History talk:Classical Track Title Discussion

I understand that Classical music tagging is more complicated than music released by living artists: composers, performers, and works are all mixed up on many more classical CD's than popular music.

As far as track titles are concerned, it seems to me that they can be treated as every other form of music - the name of the tune. Classical tunes tend to have long and complex names:

"Beethoven Violin Sonata in A 'Kreutzer' Op. 47 No. 9: 1. Adagio sostenuto - Presto - Adagio" vs. "Stairway to Heaven"

Yet that name (or some variation of it) is how they are listed on every recording, concert program, or sheet music publication. Like it or not, classical tunes just have long names.

The "Artist" field is more complicated. In Pop music, this is really more like a brand name than a composer. Ultimately what is needed is a "Composer" field, or multiple composer fields (maybe also a lyracist field?) and multiple "performers." Actually, this would be very nice to have in Pop music too. Many pop music hits were not written by the person who made them famous.

Most music-player software has a composer field already. For players that do not have a composer, I have used the Genre field.

At one end of the spectrum, people argue that various composers are Late Baroque or Early Classical or Romantic. At the other end, anything involving more strings than electric guitars is called, "Classical." A fair compromise is to refine the word, "Classical" with the composer's name:

Classical: Beethoven Classical: Purcel (actually Baroque) Classical: Stockhausen (actually Modern Classical) Classical: Brahms (actually Romantic)

I understand the reasoning behind it, but I really don't want to play or organize a song called RCA-9026630402-3. Just my two cents.

Hi. The Classical Style Guidelines are a work in progress. The best way to be part of the conversation is to join the MB Style Mailing List. If you have questions about why MusicBrainz does things a certain way, the best places to ask are on IRC or in the forums. The wiki talk pages aren't generally used for ongoing discussion. Caller_number_six 14:43, 19 May 2012 (UTC)