Adding Composer to the Music DB

[GoldenEye]

Started on: 2007-02-18
Last update: 2007-02-18

Summary:

I am a happy user of MP and use the music module regularly for listening to my classical music collection. There is an issue with this: When listening to classical music, one concentrates on the composer rather than the artist. Unfortunately, the composer tag is not read by MP's tag reader. If MP was able to store the composer to the DB, this would add an awesome value to the product.

Description:

Enhance the tag reader so that it reads the composer tag and adds it to the music database.

Thanks for considering this enhancement feature

G.

[Joche]

I second this request so now we are two who wants it, almost a revolution or atleast a folk storm.

Originally Posted by GoldenEye

Started on: 2007-02-18
Last update: 2007-02-18

Summary:

I am a happy user of MP and use the music module regularly for listening to my classical music collection. There is an issue with this: When listening to classical music, one concentrates on the composer rather than the artist. Unfortunately, the composer tag is not read by MP's tag reader. If MP was able to store the composer to the DB, this would add an awesome value to the product.

Description:

Enhance the tag reader so that it reads the composer tag and adds it to the music database.

Thanks for considering this enhancement feature

G.

[rsbrux]

Yes, please!

[bassio]

Count me in too!!

And it will be great to have the ability to add composer pics to the database along so we can browse by composer (with the pics)

[MacMini]

Composer, or what MS calls "Artist."

It is rare, but MS does have some good ideas. By having "Artist" and "Album Artist" you can assign, for instance:

Artist: Bach
Abum Artist: Glenn Gould

or

Artist: Bach
Album Artist: Suske

(and of course:
Artist: Bush
Album Artist: Bush)

Then you can sort by artist to see each composer's works together, or by album artist to see it all grouped by the performer.

Same result, but a bit more versatile and more practical, than just a "Composer" field. Obviously, the composer in pop music is not all that significant to most users, and adding the several composers who are listed on that Bush album, and the hundreds of other composers from all your other pop albums, would make searching for Bach a much more difficult task.

This is why I think Artist/Album artist is a better idea.

[rsbrux]

Sorry, MacMini, but your interpretation of these tags doesn't agree with conventional usage. The "Artist" tag is used to store the performer, not the composer. That this was the MS intention can be inferred from the way they rendered it in German: "Interpret". This information can also be important to the classical music fan, and is not necessarily the same as "Album Artist". Consider a compilation CD containing a Mozart aria sung by Anna Nettrebko.
The MP3 tags include a separate "Composer" tag. Unfortunately, few of the HTPC or MP3-player solutions pay any attention to it. The only one I know of that does is JRiver's Media Center. I chose MP over JRiver mainly because JRiver had a very limited 10' interface ("Theater View") when I performed my evaluation.

[GoldenEye]

I agree with you, rsbrux.

However, I have given up hope that the sortware industry willl solve our issue in their mediaplayer applications (we're not talking solely about a MediaPortal issue). And if they solved the problem, there are many following issues, e.g. how would we create consistent views in MediaPortal without creating specific classical views (I don't own only classical music but also Jazz, Pop, Rock etc.)?

Therefore, I have recently decided to re-tag my classical music collection. I have found the following guidelines which I will follow: http://musicbrainz.org/doc/ClassicalStyleGuide. This seems to be a resonable way to do it.

G.

[rsbrux]

Hi G,
Thanks for the link. While I can't subscribe to all of it, there are some good ideas in it. At least, it would solve my current problem of being confronted with long lists of "Adagio", "Allegro" and "Andante" in the title view.
R.

[MacMini]

Originally Posted by rsbrux

Sorry, MacMini, but your interpretation of these tags doesn't agree with conventional usage. The "Artist" tag is used to store the performer, not the composer....

Fine, so reverse the order. But the larger point is still valid.

Face it: you are not going to get a main menu composer tag, simply because popular music cares less about composers, that performers. Few people care deeply who was the composer of Genie In A Bottle by Christina Aguilera.

At the same time, composers are obviously important in classical music. But since often various composers of pop music are listed in the tags, if you have a mixed collection (and most do,) then sorting by "Composer" is going to be a total mess, because all too often in pop every other song is by a different composer.

So, having categories for both "Artist" and "Album Artist" is good, because if you use your imagination, you can assign one of these two to the Composer and the other to the Performer. Then you can sort either by albums of music composed by Mozart, or by albums of music sung by Netrebko. And for most of your pop music, the two categories would be the same.

It may not fit perfectly in established convention, but it works.

[rsbrux]

MacMini,
For lack of anything better, I have indeed adopted a "hybrid" solution, along the lines you suggest. Generally, if a classical album is dedicated to one composer, I put the composer's name in both the "Artist" and "Album Artist" tags. Only if the album contains material by different composers but is all by the same performer do I put the performer's name in the artist tags. For "composer" albums, I keep the soloist, choir and orchestra information in the comment tag at present. If I had a displayable composer tag, I wouldn't bother filling it for pop music, so it would be easy to filter it out to list music by composer.