[mb-style] RFC: ClassicalReleaseArtistStyle

[Dave Smey]

On Mon, October 9, 2006 9:27 am, David Gibson said:

> However, I think we should be a bit more
> explicit with this notion of the Release being "about the
> performer/performance" versus "about the works" (maybe someone can
> think of better terms..) - that's pretty much the distinction we're
> trying to capture.
>
I think this is also pretty much the same as "emphasis on the performer." 
Both of these concepts are somewhat subjective and I've been lobbying
against them.

More subjective elements in whether performer credit seems appropriate:

- Whether one individual seems more important than others involved in the
recording.  This was the case in that Naxos violin recital you cited.  (It
seems logical that the violinist "deserves" credit more than the
accompanist, esp. considering the repertoire she[?] was playing.)

- (Plus I also know that Naxos really never emphasizes the performer more
than that and would feel license to read deeper into the cover design.)

- Whether the performer one would like to credit has a lot of other
credits, or is a "star."

Rather than trying to explain it all and determine every scenario, maybe
we could just relax and go with a bare bones definition (right now it is
all in the verb "features"), with the knowledge that crediting to the
performer vs. crediting to VariousArtists is a relatively trivial choice
that is not worth worrying about?  If people credit too many VA discs to
performers it will not really be a problem, I don't think.

(If they start removing composer credits and moving them to performers,
that's different, of course.)

> I like the term 'Classical "Covers"'.  We should perhaps add some
> clarification (and/or examples), to exclude this approach for
> "everyday" arrangements or orchestrations by people who may or may not
> also be conducting or performing the work in question.  Again we have
> a fuzzy line of whether the "cover"ing is sufficient to make the
> Release "about the arranger/orchestrator/narrator/remixer" or "about
> the work" but tweaked to a particular format.  There will be some
> tough border cases of course (the Mozart arrangement of Handel's
> Messiah...?).
>
Yes, these are two good distinctions and we might as well include
guidelines for how to credit them, and how they are not "covers."

Some trial language:

"In the above examples [of Classical "Covers"] the artists consistently
transform works into their own style.  However, Classical performers also
occasionally arrange a work so that they may perform it in a
straightforward manner alongside other works that have not been arranged. 
An example would be

[Composer's] [Piece] from [Album (feat. Performer)].  Here one would
credit [Composer] as the TrackArtist and indicate [Performer's]
arrangement with an ArrangerRelationshipType.

Also, when one composer has arranged a work by another, one would use the
same plan:

J.S. Bach's Fuga (Ricercata) a 6 voci (from 'The Musical Offering') as
arranged by Anton Webern would be entered with Bach as the TrackArtist,
and connected to Webern via the ArrangerRelationshipType.

So and so's arrangement of the tune "Blah" would be entered with [trad.]
as the TrackArtist and connected to So-and-so via the
ArrangerRelationshipType."

[end sample text]

!!! In the composer-arranging-composer case, that is just what I do, and I
think it makes sense, but I guess we should discuss.  The alternatives
seem to be to credit co-composers (for instance "Johann Sebastian Bach &
Charles Guonod" which is already in the database) or to put (arr. Webern)
in the title.  Neither are as good IMO. !!!

> I'm not sure what MB wiki etiquette is about editing things.  I was
> thinking about altering the current draft to fold the collection of
> examples from the bottom (all from an earlier mail of mine, I think)
> into the text of the individual categories and removing duplicates.
>
I'm not too sure, myself, but the impression I'm getting is you can just
jump in, and we just have to play nice with each other. I would discourage
you from folding too many examples in, though.  We want to rules to look
as simple and clear as possible.

Especially, the positive and negative examples should be very strongly
representative of some case, and not in-between or fuzzy.  Also, they
should already be edited the way we would want (I rejected Kathleen Ferrer
on these grounds.  Instead I edited Horowitz on the test server and linked
to that for the time being.)  I'm still trying to come up with a group
example that is more tasteful than Kronos Quartet, incidentally.

> Ideally it would be nice to have both 3-4 examples (cases where this
> approach applies) and another 3-4 counter-examples (cases where it
> doesn't) for each of the categories.
>
Yeah, I think that's too much.  2-3 positive, 1 negative, IMO.

Cheers,
-bklynd