, to hold the personnel). Oddly enough, when I asked on the JRMC forum about the best way of adding this information, no one pointed out that Artist was already a list! I suppose they figured I would know that.

Now I need to get the People data into the Artist field. With luck, I'll be able to automate much of it with JRMC tag editing.

Mike

[Mike48]

I forgot to mention:

- Judging from the tags output file written by Minim, JRMC transmits the Artist list as multiple instances, not as a list (though it's stored as a list).

- I have added a "Subgenre" field, though I am not finding it useful.

- I use the genre "Classical guitar" as different in character from "Classical," which includes chamber, orchestral, other solo, etc. I haven't decided whether to make "Opera" a separate genre, but probably so.

- In thinking about it, People may still be a useful tag. For example, to list the personnel when the artist is the Tokyo Quartet.

[simoncn]

(30-12-2012 22:50)Mike48 Wrote:  - The requirement that Grouped tracks be sequential -- is this a requirement of your library software? of Minim? of the UPnP standard? Just wondering why this is so.

This is necessary to ensure the contents of an album with grouped content play in the correct order using standard control points that don't understand grouping.

Consider the following case, with track numbers shown as (n):

(1) Ungrouped item U1
(2) Grouped item G1
(3) Ungrouped item U2
(4) Grouped item G2
(5) Ungrouped item U3

If MinimServer were to group items G1 and G2, a "Play All" request for the complete album would send the following to the control point:

(1) Ungrouped item U1
(2) Group containing (2) G1 and (4) G2
(3) Ungrouped item U2
(5) Ungrouped item U3

and the control point would play the tracks in the order U1, G1, G2, U2, U3.

[Mike48]

Got it. Thanks!

[michel4audio]

Hi,

My view regarding tagging is that it should be as automatic as possible, so I've taken decisions to minimize the number of tags and try to make them as accurate as possible while being as automated as possible with tool such DBPoweramp.

This has the drawback of allowing limited search, but life is short.
So find below, my way of tagging. Ps: I'am mostly listening to Classical Music.

- Album Name: of course
- Artist: one per track if several artists participate in an album. Not the best choice but my current system - Sonos - does not know how to use 'XX: YY: ZZ' as provided by AMG database. Stick to a unique name, for instance either use Capuçon or Capucon but choose one and stick to it.
- Conductor is set as Artist as above.
- Album Artist: set it only for ripping purpose, to avoid tracks of one album being spread over several directories. I do not use it if an 'artist' is a major contributor of an album, in which case I use only Artist.
- Composer : of course. Stick to a unique name of each composer.
- Track: of course.
- Genre : ignored as it is too much work to keep it consistent.
- Year: if available.


That's it.

Now the searches I'am using are :
- Find all albums, tracks of a given composer.
- Find all albums, tracks of a given artist.
- Find all tracks of a given music piece: for instance all versions of the sonata K208.

(08-02-2012 18:24)simoncn Wrote:  MinimServer is designed to give you the ability to browse your collection by any combination of tags in any order. This means that your collection needs to be tagged with all the information you might want to look at while you're browsing. Classical music generally has a lot of information associated with it, and it's important to have a consistent scheme for recording all this information in your tags.

...

If you've read this far, you're probably interested in classical music and have a scheme of your own. Please share it so that we can all learn from each other's experience!

[simoncn]

(25-02-2013 14:02)michel4audio Wrote:  - Find all tracks of a given music piece: for instance all versions of the sonata K208.

Don't you need a Composition tag (or similar) to be able to do that?

[michel4audio]

(25-02-2013 15:26)simoncn Wrote:  

(25-02-2013 14:02)michel4audio Wrote:  - Find all tracks of a given music piece: for instance all versions of the sonata K208.

Don't you need a Composition tag (or similar) to be able to do that?

Not really, I'am just searching for tracks that contain '208' and it's fine.
In case of a piece with several movements, then it usually works fine because the track's tagging is :

Sonata 59 - Allegro
Sonata 59 - Adagio.
....

At least it works for me.

[joster]

(08-02-2012 18:24)simoncn Wrote:  MinimServer is designed to give you the ability to browse your collection by any combination of tags in any order. This means that your collection needs to be tagged with all the information you might want to look at while you're browsing. Classical music generally has a lot of information associated with it, and it's important to have a consistent scheme for recording all this information in your tags.

There's no right or wrong way to tag your music. I'm still experimenting with different approaches for my small but growing classical collection. I have a combination of downloads and CD rips, and for both of these I generally find the original tagging needs a bit (or a lot) of improvement. It's amazing how much variation there is in the standard of tagging between different record companies!

It would be great if people could share the schemes that they're using to tag classical music, so that we can learn from each other's experience. This thread is a place to do this and chat about different approaches. To start things off, here's the scheme that I'm currently using to tag my tracks.

1. Set the Album tag to the full official name of the album.
2. Use a separate Artist tag for each artist who's performing on the track. The order of these tags is significant, as it affects the order in which multiple artists appear on the control point display. I generally use the order in which the artists appear in the record company's descriptive material. I don't include the conductor (if there is one), but use a separate Conductor tag for that.
3. Use a Conductor tag for the conductor (if there is one).
4. Use a Composer tag (or multiple tags) for the composer. Don't include the composer name in the list of artists or in the track title.
5. Set the Date tag to the year of the recording / issue.
6. Set the TrackNumber tag to the track number (not including "/ totaltracks").
7. Use one or more Genre tags as appropriate. Each Genre is a separate tag.
8. Use the Group tag to group together any musical works with multiple movements that appear as consecutive tracks on the album. For example, I would tag each of the four movements of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 as Group=Symphony No. 5 and Composer=Beethoven. For some large musical works, I've used multiple groups rather than a single group.
9. Use the Composition tag for all multi-movement musical works, whether or not they're grouped. (They won't be grouped if they're not consecutive tracks.) Don't include the composer in the composition name.
10. Don't include the composer, conductor, artists or track number in the Title tag.

This is an evolving work in progress. I know it's not fully consistent at the moment. For example, I haven't currently got Composition tags on musical works that only consist of a single movement/track.

If you've read this far, you're probably interested in classical music and have a scheme of your own. Please share it so that we can all learn from each other's experience!

Simon, could you please elaborate a little more on the composition and grouping tags? Can you exemplify your usage of those tags?

I'm use Mp3tag for tagging my music files (flac and mp3 for the portable player) and I can't find the composition and grouping fields.

Should I create new fields? In that case I presume they wouldn't be a "standard" tag?

joster

[simoncn]

(20-02-2014 19:45)joster Wrote:  Simon, could you please elaborate a little more on the composition and grouping tags? Can you exemplify your usage of those tags?

I'm use Mp3tag for tagging my music files (flac and mp3 for the portable player) and I can't find the composition and grouping fields.

Should I create new fields? In that case I presume they wouldn't be a "standard" tag?

joster

You can find more information about groups and compositions in this section.

To add these tags using Mp3tag, you'll need to create custom tag names.

For groups, the GROUP tag is treated specially by MinimServer. For compositions, you can use any tag name.

[joster]

(20-02-2014 20:58)simoncn Wrote:  

(20-02-2014 19:45)joster Wrote:  Simon, could you please elaborate a little more on the composition and grouping tags? Can you exemplify your usage of those tags?

I'm use Mp3tag for tagging my music files (flac and mp3 for the portable player) and I can't find the composition and grouping fields.

Should I create new fields? In that case I presume they wouldn't be a "standard" tag?

joster

You can find more information about groups and compositions in this section.

To add these tags using Mp3tag, you'll need to create custom tag names.

For groups, the GROUP tag is treated specially by MinimServer. For compositions, you can use any tag name.

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)

Quote:8. Use the Group tag to group together any musical works with multiple movements that appear as consecutive tracks on the album. For example, I would tag each of the four movements of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 as Group=Symphony No. 5 and Composer=Beethoven. For some large musical works, I've used multiple groups rather than a single group.
9. Use the Composition tag for all multi-movement musical works, whether or not they're grouped. (They won't be grouped if they're not consecutive tracks.) Don't include the composer in the composition name.

Why? To deal with consecutive and non-consecutive tracks? Using two distinct tags one will end up with musical works with several parts spread between the Group and Composition tags.