[mb-style] Setting Classical Release Artists to Performers

[Frederic Da Vitoria]

On Feb 12, 2008 9:34 PM, Aaron Cooper <cooperaa at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12-Feb-08, at 11:28 AM, Frederic Da Vitoria wrote:
> > I was foll of work these last weeks, do I am late commenting here,
> > sorry.
>
> Welcome to the discussion!  :)
>
> > On Feb 4, 2008 4:53 AM, Aaron Cooper <cooperaa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I think this this is an independent issue. I'm relatively new here,
> > > but my
> > > understanding is that the (Orchestra feat. conductor: X, piano: Y)
> > > notation
> > > arose out of time when there was no AR capability in the database,
> > the
> > > taggers were less good at moving data from the database into tags,
> > > and many
> > > players couldn't read tags and used only what were in the
> > > ReleaseArtist,
> > > ReleaseTitle, and TrackTitle fields.  All three limitations have
> > > eased. I
> > > don't see that changing ReleaseArtist is a precondition for removing
> > > this
> > > notation.
> >
> > There is still desire to have the performer information in the release
> > title so people can search releases for performers.
> >
> > I agree. I think the browsing the database would be made much harder
> > without at least some performer info.
>
> I'm not proposing we drop performer info from release titles with this
> proposal, but I did mention it as something we could pursue if this
> proposal was put into effect.  Sorry for not making that clear.
>
> > > Aaron Cooper-3 wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> 4. Our composer pages will be less crowded
> > >>
> > >
> > > Yes, but our Soloist and Conductor pages will become more crowded,
> > > won't
> > > they?  And in an ideal world, the MB.org and a database full of ARs
> > > will
> > > have lengthy results for many artists, regardless of the value of
> > the
> > > ReleaseArtist field. If pages being "crowded" is a problem, perhaps
> > > a better
> > > solution is to redesign the search results page to deal with lots of
> > > results. We could add more useful list orderings, subheadings,
> > > refinement of
> > > search results, summaries of results, etc.
> >
> >
> > Composer pages will shrink (yay) and performer pages will grow, yes.
> > But that's the point.  Performers put out CDs like regular pop
> > artists, they just don't write the material (in most cases).
> >
> > I think I've said it before, but it will be a lot more manageable to
> > maintain discographies of 15 of your favourite performers than
> > maintain the discography of every Bach CD ever recorded ever in
> > history - ever.
> >
> > This is because you are reasoning in Composer VERSUS Performer. You
> > still are a slave to the old mp3 ARTIST field. All are important,
> > the composer and the performer and the recording engineer and the
> > place it was recorded, and even the date it was recorded (BTW, this
> > IMO would be almost more important than the performer, there is so
> > much difference between a 1930 performance and a 1980
> > performance...) Is there something preventing you from recovering
> > the discographies from the ARs?
>
> This proposal is about the Release Artist field (which is different to
> the Track Artist field).  To my knowledge, use of the Release Artist
> field is fairly new (at least in iTunes).  Separating Release- and
> Track-artists in MusicBrainz isn't even that old.  Performance ARs,
> like composition ARs, are very important and we should definitely be
> adding them but I don't think these are substitutes for Release and
> Track Artists.  We can say James Hetfield performed guitar on Master
> of Puppets in the form of an AR all we want but this doesn't tell us
> that the song was on a Metallica album.  Likewise, we can say
> Beethoven composed a sonata and Gould performed it, but this doesn't
> tell us whether the track appears on an album with 15 other
> performances by Gould or 15 other performances by the London
> Philharmonic.
>
> [snip]
>
> > > 3. The database has a ReleaseArtist field that needs some value.
> > > Between
> > > composer, conductor, orchestra, soloists, chorus directors,
> > > arrangers, and
> > > all the other artists who contribute to what appears in the audio
> > > signal in
> > > a track, for Classical Music and across the range of users and use
> > > cases, I
> > > think the most important single role is composer.  If you have to
> > > pick one,
> > > I'd pick the composer.
> >
> > I wouldn't, that's why I'm proposing this.  Bach had absolutely
> > *nothing* to do with releasing his music in 2006. There were a group
> > of performers who wanted to play them, so they released recordings.
> > We've come up with an objective/systematic way to determine who the
> > most important performer is.  I think it's logical to assume that
> > whoever performs on all tracks was probably the primary performer with
> > other featured performers filling in the gaps (you can't play a piano
> > concerto on your new CD without an orchestra).
> >
> > Nothing to do? If he hadn't composed it in the first place, the
> > release would be full of silence. The inheritors of recent composers
> > (Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev, Barber...) probably still get
> > something each time a CD of their ancestor is sold. The fact that
> > Bach or Mozart died so long ago that they can't control what is done
> > with their music has only legal and commercial consequences, not
> > artistic. So if we want to use this kind of considerations, please
> > use a contemporary composer. When a CD from a living composer is
> > released, does the composer have something to do with it?
>
> If a contemporary composer wrote the music for inclusion on an album
> of theirs, then it makes sense for them to be the release artist.  But
> old composers and probably many contemporary composers did not write
> music for 80-minute CDs.  It's different when a performer takes the
> compositions and puts them together on an album.  They are "releasing"
> material that may be by one or many composers.
>
> This isn't a crazy idea–we do it for releases where the tracks have
> different composers (rather than filing under VA).  I think this
> proposal is just an extension of our current guideline to designate
> performers as Release Artists in cases where the tracks have only one
> composer (assuming the composer did not release the material himself).
>

Actually, my last posts aren't really fair. My real problem is that I don't
like this idea. That's my gut feeling. I am used to MB sorting the releases
like all the CD stores I know of: by composer for most releases. I agree
this sorting has some bad points, but I am used to it.

When I try to find rational reasons, I can't find any. But (as I often
stated), I rationally always come to this conclusion: the problem is the
ReleaseArtist. There is no such thing as a ReleaseArtist in classical. Even
in other domains. The fact that releases have to be sorted in some order
induced stores to choose something to implement this order. In non
classical, it is often the performer, in classical, it is often the
composer. But this is only a commercial commodity. It does not have any
influence on the only thing which should really matter: the music.

MB has this ReleaseArtist concept probably mainly as a heritage from mp3
tagging. But this concept is still quite unimportant for me. A sound
engineer could easily argue that the most important artist in a release is
the sound engineer. I could very understand his point of view. He could
argue too that the place where the music was recorded is fundamental. How
could I argue, he would be the specialist. An instrument builder could say
the most important thing is the kind of instrument which was used. He could
be right too. Why not sort the releases by Stradivarius / Guarneri or
Steinway / Bösendorfer?

I always come to the conclusion all these points of view are right. Maybe
not at the same time, but I believe that at one point getting all the public
/ studio releases may be the most important for me. At another time, I will
be using an ancient instruments / new instruments dichotomy. Another time, I
will be listening only to chamber music, from all musical periods. What
conclusion do I draw from this? That no single field will ever be able to
satisfy me. Actually a single field approach will always appear quickly as
useless and sterile. Music is not hierarchical. Music is even probably not
sortable. Only the database approach can conceptually come close to what I
am feeling when I am thinking of music. I meant relational database, not
hierarchical database. No ReleaseArtist could ever have any real meaning.

You will maybe ask me how I want to sort the entries when I ask for a list.
My answer is it depends. It always depends. It is never static. It can be by
composers, by performers, by composing date, by work type, by recording
date... And this should surprise nobody. This is a normal consequence of the
way the human mind works, always shifting it's point of view to better
understand things. You can never quite understand a sculpture or a building
if you have only a picture of it. You need to be able to turn around it tu
understand it fully. It is the same for the music.

My conclusion: you can put anything you like in the ArtistRelease, I don't
care, for me this field shouldn't even exist. But I can't help feeling all
the time we spend discussing about this is wasted, it would be much better
used examining NGS and checking what should be done to prepare it and
implement it.

-- 
Frederic Da Vitoria
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