Post by Paul C. BryanDisclaimer: I'm a relative newcomer to classical and opera styles within
MusicBrainz.
I'm glad to see you here :)
Post by Paul C. BryanI guess my first question is, if I were to happen to purchase this
release, and put it on my MP3 player, would I have enough context when I
see "93. Chori: Wahrlich, dieser ist Gottes Sohn gewesen" to know this
is from Bach's St. Matthew Passion? Would I know especially if I was new
to the work?
I wouldn't be sure about this either, but I could make a fair guess as I
know the SMP some, or I could check the album title.
But why do you need to get this from the track titles? Don't MP3 players
show information about the album? When I started with MusicBrainz I
thought I needed this from track titles as well, but experience has
shown me I don't.
More important: track titles are not and will not be a substitute for
other resources, possibly online.
Post by Paul C. BryanAs a relative newcomer, one of the reasons I have embraced
ClassicalStyleGuideline and OperaTrackStyle is the fact that most music
players are braindead when it comes to displaying useful information
about the track they're playing, and MusicBrainz has (intentionally or
inadvertently) addressed this with its current style guidelines.
The useful part I left out would be "Matthew Passion, BWV 244: Part II,
LXIIIb."
(Note 1: The booklet does not include LXIIIb etc. - though the recording
splits the tracks at the right borders according the text for LXIII and
others.
Note 2: AFAICS from googling, it's only we at MB who use LXIIIb, others
use 63b. This should be taken as a strong hint that we're doing
something wrong.
Note 3: The director, who is a Bach scholar, calls it "Matthew Passion",
not "St. Matthew Passion", so I won't go against his wishes. If I am not
voted down, you will not see "St. Matt..." in ReleaseTitles or
TrackTitles for this one.)
In a normal listening context the LXIIIb is not much interesting, IMO:
In the 161 minutes this release lasts, titles fly by, and you're better
off concentrating on the music and the text, and the LXIIIb is only
distracting. (And if you have the text, you don't need this information.)
I'd say my shorter title provides a reasonable default suited for
listening. It is dead easy to find the dissecting numbers 244 and 63b if
you need them (and most people don't).
Post by Paul C. BryanI guess my second question is, should MusicBrainz be trying to
compensate for crappy music players,
No.
That being said, it surely would be a positive benefit if MB tags showed
up well even on crappy players. If you have little screen real estate,
perhaps the title is scrolling or something, then for a 9 seconds long
track like
Matthew Passion, BWV 244: Part II, LVIIIc. "Desgleichen auch die
Hohenpriester" (Evangelista)
you might not even get to see all of the title. Surely this is not
helping anyone, or?
Post by Paul C. Bryandecently normalized data structure that can be adapted to braindead
music players through tagging software? I personally think the latter.
I don't believe the dumb-my-classical picard plugin will ever be made.
The space of existing classical titles is so diverse that you'll have a
hard job making it useful for anything else but the most common structures.
Post by Paul C. BryanMaybe works could help get us out of such a debate to some extent if we
could begin to attach information to the work, and leave the redundant
information out of the individual movements or arias. If that's not
currently in the works, then it's something I'd certainly support seeing
in the future.
As I understand it, we're getting there, and this would then allow for
the tagger to pick titles from the WorksLists in stead of the Release
TrackTitles.
(In parentheses: I would be surprised if we do not find it rather
cumbersome, as e.g. opera tracks are split up in different ways and this
would possibly result in the need for multiple representations of one
work. How should these be connected? What about different versions of
the same work?
I'm also guessing that in reality it will be less useful for end users
than the premises for recent discussions seems have it. But let's hope
I'm wrong :)
Post by Paul C. BryanHowever, until we have a more robust data structure to store such
information, my vote would be on supporting the ClassicalStyleGuideline
and OperaTrackStyle, even if it results in increasing the size of track
titles.
BTW, personally when I am tagging a release that exclusively
encapsulates an artist's classical/opera work, I tend to remove the
redundant information from my own track title tags, because my music
player is not braindead and I don't want to see the redundant
information during playback.
This makes me more curious as to why you think it is necessary to have
all the extra bits in the track titles...
Post by Paul C. BryanDisclaimer: The words of the writer above is from a relative newcomer to
classical and opera tagging in MusicBrainz. Pregnant women, the elderly,
and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to his opinions.
This newcomer may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds. Do not taunt
this newcomer.
I hope I am not :)
Leiv