Tagging multiple artists and instruments
Posted: Sat Mar 30, 2013 12:06 pm
I'd welcome thoughts from users with classical / jazz / other multi-artist albums (and our friendly developer) on the best way to tag multiple artists and instruments and for Muso to display them. This may or may not result in a feature request, but at least will help with the wiki page I am doing on classical music tagging.
What I have been doing is arguably inconsistent, because it has evolved rather than been thought through fully. Initially, for solo artists (e.g. piano sonatas) I would put the artist name in the artist tag and the instrument in a custom "Instrument" tag. Similarly for concertos, I would use this tagging for the soloist and put the Orchestra and Conductor in the Band and Conductor tags. Simple. This enabled Muso to find (say) all piano music.
For tracks featuring a number of artists (e.g. opera) I would put the names of the artist in the Performer tag followed by the instrument/voice in brackets, with multiple artists separated by semi-colons.
This put me in a slight quandary for quartets, but I plumped for putting the quartet in as the Band with the members in the Performer tag and their instruments in brackets.
However for Duets I have basically doubled up the soloist approach - i.e. the performers in the Artist tag (separated by ";") and their instruments in the same order in the Instrument tag. Usually there is no band name.
So now I have some artists who are listed as Artist, but also (on other albums) as Performer (with their instrument). Also, because of the way I have tagged, Muso screen shows the instrument for "Performer" but not for "Artist". Furthermore, quartets and Performers only ever appear as "supporting artists", even if there is a blank Artist tag: if there is no Artist tag, Muso, in classical mode, treats the composer as the Artist. There are a number of ways this could be fixed, but I am not sure what is best:
1. To put the Instrument after the Artist name (in brackets). I can do this using an import action, but it doesn't work for Duets, so I would have to recode Duets either
(a) with both artists (and their instruments) in the Artist tag separated with ";" or
(b) in the Performer tag like Quartets, but without a band name, and the composer would take over as Artist.
Maybe there would be another way if Muso had a field for Instrument, as opposed to it being a custom tag.
2. Put the Band in the Artist tag if there is no main performer either
(a) manually or
(b) for Muso to do this automatically (I can't think how to do this with an import action).
Comments please on the merits of these and other approaches.
What I have been doing is arguably inconsistent, because it has evolved rather than been thought through fully. Initially, for solo artists (e.g. piano sonatas) I would put the artist name in the artist tag and the instrument in a custom "Instrument" tag. Similarly for concertos, I would use this tagging for the soloist and put the Orchestra and Conductor in the Band and Conductor tags. Simple. This enabled Muso to find (say) all piano music.
For tracks featuring a number of artists (e.g. opera) I would put the names of the artist in the Performer tag followed by the instrument/voice in brackets, with multiple artists separated by semi-colons.
This put me in a slight quandary for quartets, but I plumped for putting the quartet in as the Band with the members in the Performer tag and their instruments in brackets.
However for Duets I have basically doubled up the soloist approach - i.e. the performers in the Artist tag (separated by ";") and their instruments in the same order in the Instrument tag. Usually there is no band name.
So now I have some artists who are listed as Artist, but also (on other albums) as Performer (with their instrument). Also, because of the way I have tagged, Muso screen shows the instrument for "Performer" but not for "Artist". Furthermore, quartets and Performers only ever appear as "supporting artists", even if there is a blank Artist tag: if there is no Artist tag, Muso, in classical mode, treats the composer as the Artist. There are a number of ways this could be fixed, but I am not sure what is best:
1. To put the Instrument after the Artist name (in brackets). I can do this using an import action, but it doesn't work for Duets, so I would have to recode Duets either
(a) with both artists (and their instruments) in the Artist tag separated with ";" or
(b) in the Performer tag like Quartets, but without a band name, and the composer would take over as Artist.
Maybe there would be another way if Muso had a field for Instrument, as opposed to it being a custom tag.
2. Put the Band in the Artist tag if there is no main performer either
(a) manually or
(b) for Muso to do this automatically (I can't think how to do this with an import action).
Comments please on the merits of these and other approaches.