[uf-discuss] Is Music dead? (I hope not!)

[Harry Dean Hudson Jr.]

On 6/29/06, Benjamin West <bewest at gmail.com> wrote:

>  For this, you essentially have attributable
> text, a melody composer, and then an arranger, all from very different
> time periods.  On top of this, you would have subsequent arrangements
> (a choir version vs a solo version) in addition to the performer or
> groups performing in addition to date and location of that specific
> performance.

Those are definitely valid concerns. Have you looked at the Vorbis
comments recommendation? They seem to have done a good job addressing
classical music, but I'd be curious to hear the opinion of an avid
listener. Here's a tagging example from the recommendation for a
classical piece:

LABEL=Deutsche Grammophon
COMPOSER=Gustav Mahler
CONDUCTOR=Herbert von Karajan
ENSEMBLE=Berliner Philharmoniker
PERFORMER=Liza don Getti (soprano)
PERFORMER=Joe Barr (piano)
OPUS=8
PART="movement 1. Allegreto"
TITLE="Symphony no. 4"
COMMENT=I was present when this recording was made; met my wife there.
COMMENT=The flautist ate a green pickle with a purple egg.

The whole recommendation can be found here:

http://reactor-core.org/ogg-tagging.html


I have a personal bias against ID3v2-- the frames are difficult to
parse so it's challenging to implement fully and correctly. In
addition, there are multiple versions, each with its own byzantine set
of frame tags. For example, ARTIST is TP1 in ID3v2.2.0 and TPE1 in
ID3v2.3.0 and ID3v2.4.0. More examples:

http://www.unixgods.org/~tilo/ID3/docs/ID3_comparison.html


> Anyway, a site to check out would be http://www.allmusic.com/ . For
> years, they've been publishing data /about/ music in every genre.

I'll definitely be sorting through allmusic.com. The Vorbis
recommendation seems like a pretty good place to start for track info
(which probably belongs in the media-info format), but doesn't do much
for Artist/Release information. One problem with examples in the wild
is that a lot of label and artist sites either have pretty terrible
mark-up or are done in inaccessible flash (present company included).
But that's what I'm here to try to fix. :)

eMusic (http://www.emusic.com) is another site with lots and lots of
published data.


Thanks for the feedback!

dean.