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[stanzani]

Ok, for us classical music enthusiasts (maybe 3% of the marketplace) life is sometimes harder than the rest of you so I am lookng for advice about tagging.

Tags do not have the concept of composition, opus number etc. so I am using the 'album' field to identify the composition (e.g. Goldberg variations BWV 988: please observe the opus number in embedded in the text field) and the field 'Name' to identify the movement or tany sub-item of the composition (e.g. XXXIII Quodlibet or I Allegro non troppo). For some pieces the two fields are the same (e.g. German Lieder out of a collection).

I am puzzled as soon as I rip two editions with the same Goldberg variation with different performer (e. Glenn Gould and Murray Perahia). They are filed in the same album cathegory. Even works they same the same album artwork
Even worse situation is for recital and compilations ...
I see that in most cases tags foresee the album and embed everything in the name (Composer+composution+movement)
Overall this methodology loses the concept of Album ...
I want to share with the other classical music enthusiasts my experience and get theirs.
I am ending up with
- keeping the same CD - od more CDs in cae of opera: operas works fine) in the same directory
- using the album field for composition and the name field for movements
- how do I manage almum+name with different performers?

thanks much

[BillT]

Classical music is relatively difficult, however it can be done, but you'll need to put a lot more effort into it than is needed for popular music.

The great thing with JRiver is you can define your own fields to suit your needs, so you could have one for catalogue number for instance, then you can define views using pretty well any combination of fields.

This has been discussed before, see the Wiki entry http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Tagging_Classical_Music which has links to some discussions on the subject.

[Arindelle]

yes this is a big subject no general consensus

for what its worth I'll summarize what I do

on a rip I create directories on composer then work name followed by conductor eg. Verdi\Aida [Mehta]  -- Aida [Mehta] becomes the Album title to separate versions (sometimes you need more than this)

I have distinct Classical Views based on Composer

I have the Composer duplicated as Album Artist ( to keep albums together without too much messing around

Most of the time the orchestra or ensemble is in the Artist (works better in remote views - but is duped in Orchestra fields

Multicomposer albums I put Various Composers in the Album Artist field; the physical media files are contained in a folder \Various Composers\

Soloists are in the Soloist field not in the Artist field generally -- very handy for Opera

I have created a custom field [Work] (usually this is contained in the track name so it can be split from within JRiver without typing everything in ) there are many reasons to do something like this or similar; some people have an additional field for Opus BMV type
numbering etc. In this way you have movement as the name (or aria or what have you) can search, compare just by work. 

I use Period, Genre, and Style in my views to further break things down Like Romantic, Orchestral, Concerto etc.

For multi-discs sets or works i keep the original cds separated. eg. Beethoven Symphonies [Solti]\CD1\ ... for operas I retag the track nos to be sequential (these are not written to disc tho, so you can always go back if needed, check the field properties in JR options for whether it writes or not to the file. so instead of have tracks 1-20 for 3 cds I'll have 1-60.

I add the conductor  in Brackets (sometimes you might need conductor plus original date like for Maria Callas Norma wher you can have same orchestra, conduct and orchestra) after the Album name to separate things

I do recommend keeping the Album Title as is though just adding needed info in brackets or parethesese to delineate different versions (like I do for Conductor here's an example Bellini: Norma [Serafin-1954] or Schubert: String Quartets 14 & 13; Quatuors a Cordes [Quartetto Italiano]. This is good for web searching and there are two many albums with multiple compositions on them and you would be splitting the albums up all over the place otherwise.

Anyways, there is no ripping standard or really a general consensus. I would really recommend using metadata (tags) and views rather than messing around too much with directory names (also avoid long paths or you could run into problems with file lengths). Should you change your mind retaggging, adding fields moving performers from soloist to artist, etc. is much easier than changing file names and paths .. just be consistent.

anyway check the links that BillT indicated, there are lots of ways that people handle -- this it really depends on the size of your collection IMO -- and of course how you want to search and how much information you want to have at your fingertips.

Hope this helps

[stanzani]

do you use 'Director' or 'Conductor' for orchestra director? what is the difference? are they special tags or standard tags (whatever tag are standardized?)

thanks

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Since JRiver is geared to many media types, including audio and video, I believe the director field was aimed at movies, while conductor and orchestra were aimed at classical music.  But, you can use each field as you see fit, as long as you do it consistently.

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Ok, for us classical music enthusiasts (maybe 3% of the marketplace) life is sometimes harder than the rest of you so I am lookng for advice about tagging.

Tags do not have the concept of composition, opus number etc. so I am using the 'album' field to identify the composition (e.g. Goldberg variations BWV 988: please observe the opus number in embedded in the text field) and the field 'Name' to identify the movement or tany sub-item of the composition (e.g. XXXIII Quodlibet or I Allegro non troppo). For some pieces the two fields are the same (e.g. German Lieder out of a collection).

I am puzzled as soon as I rip two editions with the same Goldberg variation with different performer (e. Glenn Gould and Murray Perahia). They are filed in the same album cathegory. Even works they same the same album artwork
Even worse situation is for recital and compilations ...
I see that in most cases tags foresee the album and embed everything in the name (Composer+composution+movement)
Overall this methodology loses the concept of Album ...
I want to share with the other classical music enthusiasts my experience and get theirs.
I am ending up with
- keeping the same CD - od more CDs in cae of opera: operas works fine) in the same directory
- using the album field for composition and the name field for movements
- how do I manage almum+name with different performers?

thanks much

First, I assume you have looked at the other recent thread here on this:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=103370.0

There are some good ideas there.

What I do with Album name is to make it consistently a quick summary of what is on the album.  Ergo, our Album field might look like this:

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 15 (Haitink + Concertgebouw)
 or
Mozart: Complete Piano Sonatas (Gould)
 or
Stile Antico: Music for Compline

That last one is a collection by the ensemble Stile Antico of works by many different composers.  So, we think it best to do that type of album by artist name and album title.  But, of course, each track in the album is still tagged with composer, composition, etc.  Also, generally, all discs from a multi-disc album will receive the identical Album tag, so that it will always show as one single album, whereas disc authors sometimes generate different album names for successive discs in an album.  The disc # tag will keep them in order, though that is not always supplied by the disc authors. Grrr!

Yes, this  Album tagging scheme duplicates in summary some of the separate values in separate tag fields.  But, it gives a quick synopsis in the album name displayed beneath the thumbnails in most standard JRiver or JRemote views for ease in picking the version to play.  I can always easily drill down to the field by field tags for more detail about a particular album or track.  I still maintain separate tag fields for composer, composition(custom field) including opus number, orchestra, artist(s), and many more track by track.

I almost never search by that Album field.  I just use it as a quick summary descriptor for display purposes  and to keep multi-disc albums together.

I do not see much point in a separate Opus tag.  We just combine that in the Composition field with the title of the work.  I never have and I do not envision ever searching specifically by Opus Number, Koechel or BWV Number, etc.  One can get carried away with too much tagging detail in too many separate fields well beyond their usefulness in searching and selection.  One can always resort to a Boolean text search if needed on rare occasions.

Incidentally, we use always the JRiver Name tag  as the the movement title for the track.  Or, if it is a one movement work, a repeat of the Composition field.  Disc authors are often accommodating in providing this Name tag value track by track as part of the standard metadata as ripped.

I have in almost all cases overwritten via the above consistent scheme the Album tag value originally generated by the rip as supplied by the disc author.  However, that original album title as ripped is still the media file folder name and it can be viewed in the file link field tag in the library.  But, those author-supplied album names are wildly inconsistent from author to author and disc to disc. 

Though I change the Album tag in the Library per the above, I almost never monkey with file folder names as ripped, unless they are duplicates, as sometimes occurs with remasterings of the same title.  In that case, I will insert a brief notation of the version in the file folder name and in the Album tag for ease of spotting it in selection.  But, I am not really much concerned about media file folder names or their sequence as long as they are unique for each album.

[MikeO]

The 2 replies cover most bases , the "design" is definitely a bit of trial and error but the joy of MC is the flexibility.

For info ...

My album name convention is Beethoven Symphony No 5 - Karajan 1963 etc much like Arindelle,
I keep Artist as a semi colon delimited list in the Artist Tag so they split out even though it means a bit of duplicated display in the Artist view
I use Orchestra, Conductor and Composer Tags as designed.
If an Album is Multi Artist, I set Album Artist Tag to Various Artist to force a grouping by the album
I thought Opus No was a built in Tag (or did I add it and can't remember)
I always set a rule for Views "[Path] contains Classical" to avoid clutter where Composer is set for a rock album

In multi disc albums that aren't set as Box Sets (eg Phillips DUO's) make sure the Disc # is set to 1,2 etc then use the Library tools Rename to rename the files to 101....121 prefix , 201 ... 220 etc. I find this useful in making sure the order is correct on my USB drive (see later) . I think its better than having to renumber tracks manually (Or can it be automated)

I have a couple of extras that may be of interest

MC Allows Custom Tags - I have 3 related ones Box Set>Disc Volume>Disc Name and the other is Work

Think of the biggy sets like the Beethoven Edition (87 discs split into 20 volumes) , and you can set up Beethoven Edition>Volume 1 Symphonies>CD01 Symphony 1 & 2 etc

The Volume Tag is optional , if empty the view still works

The Album Name is Beethoven Edition throughout as is the Box Set tag, you can the set up a view in MC that show all box sets with an option to go to Volume (optional) or Disc
I have a lot of box sets and this makes it easier to navigate at the higher level

A typical Box Set normally would be Beethoven Symphonies - Karajan - 1963 so that all Beethoven Symphony sets group together in views

The other one is Work (as Arindelle mentioned). I split Genre into biggish chunks (maybe consider the "olde Grampophone" subdivisions Orchestral, Concertos, Symphonies ....)

I now label each copy of the work say Beethoven Symphony No 5 (all movements the same Work name)  making sure the spelling is identical!

You can now set up a view which is Composer>Genre>Work>Artist and you can hence navigate to Beethoven Symphony No 5 and see all the recording in the library as a screen. Its a bit of work but I think it works for me.

One other is to define 2 views Composers (Major), Composers (All) this helps keep the odds and sods of single track wonders by "unknown" composers out of the navigation when you are rushing off to Bach or whatever.

I don't find Genre too helpful , I tend to Navigate by Composer and then Box Set or Album

Disc structure is almost irrelevant with MC , I have mine set up Classical\B\Beethoven\Beethoven Symphony No 5 - Karajan\...tracks... ( I use a Cambridge CXN network streamer with the disc as USB External these days (long story)   so this fits for this duty)

Finally I did look at Musichi but I found it overly complex, MC takes a bit of learning but I think is easier in the long run. As ever the best advice is to choose ONE and learn it rather than dot around

Hope This helps

Mike

[sKiZo]

Something I came up with for all the recent remaster collections. I HIGHLY recommend purchasing these as they're leaps and bounds above a lot of what you can find when it comes to sound quality. Also a quick and easy way for the classical newbie to not only get their feet wet, but also paddle around the pool a bit with relatively little effort.

(I'll probably get stoned for this, as it follows no standard convention, but I'm not looking for portability - just personal ease of use.)

Step one ... organize by classical by composer. That's pretty much a standard, but as mentioned, can get a bit unwieldy when it comes to navigation. From there I create sub sets based on collections. Adding a generic comment tag to sort them all out works pretty slick ...



Where I go off the reservation is trashing all the ridiculous tags used. No track name or album title needs to be truncated at 256 characters because the engineer felt it necessary to include the artists favorite color. I also replaced all the generic album covers used with pics of the composers stored in a collection folder just for that.

The NBC Toscanini collection is a good example of what happens next. Once ripped to the HTPC, I just renamed the CDs by their number. I'll never see them in the Windows Explorer again anyway, right? I left the track names as is and just edited those for clarity in the MC tags.



This title also has multiple compositions and composers - MC breaks those down nicely for easy selection, and displays the edited tag names. If I want more info on the title, I can pull up the tag window.



Of course, all this is also still available in the generic "classical by composer" view if you're looking to dig around for the same composition done by various artists.



As I say, unconventional and certainly not in accordance with "standard", but hey ... that's what we got the Smithsonian for, right?  ;-}

PS ... I've since gone with a less angry Beethoven ... truth be told, that page scared the carp out of me every time I clicked it on ...<G>

[8139david]

I have three different views for classical music in jriver:
- by composer
- by soloist
- by an album's composer(s) - soloist(s), eg: Alkan, Liszt - Bertrand, Amoyel

On my hard-discs, folders correspond to album according to the schema:
Composer(s) - Work(s) - Year(s) - Interpret(s) - Filetype
Alkan, Liszt - Cello & Piano - 2001 - Bertrand, Amoyel - flac

[8139david]

View by Composer - Soloist

[stanzani]

Which field do you use for composition date, recording date and release date?