Tagging classical music

[Alpina_Lux]

(11-04-2014 15:21)DavidHB Wrote:  Leaving aside Simon's suggestion that the quoted text in Alpina_Lux's long posts be replaced with links (a suggestion with which I very much agree), there are points to be made about the material itself, which seems to me to sit uncomfortably with much of what has said elsewhere in this thread.

I have converted the posts into links, even though - as stated in my previous post - I don't agree with the claim that this makes it any easier. I think we should have more confidence in the attention span of the readers on this forum.

(11-04-2014 15:21)DavidHB Wrote:  Firstly, while I cannot claim to have absorbed completely all the material in these very long posts, its very length and obvious complexity creates the danger that beginners will be put off the whole tagging process. I have already argued that we should not allow tagging schemes to become over complex, or routinely enter data that will not be used either in the browsing process or displayed by the control point. Those points seem relevant here.

Why would this forum or thread be aimed at beginners? And why would beginners be put off by explaining the intricacies that may be inherent to the tagging process? In my view the forum is about an open discussion in relation to these things, and not excluding something simply because it takes a bit longer to read and absorb.

Also, please read the information I posted in its context: MusiCHI is a program that automatises tagging to a large extent, which is supposed to make it very easy to tag a large amount of files. The blog-posts were aimed (at least that is my understanding) at illustrating on how to approach tagging and what the pitfalls but also opportunities are in it. No ones is obviously obliged to agree with that.

The whole point of the blog-posts were that all the metadata can indeed be used in the browsing process, and serves at being able to get around in a very large music library.

(11-04-2014 15:21)DavidHB Wrote:  Second, the use of the word 'Zen' in the titles of the quoted material suggests that there is some sort of 'perfect' or ultimate tagging scheme. Along with others who have posted here, I just do not believe that this is the case. I hope that much of the value of this hobby, for others as it has been for me, lies in finding new ways of exploring one's music collection; that implies that tagging schemes may evolve over time, and there are many enjoyable paths one can follow. Maybe aiming from the outset for a complex, quasi-academic 'Zen' scheme suits some people; if so, well and good. But others who have posted here have made it clear that this is not the only way to go.

I think you over-interpret the title. If you care to read through all the material, it is written in a rather light tone including quite a few jokes throughout it. They simply wanted a catchy title for their posts - and create a connection to the term "chi" in their product name.

I haven't found any claim in the whole blog-posts that their way is the only way. It is simply a write-up of their experience with this process, and explanations how certain problems with computer audio can be solved. Insinuating that somehow they claim a Sauron throne in the field of classical music tagging is I think unwarranted.

(11-04-2014 15:21)DavidHB Wrote:  Thirdly, what we have come to call (for want of a better term) 'classical' music resolutely defies the kind of tightly drawn system of classification outlined in the quoted material, which is based (perhaps unsurprisingly, given its origins) on the received canon of German and German-influenced music from, say, 1770 to 1940. For different reasons, many other strands of the classical repertoire (think Buxtehude, Chopin or Villa-Lobos) fit uncomfortably or not at all into that scheme. When it comes to tagging schemes, systems of categorisation and sub-categorisation are perhaps better avoided, especially by new users of networked music systems.

I cannot see that at all in those blog-posts. Where did you get that impression from?

Undoubtetly much of what a majority would consider the core of classical music is probably of germanophone origin, but what does this have to do with the tagging process? Chopin was even quoted in the blog-post as an example, as well as several French and Russian examples. The tagging advice given in there applies to all kinds of classical music, whatever its origin or time. Of course you have to adapt the tagging scheme to each composer (and an example of that was given in the posts - e.g. with some composers you have opus numbers, with others you don't), if you want to find their works in your collection again.

Also, the guy who actually created MusiCHI is French. So why this comment about "its origins"? I really think you're on a false trail here...

(11-04-2014 15:21)DavidHB Wrote:  Finally, the determined (and, dare one say, sniffily arrogant)

Oh come on, don't get personal...relax! No one's attacking you here, we're just discussing options and I don't see where you get that negative attitude from.

(11-04-2014 15:21)DavidHB Wrote:  ...rejection in the quoted material of the file system as a means of organising and accessing music files fails to take account of certain realities. The file system is always there; it is all that is available when metadata is not present. The file system has to be used to access files for metadata editing. And file and folder names are, in themselves, another form of metadata, albeit one that is somewhat differently entered and accessed from 'normal' metadata.

That is absolutely true. But we're talking about tagging and how the metadata created in the tagging process can help us with our music collections. The folder view might work with someone who has a hundred albums or so, beyond that - and this is what the blog-posts were discussing - it's almost entirely useless.

(11-04-2014 15:21)DavidHB Wrote:  Personally, I think that folder view is a very good way for beginners to access their music libraries, especially when folders are organised in a way with which the user is already familiar. If my own experience is anything to go by, users will tend to move away from folder view to more index-based browsing as more of their files are tagged. But we should not regard the file system and tagging/indexing as substitutes for each other; they are, of necessity, complementary.

David

In a first stage they are, I agree with you. But when you're one of those with a very large collection (in the thousands of CDs), I think that your time is much better invested in creating a good tagging system than trying to sort your CDs with the file structure. I believe that much is obvious.

[simoncn]

(11-04-2014 17:33)Alpina_Lux Wrote:  I don't agree with this, but it's obviously your forum so I will follow your request.

Thanks very much for doing this.

Quote:I believe the material copied in here was much easier to read than the blog which is - as a blog - more confusing and not ordered in any way (as there are also lots of other announcements pertaining to the MusiCHI software which have nothing to do with tagging classical music).

I agree with this, and this is why I suggested posting links to the relevant blog posts (as you have now done), rather than a link to the whole blog.

Quote:I simply wanted to be helpful by including something in this discussion which I believe worthwhile to consider.

This information is definitely helpful. Thanks very much for introducing it into this thread of discussion.

[simoncn]

I've read all the blog posts now. I enjoyed the first few posts more than the last few.

The first few posts had quirky humour combined with mostly good advice, with this exception: with MinimServer, you need to invert the recommended approach of having a single Artist and multiple Album Artists. I also felt the recommendations for Instrument and Genre tagging were unduly complex.

The last few posts maintained the quirky humour but seemed to go into esoteric and over-prescriptive territory, laying down a number of "rules" that appeared to represent one person's preferred (and very complicated) scheme for organising their own very large collection.

[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

[Dieter Stockert]

One word to the album tag: Downloading music instead of buying compact discs makes album more and more meaningless. And this is even the case with most classical compact discs, as long as the respective cd is not some kind of concert or musical 'program me' where the artist will show us different works in a special kind of comparison. What is important for most of classical cds is not album but work.

[gnomus]

As someone who is new to ripping/streaming, I hesitate to post. I am ripping my “contemporary” CDs first, whilst I think about how best to do the classical. I have a large number of classical CDs, and a substantial number of these are operas. I will often have a number of different versions of the same piece, including multiple versions of some operas with different conductors, or even the same conductor but from a different year.

The problems I anticipate are as follows:

1) I will make tagging mistakes. Therefore, it is important that I can find the files easily after ripping. It will be easier, therefore, if all of my Beethoven (to take one example) is in one subdirectory on the NAS.
2) When I browse my library on my tablet, I want to see all copies of the Beethoven Violin Concerto next to one another in the list. However, I don’t want to see all 5 versions of the 1st movement, followed by the 5 versions of the second movement and so on.
3) I want my Beethoven Piano Concertos to show me all the versions I have of Concerto 1, then Concerto 2, and so forth. Similarly for the sonatas.
4) When it comes to opera, I will have Act 1 and Act 2 in different folders even if on the same CD. Conversely, I will combine all tracks for an Act into one folder (even if split across 2 CDs).
5) Wagner’s Ring consists of 4 operas which are not in alphabetical order. I want each version of the Ring to appear together on the library list.
6) I want to be as future-proof and as idiot-proof as possible. I only want to have to do this once, and I don’t know what technology/software/hardware will be around in a few years’ time. (I think that means keeping things as simple as possible.)

So, to achieve this (I hope), my plan is:

A) Under “Album Artist”, I will put the name of the composer “Beethoven” (my Beethovens, Schuberts and so on should now be easy to locate on the NAS when it comes to repairing faulty tags.
B) If I have a CD with, say, the Beethoven and the Brahms Violin Concertos, I will split these into two “albums” with identical cover art.
C) Under “Artists”, I will put a list of the various artists appearing on the CD – singers and so forth (and probably the conductor).
D) Under “Album”, I hope to sort out the subdirectory issues by using the following naming scheme (I use a Bruckner Symphony as an example):

Bruckner - Symphony No. 5 (ed. Haas) [Celibidache; Münchner Philharmoniker - 1993]

This should list all of my versions of Bruckner Five together, then all of the Bruckner Sixes and so on.

E) For my Ring operas I will use the following scheme - making use of the WWV (equivalent to Opus) numbers:

Wagner WWV 86: Ring [19xx - Conductor; Venue] A: Rheingold
Wagner WWV 86: Ring [19xx - Conductor; Venue] B: Walküre – Act I (II and III)
Wagner WWV 86: Ring [19xx - Conductor; Venue] C: Siegfried – Act I (II and III)
Wagner WWV 86: Ring [19xx - Conductor; Venue] D: Götterdämmerung – Act I (II and III)

Again, all four parts of my 1956 Knappertsbusch Ring should appear on the Library list, followed by all four parts of my 1958 Knappertsbusch Ring, then all four parts of the 1970 Karajan Ring, and so on. Using the WWV numbers will have the advantage of keeping the other Wagner operas in approximate date order, so:

Wagner WWV 111: Parsifal [1990 - Schneider; Bayreuth] - Act III

I think this should work. But I am, however, a beginner and I would appreciate any pointers. Am I making it too complex or too simple? Is there a better way of achieving what I want to achieve? Certainly, if I'm making a big mistake with my thinking, I would prefer someone point it out to me now, rather than half-way through the rip!

Apologies once again for making such a lengthy post.

[simoncn]

(13-04-2014 15:52)gnomus Wrote:  I think this should work. But I am, however, a beginner and I would appreciate any pointers. Am I making it too complex or too simple? Is there a better way of achieving what I want to achieve? Certainly, if I'm making a big mistake with my thinking, I would prefer someone point it out to me now, rather than half-way through the rip!

In general this seems OK, assuming you are happy to have no connection between the works that originally constituted a single album.

However, I would question your decision to use AlbumArtist to represent the composer. I think this is likely to cause unexpected results with some control points and servers. If there some reason why you don't want to tag the composer using the Composer tag?

[gnomus]

(14-04-2014 10:23)simoncn Wrote:  

(13-04-2014 15:52)gnomus Wrote:  I think this should work. But I am, however, a beginner and I would appreciate any pointers. Am I making it too complex or too simple? Is there a better way of achieving what I want to achieve? Certainly, if I'm making a big mistake with my thinking, I would prefer someone point it out to me now, rather than half-way through the rip!

In general this seems OK, assuming you are happy to have no connection between the works that originally constituted a single album.

However, I would question your decision to use AlbumArtist to represent the composer. I think this is likely to cause unexpected results with some control points and servers. If there some reason why you don't want to tag the composer using the Composer tag?

I read something on an Internet site about doing that. I have ripped a few classical CDs to test my system and it seems to work OK with Sonos, Kinsky and now Bubble.

One advantage is that it is not unusual for pop and rock songs to have several composers, some named "[First Name], [Last Name]", some the other way around and some just by last name. As a result the Composers section gets very cluttered. I have been toying with removing all composers from the pop/rock stuff - this would give me a quick way then of finding my Classical music separate from the pop/rock. Do you know if this is an approach favoured by others?

The other thing with the AlbumArtist field, is if I populate this with, say, 5 or 6 artists then I will get messy folders in the "Artists" view in the Control Points I have tried. It seems best to limit this field to just one Artist.

I'd be interested to hear your counter-argument though, as it is not too late for me to rethink my approach.

[DavidHB]

(12-04-2014 21:20)Dieter Stockert Wrote:  One word to the album tag: Downloading music instead of buying compact discs makes album more and more meaningless. And this is even the case with most classical compact discs, as long as the respective cd is not some kind of concert or musical 'program me' where the artist will show us different works in a special kind of comparison. What is important for most of classical cds is not album but work.

+1 here.

That said, splitting or merging albums (as compared with ripping CDs or sets 'as is') involves, in my experience, a bit more work, and more often than not it is quite convenient to leave the album structure unchanged. There is also the fact that CDs one may have owned for decades can have an identity of their own, and those of us who grew up with LPs and then CDs on shelves may sometimes want to go back to something like the old way of doing things.

That will not be relevant to those who follow us, to whom, I agree, the concept of an 'album' may well become less important, especially with classical music. Even now, the familiar CD player-style transport controls used by the renderer no longer relate to the album as such, but to the playlist, and that change brings with it a significant change of mindset.

I often change album titles to reflect the contents (the works) more closely. And I always make sure that the folder name is the same as the tagged album title, so that if I find an error in my tagging, I can easily trace the offending file(s), because there is no mismatch between what I see in the control point and what is in the file system.

If I do split an album, I save the separate sections in separate album folders, so that the tagged album title and the relevant folder name still match.

The point for this thread is that, particularly with classical music, there will for most people be a need to think how the 'album' is to be divided and described in each instance. This is another of those cases where there is no one right answer; there will be an interaction with other tags (in particular track title, work/composition and composer). Users do also need to pay attention to the way in which Minimserver identifies particular albums from tag data, as described in the User Guide.

David

[simoncn]

(14-04-2014 11:57)gnomus Wrote:  I read something on an Internet site about doing that. I have ripped a few classical CDs to test my system and it seems to work OK with Sonos, Kinsky and now Bubble.

One advantage is that it is not unusual for pop and rock songs to have several composers, some named "[First Name], [Last Name]", some the other way around and some just by last name. As a result the Composers section gets very cluttered. I have been toying with removing all composers from the pop/rock stuff - this would give me a quick way then of finding my Classical music separate from the pop/rock. Do you know if this is an approach favoured by others?

The best way to separate your classical music from pop/rock is by using the Genre tag.

If you are sure you will never want to see any pop/rock composers or browse or search on them, it's OK to remove Composer tags from your pop/rock albums.

Many pop/rock albums are tagged with AlbumArtist, so you will run into a similar "clutter" problem if you use AlbumArtist for your classical composers.

Quote:The other thing with the AlbumArtist field, is if I populate this with, say, 5 or 6 artists then I will get messy folders in the "Artists" view in the Control Points I have tried. It seems best to limit this field to just one Artist.

WIth MinimServer, you need to limit AlbumArtist to a single value because MinimServer doesn't accept multiple values for AlbumArtist. There is no problem with using multiple values for Artist.

Quote:I'd be interested to hear your counter-argument though, as it is not too late for me to rethink my approach.

Some control points and servers are able to display composer information if the Composer tag has been used. In future, I expect this to become a more widespread practice.

Some control points and servers (including MinimServer) conflate AlbumArtist and Artist tags for indexing and/or display purposes. If the AlbumArtist tag has been used for composer information, this is likely to produce confusing results.