[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Thanks, Thor! I think I’m already set. I have a “three disc” strategy, that helped me in this case. I transferred my music collection from one disc to another, and the one corrupt file (which was probably corrupted when the file transfering went sour) I have already replaced, so BLACK RAIN is there as well. As far as I can tell, all music files are there. Ready set go. I seem to have had just one corrupt file, “Club Miyako”, which has been restored.

[Malte Müller]

Yeah, my digital collection also is not easily replaceable. I have not even imported all of my CDs yet, only occasional oness. I had a failure of an external hardrive years ago and gladly it somewhat “announced” it so I could in time backup everything in time before it died.

If I do the cumbersome taks of importing one of my CDs I do it lossless. As said before I don’t really hear tthe difference to a 320 mp3 or AAC file at all, too.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

Thanks, Thor! I think I’m already set. I have a “three disc” strategy, that helped me in this case. I transferred my music collection from one disc to another, and the one corrupt file (which was probably corrupted when the file transfering went sour) I have already replaced, so BLACK RAIN is there as well. As far as I can tell, all music files are there. Ready set go. I seem to have had just one corrupt file, “Club Miyako”, which has been restored.

Good to know. I should have added that I would gladly help you – or anyone else struggling with these issues – with reacquiring some lost titles, should it ever happen that you lose them. People came to the aid for me, and I will do the same for others. But thankfully, it seems like you don’t need any help at this point.

[FalkirkBairn01]

COLLECTION SIZE
I’ve been buying soundtrack albums seriously since I bought the original 2-LP STAR WARS set back when it first came out – or perhaps a few months later than its original release because I originally received the album on cassette the Christmas around the film’s release. Since then I have been an avid buyer of film/TV/video game music to pretty much the exclusion of everything else. I’ve lost track of the number of CDs and digital albums I have, but I do have a database where my entire collection is listed. Because of a quirk of mine I list my collection not as albums but as titles. This means that single albums with music from multiple titles are listed separately – so some “albums” in my database may have only one track. Also, titles may have multiple entries if there are several releases of the same title that I have bought over the years (THE BLUE MAX anyone?) or there are several recordings of titles (e.g., the CONAN scores, PSYCHO, JAWS, etc.). Taking all that into account, my database is telling me that I have music from 17,500 titles spread across CDs and digital albums. Far too much to listen to.

ACQUISITION HABITS
I have progressed along the LP, CD, digital, road to the present day where streaming with occasional CD/digital purchases are now the norm. CD purchases are only really limited to recent releases such as the James Bond CDs, and titles such as THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. Milestone titles for me where I NEED to have the physical copy. I will also buy digital albums if there are titles where the bulk of the album is worth having. And I will buy a couple of tracks from digital albums if I want to have them on my portable player (which tends to be an old smartphone which I use as a music playing device.

LISTENING HABITS
Currently, 99% of my CDs are in storage at another site so I don’t have immediate access to them. Currently I have a “best of” playlist of about 1600 tracks that I play on shuffle. I have my collection on a 2TB hard drive (which is mirrored on a separate 2TB hard drive) that I have stored in a drawer and, if I want to listen to a specific album then I will either pull out the hard drive plug it in and listen to the album. Or I will find it on Spotify and listen to it. I only occasionally want to listen to old albums. What I am into now – and have been for a number of years – is keeping up-to-date on current, new releases. I have a #WeeklyRecommendations blog where I try to post my recommendations on what’s interesting that has been released every week. This means that I am listening to about 50 newly released albums a week (listening to varying degrees of detail) so that I can let everyone know what’s out there (mostly being released digitally). These recommendations can range between 1 and 6 albums a week. So, I tend to know a little about a lot of albums rather than knowing a few albums in great detail – this latter situation was what I was like in the ’80s when I had only a few albums but listened to them often. Again, a quirk of mine is that I have a second database where I have details of all the titles I have listened to during my time of putting together my weekly recommendations, and that database currently has 13,000 albums in it (with that number rising by about 50 titles every week).

So that’s me in a nutshell. My focus is more of keeping an eye on what’s out there at the moment so I can’t talk about many current albums in detail. And, since I am about 4-6 weeks behind on my listening for my blog, by the time I have caught up with what’s out today (in 4-6 weeks time) everyone has moved on talking about what’s out now (in the future). It does mean though that, by the time I get to the new releases I have a fair idea what everyone things of them.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

That’s a lot of titles represented in your system, but don’t you have any estimate regarding the number of CDs and LPs you have stored away?

I definitely get the dilemma of listening to new scores, which takes up the time I could have used listening (and relistening) to my old stuff. The old stuff that needs more investigation, anyway.

[FalkirkBairn01]

…don’t you have any estimate regarding the number of CDs and LPs you have stored away?

LPs (and cassettes) is easy! None. I wouldn’t buy these today.

CDs, if I had to estimate, maybe 5000-6000. Which is why they are in storage.

[Malte Müller]

Because of a quirk of mine I list my collection not as albums but as titles. This means that single albums with music from multiple titles are listed separately – so some “albums” in my database may have only one track.

Interesting quirk 😉 I generally do keep compilations together so I still “know” what edition that actually is. Only sometimes on 2CD sets I may divide them but generally I keep even those together when importing (I haven’t imported all of my CDs… time…).

I don’t even try to keep up with current scores 😉

[Thor Joachim Haga]

I, too, try to separate albums for iTunes when there are two, maybe even three, scores represented on one disc. I just did that a few days ago, in fact, with the Wojciech Kilar album containing WILZE ECHA and POZNE POPULUDNIE. While WILZE can “survive” on its own with a decent 34-minute running time and its professional cover artwork, it meant that POZNE is now only 16 minutes long, and I had to put together a separate cover for it quickly in Paint.net. But it’s worth it.

[Malte Müller]

I do that sometimes only if it is different composers sharing an album or for example two rather complete scores one one album. Otherrwise I just keep the albums as they originally are. I remember in the past I forgot I had something already but didn’t recognize it anymore 😉

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

I tend to keep even big box sets in “one set” if that makes sense, with disc numbers, rather than have them as individual CDs.
So even a big box like the Haydn box is just one “album” in iTunes.

However, I do use different covers where it makes sense to separate albums within (as all these have been released individually as well, I could easily find them), so when I browse or listen to them, it looks like this:

However, if it makes more sense for me to separate the titles, I do that, like the Intrada 2CD for THE RIVER WILD, which I have as two separate “albums” in my collection (even though they have “Disc-1” “Disc-2” numbers, should I ever change my mind and group them),

I don’t break up CDs into different works or titles.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

I try to break up even classical boxes too, which I did with the Harmonia Mundi 50th set, so that each composer belongs in their respective composer categories. Thankfully, each of the slipcase CDs within have their own covers (that are available online), so I didn’t have to custom-make 30 CD covers.

Also, I never denote the ensemble or conductor performing the music in the tags. Most of the time that is viewable on the cover anyway. And for year, I always go for the year of composition, if possible, not when it was recorded. So Adriano Banchieri’s Barca di Venetia per Padova from that HM box is set at “1605”, not the recording date (I’m not sure when that was, in fact, I think maybe 1990). And in the tracks themselves, having anything more than the name of the actual composition there is an absolute no-no!

The leaner and more streamlined the tag information, the better. Again, as we discussed in the other thread, it’s all very work- or title-centric, I’m less into the performance bit, and who did what.

Obviously, I don’t break up compilations.

[Malte Müller]

However, if it makes more sense for me to separate the titles, I do that, like the Intrada 2CD for THE RIVER WILD, which I have as two separate “albums” in my collection (even though they have “Disc-1” “Disc-2” numbers, should I ever change my mind and group them),

Exactly how I would do it! On boxes with one work e.g. symphony per disc I might. Case by case basis

Btw, since Apple Music (formerly iTunes) does generally not display the separate composer field I alwaas name my “interpreter” like this

“Composer – Orchestra, conductor – somesolist, instrument” or “Composer – Lyrics by someone – Vocal by someone – Arranged by someone”

Interpreter is important but the composer to me is the primary. Also always set the album interpreter to the composer or composers, except a compilation with just one or two tracks by each.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Obviously, there are lots of different ways people tag their music. People have different requirements, different devices, different listening habits. What works beautifully for one person collapses instantly for another.

By no means would I claim my approach is the only correct or perfect one. But back when I started to convert my CDs (the biggest part of them classical) to digital files, I had to give this some thought and trial and error, (and the occasional existential crisis over metadata). Whoever programmed iTunes was obviously oblivious to the fact that people may listen to anything but pop music. For most casual pop listener, “TITLE” and “ARTIST” is basically all they need, they don’t even care for “COMPOSER”. But for classical music, that’s different.

And when I started to tag my collection, I really did some thinking how to get a vast classical collection into the iTunes system in a way that’s functional, searchable, and consistent:

I came up with this:

Album Artist: Ludwig van Beethoven
Album: Beethoven: Symphonies / Karajan: BPO (1984)
Title: Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21 – 1. Adagio molto – Allegro con brio
Year: 1984
Artist: Herbert von Karajan; Berliner Philharmoniker
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven

And here is the idea behind using the tags like that:

ALBUM ARTIST =
Here I put basically the “important” name, where I would expect the Album in a record store. Some insinst that “Album Artist” must be performer, but I find that neither practical, not consistent (because which performer? Conductor? Violinist? Orchestra?). In classical music, I usually put composer there, in pop music would be something like “Madonna”.

ALBUM =
Obviously the album title. In classical music, many albums don’t really have a “title”, so I try to be consistent and name them to what it “is”.

TITLE =
Obiously, the track title. And that should enable me to identify the track. Again, in pop music or even film music that’s often easy, as the tracks do have real names. In classical music, many works don’t really have “names” but just “descriptions” of what they are. I know my way around classcial music, but not so much that I would always identify “Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21” immediately as “that’s Beethoven”. So the composer’s name is part of the title in those cases, like “Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21”. I don’t need the composer’s name when there is an actual, more obvious title to begin with, like “Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30”

YEAR =
There are obviously lots things you can put in the “year” tag. However, since the tags serve to identify recordings, recording date is the one I chose. I don’t maintain a music lexicon, so the composition date is completely irrelevant in the context of the files. “Release date” or “mastering date” would be other options I consider, but for me I have decided that recording date is the most important identifier for a particular recording.

ARTIST =
This is again a trick field. At least in iTunes, which seems to think there is one “artist”, though in classical music, you often have a lot more… who to put in there? It’s easy when it’s one performer, as in Igor Levit for a Beethoven Sonata, but already when it comes to a symphony, it’s tricky… Conductor? Orchestra?… in iTunes, I go with the most important performers, maybe combination of conductor/orchestra and perhaps soloist.

COMPOSER=
Well, the composer obviously. That one is easy.

This works for me, because on the one hand, it’s just a basic set of tags applied consistently, on the other hand, it allows me to distinguish even between very similar recordings, like:

Album Artist: Ludwig van Beethoven
Album: Beethoven: Symphonies / Karajan: BPO (1977)
Title: Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21 – 1. Adagio molto – Allegro con brio
Year: 1977
Artist: Herbert von Karajan; Berliner Philharmoniker
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven

Same work. Same performers. But different recording. Instantly distinguishable from:

Album Artist: Ludwig van Beethoven
Album: Beethoven: Symphonies / Karajan: BPO (1963)
Title: Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21 – 1. Adagio molto – Allegro con brio
Year: 1963
Artist: Herbert von Karajan; Berliner Philharmoniker
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven

So that’s how these three Beethoven/Karajan/Berlin Cycles are tagged in my collection.

This is at this point in time the most reliable and easy to maintain/navigate tagging-system I have come up with that fits my needs.

But everybody’s needs are different. As I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if a large number of people are happy with
TITLE and ARTIST, not even needing year, composer, album artist, etc.

But here are my hard coded basic needs:
1. Consistency and clarity
Obiously, I do have many classical recordings, which need to be searchable and identifiable. As in the example, I need to even be able to clearly distinguish between recordings when the same artist performed the same piece several times.

2. Cross-Compatibility
This one is the one thing that forces me to do a lot of compromises. For example, iTunes at one time got a nice set of features, like “work” and “movement”, which is really nice:

Doesn’t that look nice? I think that’s the way it should be. Work and movement, excellent.

The problem is: I can’t rely on it to work everywhere else the same. There is no way I want to rely on tags that only work here but not there. I use different devices that access my music collection: my home stereo system, several android and iOS apps, my car, etc. I want, I need tags that function across the board. That’s definitely the most compromising aspect of the way I use tags (I have not even implemented “multiple genres”, though that would be a most useful feature), but also the most liberating, because my collection does not rely on one single system to work. It works with any system, music server, music player, etc., anything I throw at it and use to listen to and play music. Tags work, work across the board. So that is definitely one of the most important aspects for me. Cross‑Compatibility dictates everything in my tag decisions. This is actually the main reason I still maintain my library in iTunes: because of its limitations. Those constraints force discipline. iTunes supports a small, predictable set of tags (which are a set standard in ALAC format– everywhere, whereas FLAC can be quite inconsistent when it comes to that, so that’s one slight advantage ALAC has over FLAC), and those survive the journey across platforms. MusicBee, for example, is vastly more flexible, gives me many more options I want and like, but flexibility is only useful to me when it’s portable. Multiple genres, custom tags, work/movement structures, I love those, wonderful ideas, but only if they don’t disintegrate the moment you sync to your car player. Maybe one day I can expand the useable set of tags, but until then, I stick to the basics. The basics work everywhere.

Now that’s what I’ve come up with to serve my needs. Other people’s needs differ. As I said, Artist and Title is probably all many people will ever need.

I’d always be open to find an even better way to systematically tag my music, but so far, that’s what works best for me and my needs.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

I try to break up even classical boxes too, which I did with the Harmonia Mundi 50th set, so that each composer belongs in their respective composer categories. Thankfully, each of the slipcase CDs within have their own covers (that are available online), so I didn’t have to custom-make 30 CD covers.

Yeah, I don’t have that Harmonia Mundi 50th set, but a large set like that with many different composers I’d break up too… like Malte said, it’s on a case-by-case basis. If it’s a set with one composer (or one performer), like the Haydn or Beethoven boxes, I keep them together, if it’s a box set of different composers and performers, I probably split them up.

Incidentally, my Karajan Beethoven 1984 set up there isn’t actually a “set” in my shelf, as have them as six individual discs, but since the content is 1:1 identical with the boxed version, I grouped them together that way in iTunes.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

Always interesting to see how people organize these things. Obviously, mine would look different from yours. Using your example, mine would probably look like this:

Album Artist: Ludwig van Beethoven
Album: Symphonies
Title: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21 – 1. Adagio molto – Allegro con brio
Year: –
Artist: Ludwig van Beethoven
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven

If Symphony No. 1 is the only work on the album, I would remove that part of the track title as well. But if there are more on a single disc, I would keep it.

Year is blank in this case, because this is a set that includes different works(?), so no composition/premiere date would be set. If it was just the Symphony No. 1, I would put 1801, since that is the publication date, according to Wikipedia.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

And yes, I’m aware I run into trouble when the composition/publication date is vague or even unknown. I probably just put a blank year then.

The oldest music in my collection with a date is the aforementioned Banchieri piece/album (1605). But the oldest music in my collection, period, is probably this CD in the Harmonia Mundi set:

I’ve NOT split this CD up, I’ve let it be as is, sorted under “Diverse (klassisk)” (“Various (classical)”) as album artist. But even if I HAD split it up, it would be difficult to date, as a lot of medieval music is hard to pinpoint. We know Hildegard von Bingen’s birth and death year, but not when she composed these pieces, in particular. But thankfully, these are exceptions. Most of the time, we do have some form of year.

[Malte Müller]

Regarding the year, on film scores I always use the year the score is from and not the album release date. That info I would put into the album title if at all like “Ben-Hur (re-recording)” (or sometimes “(new recording)” as some prefer as the term). Sometimes the label if I have several versions digitaly like “[Intrada]/(Intrada)” (not consistent ;-)).

Since I have a lot in lossy format and on Mac AAC uses the same .m4a suffix like the lossless version I also put lossless info into the folder name lile (ALAC) I aven do a (€) for bought downloads and “(CD)”, “(LP)” or “(MC)” if ripped from my own media. That also on the album titles. That way I can directy search what is from where (and wwe all have surey some “other sources” ;-)).

And I need to have covers as visual person! When I last year bought a new Mac almost all covers where gone after I imported it from thte old one. Apparently they were embeded into some files files but Apple Music needs to re-import files – you have to remove them loosing some data like ratings, as it cannot re-read them again otherrwise. There is no update button for this. Gladly there was a small paid Apple script that could do this and saved some work. But I think I still had to re-add half of all covers as iTunes not always did that and just referenced them.

Well, we’re a special crowd, aren’t we? 😉

[Malte Müller]

Oh, and while I don’t have Apple Music (the app is named that, too) as a service I even was tricked to click to use the data from the service… That did work but it was a total mess as it totally labeld some album wrong, even wrong artists if the name was right… Gladly I could stop that in time to do more damage…

[Thor Joachim Haga]

Regarding the year, on film scores I always use the year the score is from and not the album release date.

Oh yes, definitely.

Well, we’re a special crowd, aren’t we?

He, he. That’s an understatement. But let’s embrace it!

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

As I said, it’s always recording date for me (consistently, regardless of pop music, classical music, film scores, etc.). I tag all my music consistently, regardless of classical music, film scores, pop music… date is recording date, composer is composer… performer is performer… and the primary intent of the tags is that the recording is clearly labeled and identifiable. I don’t need information about the composition, but the specific recording, because that is what is actually labelled. Wouldn’t make much sense to me to put in “1934” on a Robbie Williams performance of “Winter Wonderland” because the song was written then. 🙂 So BEN HUR the OST has 1959 as year, the Tadlow recording 2017.

Because my collection is consistently tagged, should I ever need to change the tagging system, it would probably be fairly easy to batch edit it in something like MP3edit.

I don’t have Apple Music either, I’m not even in the Apple Eco system, but I do use ALAC instead of FLAC, basically just for legacy reasons (I started with it). I considered once converting my collection from ALAC to FLAC, but in the end decided against it, because… there’s no reason, the formats are identical for the most part.
Now while FLAC and ALAC are practically identical in capability and you can convert from one to the other without loss of audio quality, there are some slight differences. FLAC has the native-error checking and integrity verification (that’s nice), while ALAC has the more solidified tagging structure, because the metadata architecture is formally specified, so you have fixed, clearly structured fields (“atoms”), whereas the Vorbis Comments FLAC uses are “anything goes”, which may even lead to arbitrarily named standard fields (Albumartist, Album Artist, Album_Artist, and so on), which means FLAC could at times contain inconsistent or conflicting tag names, which leads to sorting issues, split artists, mismatched albums, and unpredictable behavior across software. ALAC does not have that problem, it allows great flexibility within its atoms system, but insists on clear, formally established conventions for tag names that all devices support in the same way.

So both formats, while virtually identical in their capabilities 98% of the time, offer slight advantages and disadvantages over the other.

[Malte Müller]

Wouldn’t make much sense to me to put in “1934” on a Robbie Williams performance of “Winter Wonderland” because the song was written then.

Okay, for pop music or “cover versions” I fully understand that and would it do the same way. I meant for regular score albums as that is my priority. For classical I probably also use the recording date. Inconsequent and inconsistent actually but on scores I care more if a Goldsmith is from another year than with classicl where I don’t remember such details anyway 😉

FLAC and ALAC So both formats, while virtually identical in their capabilities 98% of the time, offer slight advantages and disadvantages over the other.

Being on Mac using Apple Music/iTunnes I have no choice as taht only play ALAC. I tried to find a replacement just in case that Apple should decidie that local files are “outdated” at some time. But I didn’t! There is nothing that lets you as good manage a collection and works with playlists. At least not for Mac. For quick listening of audio samples (like quartet ones that I download to listen) that I don’t want clutter my collection by importing I use VLC or I play directly in the Finder.

Addition: Forgot to add thanks for the roundup on the differences. I was not that aware of these except that tagging FLAC is problematic at times.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

Okay, for pop music or “cover versions” I fully understand that and would it do the same way. I meant for regular score albums as that is my priority. For classical I probably also use the recording date. Inconsequent and inconsistent actually but on scores I care more if a Goldsmith is from another year than with classicl where I don’t remember such details anyway 😉

I don’t want to mix recording dates into it, when it differs from the release date of the film. That way, I get a nice, chronological listing of the works, if I ever want to experience the evolution of a composer’s output, for example. It would be weird going through, say, Rozsa, and then playing BEN HUR after I’ve listened to DEAD MEN DON’T WEAR PLAID.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

I wonder how many and which “genres” you have or use in your collection. In my collection, there are currently 11, though I might use more… iTunes does not support multiple genres, but MusicBee does, and so does my music server (MinimServer)… that’s one area I am still somewhat undecided.

[FalkirkBairn01]

I wonder how many and which “genres” you have or use in your collection.

For me, I only add “soundtrack” titles to my database as that’s all I mainly listen to today. So, perhaps I don’t need to use that category at all! I do wish that, when I started my database, I sub-categorised into specific genres. But it would be such a big job to do it retrospectively.

But my love of tagging appropriately may mean that I do it some day.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

I did touch on the ‘genre’ aspect in the very first post. But to elaborate a bit, right now it looks like this in my iTunes (yes, it does support different genres):

You see the genres on the left-hand side and how many in each. I made a stupid decision early on – to eschew ‘pop’ as a genre altogether and just put everything that was ‘pop’ in ‘rock’. The fewer genres, the better, I thought. Of course, it led me into all kinds of problems. For example, I have a-ha sorted under ‘rock’ now. And for a while there, I even had Enya sorted under ‘rock’. Ridiculous. I since moved her to ‘Electronic’, which makes at least a little more sense. But one of these days, I need to go through my collection and add the appropriate pop tag to certain albums.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

I use iTunes for curating as well, but iTunes does not support multiple genres (I mean assigning more than one genre to any track). That’s why I use comparatively few genres (but apparently still more than you). I have all rock and pop and blues and folk and whatnot all sorted under “pop” as well, and all classical (regardless of opera, symphony, sonatas etc.) under “classical”.
Two categories I also use are “Audiobooks” (like large radio plays, Lord of the Rings, etc., they are in there as well) and “Books & Spoken” (this I use to mark dialog tracks, like if there’s an album with dialog tracks, like THE HATEFUL HEIGHT or ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, I can just say “play, but don’t play the “Books & Spoken” parts if I want to.)

[Malte Müller]

I use although all sometimes a bit inconsistently:

– Soundtrack or Soundtrack – Score for films in general
– Soundtrack – TV for TV/Series
– Soundtrack – Video Game
– Classical
– Jazz
– Rock/Pop for everything else except sometimes Electronic
– Hörspiel (the only German term I use meaing Audio plays)

I also wish Apple Music would allow proper multi genres tagging per Album as of course a soundtrack as I of course would love to have it like “Soundtrack, Jazz, TV”. I can do taht but that all would be “one” genre then and each for every combination is a bit too crowded…

[Thor Joachim Haga]

I think I’m fine with iTunes not offering multiple genres per album. Would look messy, and again, I’d like to keep the categories as few as possible. But I went overboard with just one for ‘rock’, and none for ‘pop’ (technically, rock IS pop…meaning ‘popular music’, but it’s come to have a meaning of its own, of course, which is separate from pop).

[Malte Müller]

(technically, rock IS pop…meaning ‘popular music’,

Even a soundtrack is “popular music” by our definition 😉 I understand to keep it few, but I like to have some multiple assigmentts nevertheless.

But thanks to this topic I have work to do: I just checked the actual genre list which I even had turned off for unknown reasons. Since I have stuff from sources I didn’t tag myself and often forgot to update, its a total mess in general. Some work to do here…

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

I’d like to keep the categories as few as possible.

That would be one (or even none) obviously. 🙂

I have reduced it to very few genres myself, but multiple genres would enable a lot more playback options. I should add that I don’t listen to music on iTunes or my computer at all, that’s just for curating the collection.

For example, all my “classical” recordings have the genre tag “classical”, which is obviously correct. But that includes operas, piano sonatas, symphonies, choral works, solo flute recitals, experimental electronics, etc…. Now the genre tag “classical” is great, but sometimes I might want to focus on a different “group”, like, say “piano music”.

And preferably, I would be able to tag all solo piano music as such, not just Beethoven sonatas, but also Keith Jarred albums, Soundtracks like THE FIRM, Thelonious Monk albums, etc. Just have a genre tag for “piano”, and I can shuffle and browse through all solo piano pieces in the collection, regardless of what “genre” they belong to, be it film, classical, jazz, or whatever.

There are a number of cases where I would like to group on focus on a set and clearly defined pieces of music, and these may vary. Now, I use MinimServer to “serve” the music, and that handles multiple genres without issues, and I could use MusicBee to add them, but then in indeed, since iTunes does not support multiple genres, it would create NEW genres out of every new combination, which of course is counterproductive and would indeed make the genre tag messier rather than more useful.

So at this point, the genre tag is of little practical use for me, but I’m sure one day I’ll get more mileage out of it.

[Author]

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