Orchestra Tag

[simoncn]

I've used Artist for small ensembles, and reserved Orchestra for the traditional meaning of orchestra. This seems more natural to me.

[simoncn]

(25-06-2012 18:54)Wammer Wrote:  Of course, having a separate Orchestra/Ensemble tag would mean that the Artist field would be blank for any music without a soloist, including most orchestral and much chamber music. Is there any reason why it is advisable or good practice that Artist should always have a value?

I don't think so, as long as you're using MinimServer. In this situation, MinimServer creates an artist value for sending to the control point. If there are Conductor and Orchestra tags, but no Artist tag, the artist value will be "Conductor, Orchestra" (which will change to "Orchestra, Conductor" soon).

At present, this won't work if you've used other tags, such as Director instead of Conductor, or Ensemble instead of Orchestra. There are two options for handling this:

1) MinimServer could support any names for these tags and provide a way to customize how the control point artist value gets built from named tags.

2) MinimServer could support specific names for these tags ("Conductor" and "Orchestra") and provide a way to substitute different names when it displays index entries for these tags in the control point browse tree.

I prefer the second of these because it promotes the adoption of consistent tagging standards in the industry (for example, in music databases and record company downloads). It also provides a way for English tag names to be translated into other languages when displayed in the browse tree.

So my suggestion is to use Orchestra for this tag rather than Ensemble. If you want to see it as Ensemble in your control point, a future release of MinimServer will give you a way to do this.

[Wammer]

(26-06-2012 09:12)simoncn Wrote:  

(25-06-2012 18:54)Wammer Wrote:  Of course, having a separate Orchestra/Ensemble tag would mean that the Artist field would be blank for any music without a soloist, including most orchestral and much chamber music. Is there any reason why it is advisable or good practice that Artist should always have a value?

I don't think so, as long as you're using MinimServer. In this situation, MinimServer creates an artist value for sending to the control point. If there are Conductor and Orchestra tags, but no Artist tag, the artist value will be "Conductor, Orchestra" (which will change to "Orchestra, Conductor" soon).

At present, this won't work if you've used other tags, such as Director instead of Conductor, or Ensemble instead of Orchestra. There are two options for handling this:

1) MinimServer could support any names for these tags and provide a way to customize how the control point artist value gets built from named tags.

2) MinimServer could support specific names for these tags ("Conductor" and "Orchestra") and provide a way to substitute different names when it displays index entries for these tags in the control point browse tree.

I prefer the second of these because it promotes the adoption of consistent tagging standards in the industry (for example, in music databases and record company downloads). It also provides a way for English tag names to be translated into other languages when displayed in the browse tree.

So my suggestion is to use Orchestra for this tag rather than Ensemble. If you want to see it as Ensemble in your control point, a future release of MinimServer will give you a way to do this.

Thanks, Simon. I don't have a major hang up about the name, though I appreciate that others will feel differently. I would support the second option, as I am a firm advocate of a consistent approach both within MinimServer and for tagging standards.

Keep up the good work. MinimServer is far superior to any rival as is your level of support and like others I would happily pay for it.

[bbrip]

(26-06-2012 09:12)simoncn Wrote:  So my suggestion is to use Orchestra for this tag rather than Ensemble. If you want to see it as Ensemble in your control point, a future release of MinimServer will give you a way to do this.

Hi Simon,
while it would of course be possible to tag ensembles other than orchestra in the Artist tag this would create some other inconsistancies. Let me take the example of an opera. Here you have a number of soloists, which in our Minim definition we would tag under "Artist", we would have one (or more) chorus(es), which I would prefer not to also submit to the "Artist" tag but put under "Ensemble", we have an Orchestra and a Conductor, which both go into the equally-named tags.

So I would agree with Wammer here, that really the *perfect* option would be what you described under option 2, ie that Minim supports both, Orchestra and Esemble tags and than feeds a string containing the following info to the Artist field if the control point:

"Artist(1), Artist(2), Artist(3), Artist(4), Ensemble(1), Ensemble(2), Orchestra, Conductor"

That would be just perfect

bbrip

NB: That of course could well mean, that if you dont have a soloist but just an Orchestra and a Conductor, the Artist tag stays blank, but if Minim feeds the "Orchestra, Conductor" string into the Artist field for control point purposes, that would not be an issue at all.

[simoncn]

(26-06-2012 18:37)bbrip Wrote:  while it would of course be possible to tag ensembles other than orchestra in the Artist tag this would create some other inconsistancies. Let me take the example of an opera. Here you have a number of soloists, which in our Minim definition we would tag under "Artist", we would have one (or more) chorus(es), which I would prefer not to also submit to the "Artist" tag but put under "Ensemble", we have an Orchestra and a Conductor, which both go into the equally-named tags.

So I would agree with Wammer here, that really the *perfect* option would be what you described under option 2, ie that Minim supports both, Orchestra and Esemble tags and than feeds a string containing the following info to the Artist field if the control point:

"Artist(1), Artist(2), Artist(3), Artist(4), Ensemble(1), Ensemble(2), Orchestra, Conductor"

That isn't what I described under option 2. I think it's too confusing to have two tags with such similar meanings. Option 2 is for MinimServer to support the Orchestra tag and allow the user to map it to Ensemble (or anything else) for display in the control point browse tree.

For the situation you described, you could use Artist for the choruses, although I realise this isn't your first preference. Alternatively, you could use some other tag such as "Ensemble", "Choir" or "Chorus", which would be displayed in the control point browse tree but wouldn't be added to the control point artist information.

Given the current lack of widely accepted standards or conventions for how this tagging of multiple performers should be done, I'd prefer to leave the MinimServer support for building the control point artist information as it is for now. This means that the control point artist information will be built from the Artist, Orchestra and Conductor tags, all of which have a reasonable amount of user adoption.

[Wammer]

(26-06-2012 22:50)simoncn Wrote:  

(26-06-2012 18:37)bbrip Wrote:  while it would of course be possible to tag ensembles other than orchestra in the Artist tag this would create some other inconsistancies. Let me take the example of an opera. Here you have a number of soloists, which in our Minim definition we would tag under "Artist", we would have one (or more) chorus(es), which I would prefer not to also submit to the "Artist" tag but put under "Ensemble", we have an Orchestra and a Conductor, which both go into the equally-named tags.

So I would agree with Wammer here, that really the *perfect* option would be what you described under option 2, ie that Minim supports both, Orchestra and Esemble tags and than feeds a string containing the following info to the Artist field if the control point:

"Artist(1), Artist(2), Artist(3), Artist(4), Ensemble(1), Ensemble(2), Orchestra, Conductor"

That isn't what I described under option 2. I think it's too confusing to have two tags with such similar meanings. Option 2 is for MinimServer to support the Orchestra tag and allow the user to map it to Ensemble (or anything else) for display in the control point browse tree.

For the situation you described, you could use Artist for the choruses, although I realise this isn't your first preference. Alternatively, you could use some other tag such as "Ensemble", "Choir" or "Chorus", which would be displayed in the control point browse tree but wouldn't be added to the control point artist information.

Given the current lack of widely accepted standards or conventions for how this tagging of multiple performers should be done, I'd prefer to leave the MinimServer support for building the control point artist information as it is for now. This means that the control point artist information will be built from the Artist, Orchestra and Conductor tags, all of which have a reasonable amount of user adoption.

Does the Orchestra tag accept multiple values? If so, a chorus could be entered as a second value. For me, as a big opera fan (like bbrip?) this would seem more natural. Indeed CDs often bracket them together e.g. ROH Orchestra & Chorus.

[simoncn]

(27-06-2012 07:25)Wammer Wrote:  Does the Orchestra tag accept multiple values? If so, a chorus could be entered as a second value. For me, as a big opera fan (like bbrip?) this would seem more natural. Indeed CDs often bracket them together e.g. ROH Orchestra & Chorus.

Yes, you can have any number of values for Orchestra (or Conductor), and MinimServer will combine them in the order that they appear in the tags, just as it does when there are multiple values for Artist.

[bbrip]

Hi Simon,

thats fine, I can live with your suggestion above.

[simoncn]

(27-06-2012 08:49)bbrip Wrote:  Hi Simon,

thats fine, I can live with your suggestion above.

Thanks! I'd like to revisit this in a few months when more people have got used to the MinimServer approach to tagging and indexing. In the meantime, I'm going to contact some content providers to see what their views are on how these kinds of combinations should be tagged. Most are currently putting everything together in a single Artist tag (presumably because this works best with current servers and control points). I've also seen a few uses of the Conductor tag.

One idea for the content provider discussions is that there could be a new set of tags that would sit alongside the current Artist tag but not replace it. MinimServer would use the new tags (if present) for indexing, and it would use the Artist tag for the control point artist information. The new tags would be things like Conductor, Orchestra, Choir, Chorus, Ensemble, Director, Leader, Performer, Accompanist, Soloist, etc., with consistent industry conventions for how the new tags are used. This approach would maintain compatibility with "legacy" servers and control points while enabling a new generation of servers and control points that provide better indexing and richer information.

What do people think about this approach?

[bbrip]

The general approach is fine. I woudl just consider whether yo urelly wnat to overwhelm them with a whole load of new tags to fill or keep it a bit more limited.

Personally, I see not necessarily a need for Accompanist, Leader, Director, Choir / Chorus (maybe one of the two). So if they agree to fill Conductor, Orchestra, Ensemble, Soloist that would be a huge step forward.

Good look with the studios / content providers

bbrip