[John541]

I’ve cobbled together some initial thoughts about support for classical music in Manic Moose.

It is a personal view, though based on a decade of streaming classical music. It is quite possible (indeed likely) that others will totally or partially disagree with me, but anyway, here goes ....

I believe that there can be adequate functionality for classical music within the current Manic Moose layout, but it needs certain additional options to be implemented.

What are the objectives:

1) To view and select a composer and view a list of recordings of works by the chosen composer, in alpha-numerical order, together with the (main) performers and choose a work (or movement) to play.
2) To view and select a performer (artist) and get a list of works/recordings in which they perform – then choose a work (or movement) to play.
3) To cater for folk who have neither time nor inclination to edit tags on downloaded or ripped discs. This needs an improved search facility.
4) To be able to play a record album in its original order, as an alternative approach. (Many CDs/Downloads contain works that aren’t really intended to be played end to end but some CDs, whilst containing substantial works, are curated so as to be satisfying when the CD is played in its entirety.)

Tags
After looking on the web at what various people recommend it seems that everyone and their dog has a different approach and many people are convinced that their approach is best.

As the original metadata wasn’t designed to cater for classical music some compromises have to be made.

Some people advocate the use of a plethora of metadata tags such as “performer” (what’s wrong with the artist tag?), work, movement, movement number, conductor, etc, etc.

Well, .... perhaps .... but they are not absolutely necessary and they add additional complexity whereas classical music can be catered for using the normal “album”, “title”, “artist”, “albumartist”, “genre” and “data” tags but preferably with the addition of the “composer” tag.

Other people's usage will differ but, for example:

Composer:  “composer” tag
Work:  “album” tag (this is common practice)
Movement (track):  “title” tag
Performers:  “artist” tag (but see below for issues in Manic Moose)
Genre:  “genre” tag
Recording Date:  “date” tag

Suggested changes to Manic Moose to cater for classical music

1) Implement support for the “composer” tag
The composer is the most important information for classical music. Where the “composer” tag isn’t implemented people tend to add the composer name to the “albumartist” or “artist” tags – neither of which are totally satisfactory.

2) Implement support for multiple “artist” tags.
Currently Manic Moose only seems to support one “artist” tag in a track’s metadata. However, apart from solo recitals, classical recordings have more than one performer, e.g. “Jacqueline du Pre, John Barbirolli, London Symphony Orchestra” or “du Pre, Barbirolli, LSO”. Support for multiple artist tags would enable one to easily find albums in which, say du Pre or, say, Barbirolli were performers.

Multiple artist tags can be as multiple individual “artist” metadata fields or, often, in a single “artist” tag where the individual performers are delimited by “;” or “; “, e.g.
   “du Pre; Barbirolli; LSO” (to use a short version of the names)

Failing support for multiple artists there needs to be an improved search facility.

3) Improved Search Facility.
There are two issues with the current search facility as far as classical music is concerned:
1) Most importantly, the current search returns a list of tracks (“songs” if you like). This is of little use for classical music. There needs to be an option to display “albums” (in alphabetic order) rather than tracks – with the ability then to add the whole album, or individual tracks, to the playlist.

2) The current search seems to operate “globally” over album, artist, albumartist and title (please correct me if I’m wrong). It would be helpful if this could be refined, say:

• If any of the album, artist, albumartist folders are selected – then to do the search just on the data for those folders (or tags).
  
• If none of the folders is selected – then do the search as it is now.
  

4) An option to play the tracks in a directory/folder in the original filename/track order.
There needs to be a facility to play the original CD/Download in its original order.

While many classical CDs/Downloads contain works that aren’t really intended to be played end to end there are also CDs/Downloads that (whilst containing substantial works) are curated so as to be satisfying when the CD is played in its entirety.

There seems to be two practices when ripping CDs or dealing with downloads:
   1) save all the tracks to a folder/directory that represents that CD
   2) save the individual works by different composers to separate folders/directories

(Personally I go with (1), though I have tried both.)

With (2) there is little one can do to enable the original CD/Download to be played in its entirety as originally compiled.

However, there should be an option to play the tracks in a specific folder/directory in the original filename / track number order even though there might be tracks in the folder/directory with different “album” tags.

Currently Manic Moose ignores the original filename or track order but re-orders the lot, seemingly by “album” tag but in a different sequence. I guess this is an attempt to cater for folk who mistakenly save multiple CDs/Downloads to the same folder/directory – a practice that has the potential to create an unholy mess.

Apologies for the length of the post, etc, etc.