Maxing out Muso. Period.
Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 7:26 pm
I am in the process of adding the final (? ) piece of functionality to my "Classical Extras" plugin for MusicBrainz Picard. This will cover genres, instruments, keys, work dates and periods. All of this data pretty much maxes out the Muso import fields, but there are just enough, I think. I hope the result will demonstrate the combined capabilities of MusicBrainz + Muso in providing the best metadata/library system on the planet for digital classical music collections I'll post here when it's done.
One area where I would appreciate some input is around classical music periods. Muso already has a pretty good way of dealing with these by matching the composer birth (+20) and death dates to the specified periods. What "Classical Extras" will do is to add a degree of additional precision by using the date of the composition, if available, as well as providing an explicit file tag for "period". Otherwise I want it to match the Muso behaviour. The plugin imports all the relevant data from the Reference.xml file, so that should be possible. However, the wiki describes the matching process thus:
"it matches their "productive" years - 20 to death - to an editable list of periods"
Clearly this might produce an overlapping situation, which can be viewed by selecting the hierarchy "Classical Period -> Composer". Given this, with, say, Beethoven (1770-1827), I would expect him to appear in "Classical (1750-1820)" and "Early Romantic (1820-1850)". However, he also appears in "Late Romantic (1850-1910)". This seems to be because I have an album of his music which also contains music by Dvorak. However, I have other albums with Beethoven and other composers which don't have this effect. The difference seems to be whether both composers are titled artists. I am assuming that with my custom "period" tag, everything will operate at a track level, so that this effect will not occur.
I will also post a "feature request" re custom fields and hierarchies, as there seem to be some inconsistencies and quirks.
One area where I would appreciate some input is around classical music periods. Muso already has a pretty good way of dealing with these by matching the composer birth (+20) and death dates to the specified periods. What "Classical Extras" will do is to add a degree of additional precision by using the date of the composition, if available, as well as providing an explicit file tag for "period". Otherwise I want it to match the Muso behaviour. The plugin imports all the relevant data from the Reference.xml file, so that should be possible. However, the wiki describes the matching process thus:
"it matches their "productive" years - 20 to death - to an editable list of periods"
Clearly this might produce an overlapping situation, which can be viewed by selecting the hierarchy "Classical Period -> Composer". Given this, with, say, Beethoven (1770-1827), I would expect him to appear in "Classical (1750-1820)" and "Early Romantic (1820-1850)". However, he also appears in "Late Romantic (1850-1910)". This seems to be because I have an album of his music which also contains music by Dvorak. However, I have other albums with Beethoven and other composers which don't have this effect. The difference seems to be whether both composers are titled artists. I am assuming that with my custom "period" tag, everything will operate at a track level, so that this effect will not occur.
I will also post a "feature request" re custom fields and hierarchies, as there seem to be some inconsistencies and quirks.