Style/Relationships: Difference between revisions

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{{Official style}}
{{DocumentationHeader|AdvancedRelationship|Style}}


This page outlines general guidelines that should be followed when adding [[Relationships|relationships]]. Many relationships also have their own guidelines which, should they conflict, supersede the ones on this page.
=Guidelines for Using Advanced Relationships=


For relationships which link an entity to a URL, see the [[/URLs|URL guidelines]] as well.
This page outlines general guidelines that should be followed when adding [[Advanced Relationships|AdvancedRelationships]] in order to have the database consistent and lists guidelines which are discussed and need yet to be agreed on.


For assistance in determining the correct relationship types to use when describing compiling, DJ mixing, mastering, mixing, remastering, remixing and sampling, please refer to [[Mix Terminology]].
==Agreed On Guidelines==


==Crediting an artist's role at the track vs. the release level ==
Note that most of the guidelines for [[Advanced Relationships|AdvancedRelationships]] are kept in the style sections of the appropriate relationship types (or even have their own pages), so this should only be used for general guidelines.


An artist's role on a song or album can be noted at multiple levels:
For some general guidelines (or those which affect several relationship types) with their own pages, see:
* [[Don't Make Relationship Clusters|DontMakeRelationshipClusters]]
* [[Performance Name Style|PerformanceNameStyle]]


# If the relationship is applicable to all tracks on a release, apply it to every work or recording on the release.
==Discussing Guidelines==
# If the relationship applies to only a few tracks, and you know which ones, apply it only to those works or recordings.
# If you are unsure which tracks a relationship applies to, put it at release level. A basic effort to determine to which tracks the relationship is applicable is appreciated.
# If the credit is release level, and does not apply on a track by track basis (e.g. graphic design for the album's cover), then apply the relationship to the release, not the tracks.


If you find a release which has release level relationships, and you know which tracks the relationships apply to, please fix them.
Some of those can probably be moved to the style section of the appropriate relationship type when agreed on instead of beeing listed in the section above.


==Personal and business relationships==
===Re-releases of covers===


It is not part of MusicBrainz' mission to capture all the aspects of the personal life of artists nor the economic life of the recording industry.
Tracks which are re-releases of a cover-version of a song should not have relationships of the [[Cover Relationship Type|CoverRelationshipType]] to the earliest release of the original version. Instead only the earliest release of the cover-version should link to the earliest release of the original version and all re-releases of the cover-version should be linked to their earliest release with the [[Same Track Relationship Type|SameTrackRelationshipType]].


A person should '''not''' be added to the database only to allow a link to indicate that they went out with, were married to, or were related to an artist. The only exception is when a non-musical person can be connected to two or more artists, allowing those artists to indirectly be linked together.
===Cover medleys===


Label entries should '''not''' be added solely to represent investors, share-holders, etc. Relationship types which would represent fine-grained ownership details (or the entire economic macrocosm) have not been created, and the existing relationship types should not be misused for the purpose.
If an artist performs a medley of songs they didn't originally wrote, that is the medley is a bunch of covers, then should the original versions be linked with the [[Medley Relationship Type|MedleyRelationshipType]] or with the [[Cover Relationship Type|CoverRelationshipType]]?


While proposals for new relationships are always welcomed by the community, be forewarned that proposals which would add relationship types to allow tracking finer-grained personal details or company or economic details will face a greater degree of scrutiny.
===Linking artists to all or only original releases?===


==Prefer Specific Relationship Types==
Should artists that worked on a release/track only be linked to the original/regular release of it or to all of them? The answer to that can pretty much depend on the relationship type and if it's a track or a release. For featuring performers we currently encourage the users to link to all tracks. With releases it seems people mostly add credits from the liner notes if they own it, and the release they own doesn't have to be the original/regular release. Also it's not always possible to identify an original/regular release (see the [http://musicbrainz.org/release/0664a1a3-6da8-4aa2-8a3f-e8445e1b096c.html EU release] and the [http://musicbrainz.org/release/8fe76090-21d1-486a-af35-73211531981c.html US release] of this album for example). For composers and lyrics writers there seems to be agreement not to link them to re-releases/later versions.


You should try to make the relationship type as specific as possible. This means that you should avoid the generic types if:
===Track/release crediting===
* the liner or another source specifies which of the subtypes apply, or
* you can easily deduce which of the subtypes apply.


In these cases, you should use the specific relationship types, and omit a relationship of the generic type. If you feel the generic type is more appropriate (for example, if the evidence provides conflicting information, or if no specific information is available), then add your reasons and justification to the edit note and an annotation. This will help voters confirm your analysis and will make sure other editors are aware of the background when doing later edits.
If an artist is credited for a certain range of tracks on a release only, should that credit be allowed to be linked to the whole release too? Or should links to whole releases imply that the artist worked on '''all''' tracks? In other words: what justifies a link from an artist to a release:
* work on one track
* work on a majority of tracks
* work on all tracks without an exception?


===Generic Types===
Should we follow the style in the liner notes or only a general principle? For example: if lyrics writers and composers are listed for all tracks but the lyrics writer is always the same, then should we still link them to the tracks only? What if all tracks have the lyrics written by artist X except one which has them written by artist X and artist Y?
Here is a list of "generic types", and examples of preferred specific types:
* Arranger: prefer "instrument arranger", "vocal arranger" and/or "orchestrator".
* Engineer: prefer the subtypes of engineer ("audio", "mastering", "sound", "mix", "recording", "programming", "editor", "balance").
* Performer: prefer the subtypes "instruments" and/or "vocal", "performing orchestra", "conductor", "chorus master", "concertmaster".


===Examples===
Current consensus is described in this [http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/musicbrainz-users/2008-July/018174.html mail].
* [[Artist:fe59ad15-3cd4-4f00-8a79-a0fe9b884dec.html|Larry Luddecke]] recorded and mixed [[Release:c154a6fd-a3b7-4c64-a93e-abe3fd1de897|Old Dogs]], as confirmed by the [http://www.acousticmusic.com/staines/olddogs.htm author's website]. He is linked to the release with [[rt:023a6c6d-80af-4f88-ae69-f5f6213f9bf4|Recording]] and [[rt:6cc958c0-533b-4540-a281-058fbb941890|Mix]] relationships. No generic Engineer relationship is created.
* [[Artist:d700b3f5-45af-4d02-95ed-57d301bda93e|Mogwai]] wrote [[work:03b84c40-beeb-4dd1-a1a7-4edc0c735f09|I Know You Are but What Am I?
]]. As this is an instrumental track, the writing credit clearly does not apply to any lyrics or libretto. Instead of a [[rt:a255bca1-b157-4518-9108-7b147dc3fc68|Writer]] relationship, Mogwai are credited using a [[rt:d59d99ea-23d4-4a80-b066-edca32ee158f|Composer]] relationship.
* [[Artist:b5ffc3aa-b868-4b88-905f-d73d51dbe51c|Mick Jagger]] and [[Artist:f0ed72a3-ae8f-4cf7-b51d-2696a2330230|Keith Richards]] wrote [[work:e3df1762-fac5-427d-bb02-b98716a553a8|You Got Me Rocking]]. As their individual roles [[Wikipedia:You_Got_Me_Rocking|are unclear]] - one might have been primarily working on the lyrics, with the other writing the music - the [[rt:a255bca1-b157-4518-9108-7b147dc3fc68|Writer]] relationship is used. Once more information becomes available, these can be replaced by [[rt:d59d99ea-23d4-4a80-b066-edca32ee158f|Composer]] and/or [[rt:3e48faba-ec01-47fd-8e89-30e81161661c|Lyricist]] relationships.


===Line-up linking===


{{StyleBox}}
Should the whole line-up for a release be linked or only session/guest musicians because the regular band members are already linked to the band? Of course this not always redundant, an artist can be member of a band but not perform on an album for whatever reasons.
[[Category:WikiDocs Page]]

Are session artists, which are not considered part of the band, always guest musicians? Or should the [[Guest Relationship Attribute|GuestRelationshipAttribute]] only be used when the liner notes call them guest musicians? Or can we perhaps work out our own definition for this attribute?

{{AdvancedRelationshipFooter}}

[[Category:To Be Reviewed]] [[Category:Style]] [[Category:Advanced Relationships]]

Revision as of 11:42, 8 January 2019

Status: This is an official style guideline.

This page outlines general guidelines that should be followed when adding relationships. Many relationships also have their own guidelines which, should they conflict, supersede the ones on this page.

For relationships which link an entity to a URL, see the URL guidelines as well.

For assistance in determining the correct relationship types to use when describing compiling, DJ mixing, mastering, mixing, remastering, remixing and sampling, please refer to Mix Terminology.

Crediting an artist's role at the track vs. the release level

An artist's role on a song or album can be noted at multiple levels:

  1. If the relationship is applicable to all tracks on a release, apply it to every work or recording on the release.
  2. If the relationship applies to only a few tracks, and you know which ones, apply it only to those works or recordings.
  3. If you are unsure which tracks a relationship applies to, put it at release level. A basic effort to determine to which tracks the relationship is applicable is appreciated.
  4. If the credit is release level, and does not apply on a track by track basis (e.g. graphic design for the album's cover), then apply the relationship to the release, not the tracks.

If you find a release which has release level relationships, and you know which tracks the relationships apply to, please fix them.

Personal and business relationships

It is not part of MusicBrainz' mission to capture all the aspects of the personal life of artists nor the economic life of the recording industry.

A person should not be added to the database only to allow a link to indicate that they went out with, were married to, or were related to an artist. The only exception is when a non-musical person can be connected to two or more artists, allowing those artists to indirectly be linked together.

Label entries should not be added solely to represent investors, share-holders, etc. Relationship types which would represent fine-grained ownership details (or the entire economic macrocosm) have not been created, and the existing relationship types should not be misused for the purpose.

While proposals for new relationships are always welcomed by the community, be forewarned that proposals which would add relationship types to allow tracking finer-grained personal details or company or economic details will face a greater degree of scrutiny.

Prefer Specific Relationship Types

You should try to make the relationship type as specific as possible. This means that you should avoid the generic types if:

  • the liner or another source specifies which of the subtypes apply, or
  • you can easily deduce which of the subtypes apply.

In these cases, you should use the specific relationship types, and omit a relationship of the generic type. If you feel the generic type is more appropriate (for example, if the evidence provides conflicting information, or if no specific information is available), then add your reasons and justification to the edit note and an annotation. This will help voters confirm your analysis and will make sure other editors are aware of the background when doing later edits.

Generic Types

Here is a list of "generic types", and examples of preferred specific types:

  • Arranger: prefer "instrument arranger", "vocal arranger" and/or "orchestrator".
  • Engineer: prefer the subtypes of engineer ("audio", "mastering", "sound", "mix", "recording", "programming", "editor", "balance").
  • Performer: prefer the subtypes "instruments" and/or "vocal", "performing orchestra", "conductor", "chorus master", "concertmaster".

Examples


Style
Overview
Title Style
Entities
Relationships
Classical
Special Cases/Misc.
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