Indexed Search Syntax

Status: Currently under development. Please help copy and adapt the lucene query syntax docs to our needs!

While we contruct this help page, please see the lucene query syntax page for details on how to construct MusicBrainz text search queries.

Example searches

Artists

• tori amos - search artist, sortname and alias fields
• comment:electronic - search for the word electronic in artist comment fields

• Comment? Do you mean ArtistAnnotation?

Albums

• café del mar - search for all Café del Mar albums
• "the understanding" AND artist:royksopp - search for the album The Understanding by Röyksopp

Tracks

• "voodoo people" AND artist:"the prodigy" - search for all tracks Voodoo People by The Prodigy

TODO: add more here!

Query syntax

Wildcards

To perform a single character wildcard search use the "?" symbol. To perform a multiple character wildcard search use the "*" symbol. For example, to search for "text" or "test" you can use the search te?t, to search for "test", "tests" or "tester", you can use the search test*.

Note: You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search.

Fuzzy searches

To do a fuzzy search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a single word term. Optionally can specify the required similarity, a value is between 0 and 1. For example to search for a term similar in spelling to "roam" use the fuzzy search roam~ or roam~0.8

MusicBrainz specific search fields

The artist index contains the following fields you can search:

field	Description
arid	artist id
artist	artist name
sortname	artist sortname
artype	artist type (0 - unknown, 1 - person, 2 - band)
begin	artist birth date/band founding date
end	artist death date/band dissoluion date
comment	artist comment to differentiate similar artists
alias	the aliases/misspellings for this artist

Artist search terms with no fields specified search the artist, sortname and alias fields.

The release/album index contains theses fields:

field	Description
reid	release id
release	release name
arid	artist id
artist	artist name
type	release type (1 - album, 2 - single, etc.)
status	release status (1 - official, 2 - promo, 3 - bootleg)
tracks	number of tracks in the release
discids	number of cd ids for the release
date	earliest release date for the release
asin	the Amazon ASIN for
lang	The language for this release (TODO: add lang #s)
script	The script used this release

Album search tears with no fields search the release field only.

And track searches can contain:

field	Description
trid	track id
track	track name
arid	artist id
artist	artist name
reid	release id
release	release name
type	release type (1 - album, 2 - single, etc.)
tracks	number of tracks in the release
dur	duration of track in milliseconds
qdur	quantized duration (duration / 2000)
tnum	track number

Track search terms with no fields search the track field only.