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Topic: Organizing Classical MP3s (Read 24878 times) previous topic - next topic
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Organizing Classical MP3s

I''m starting to rip my classical collection, but I'm confused as how to best organize it on a computer.

I think I need separate folders for each composer. Beyond that . . . I'm not even sure what to include in the file name! For example, Beethoven's 5th & 7th:

1. Symphony No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: 1 - Allegro con brio
2. Symphonie No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: 2 - Andante con moto
3. Symphonie No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: 3 - Allegro
4. Symphonie No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: 4 - Allegro
5. SYMPHONIE NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OP. 92: 1 - Poco sostenuto - vivace
6. SYMPHONIE NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OP. 92: 2 - Allegretto
7. SYMPHONIE NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OP. 92: 3 - Presto
8. SYMPHONIE NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OP. 92: 4 - Allegro con brio

I don't know what parts above to include in a file name. Should each symphony have its own folder? What about the conductor or orchestra? YIKES!!!

How do you guys organize & name the classical music on your PCs?

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #1 –
Hi,


I don't know much about classical beyond the fact that it bores me.

But, there is a program that will let you sort by orchestra and composer, etc.

It is called album player (albumplayer.com) and has a free trial. 

Import your library using the tags option and you should be able to sort fairly powerfully, even by conductor.

It might be worth trying.  There should be no need for different folders as the program will handle that, but if you want to do so it will still recognize things.

Part of album player allows you to edit the tags for conductor and orchestra and composer, etc. so you can get the info right if it is missing or inaccurate.

Here is a post that shows you the screen for setting up the library and how to sort between composer, conductor, etc.:

http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/...es/2/28308.html

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #2 –
I know little about all the information communicated when describing classical, but I have some thoughts.

As I am a huge organizational freak, and if I were to go at this, I would go:[blockquote]root \ {Composer} \ {Symphony or Work} \[/blockquote]The file name would then include:[blockquote]{Movement or Act}- {Title} in {Key}[/blockquote]

Problem is: finding a database that would help automate that process. I have a limited selection of classical (that 20-disc Classical Masterpieces of the Millennium) so such a scheme would be impractical for me.

However... If I did indulge in my classical tastes... I would probably go about it like that.
OP can't edit initial post when a solution is determined  :'-(

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #3 –
For me, the base folders are only reserved for composer names.  For each album, I put the conductor or performing ensemble or individual performer in front of the title.  If there's various conductors and performers throughout the album, then I just use the album title.  If the CD is focused around an individual performer, such as Vladimir Horowitz or Yolanda Kondonassis and they perform pieces by a variety of composers, then I'll do it as a Various Artists type album similar to how EAC does it.

For example:

feldman, morton\(1993) kronos quartet: piano and string quartet

or

ornstein, leo\(2007) complete works for cello and piano

or

VA - (2000) quietude\01 - debussy, claude / rêverie.wv


This usually covers pretty much every variety of classical album I come across.

Actual track titles are different.  It's easier for modern composers that oftentimes don't organize their work into suites with individual movements, because then I can just do the track title:

cage, john\drury: in a landscape\01 - in a landscape.wv

But for older composers, here's an example:

beethoven, ludwig van\(1971) brendel: favourite piano sonatas (disc 1)\01 - sonata no.8 in c minor, op.13 "pathétique": i. grave/allegro di molto e con brio.wv

I'm huge into keeping my classical music organized and I like my system all right.

Actually, if I could go back and redo it I'd take the release year out of the album titles because that's pretty unimportant when it comes to classical music.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #4 –
Quote from: teh roxxors on
I don't know what parts above to include in a file name. Should each symphony have its own folder? What about the conductor or orchestra? YIKES!!!

How do you guys organize & name the classical music on your PCs?


It very much depends on what player you're using, and what the purpose of your identification is.

For players that understand directory hierarchies, I used a structure of Period \ Composer \ Album, using filenames to identify movement (etc). I never really got clear on how much information to include in filename, but I think a brief identifier of work + movement would be good. You certainly don't need opus number in the filename, except where that's the commonly used brief identifier.

If you've got several performances of the same work, then you need to incorporate an identifier somewhere: perhaps at the level I use for Album. So, you might have

Baroque\Bach_JS\Well_Tempered_Clavier-Gulda

and

Baroque\Bach_JS\Well_Tempered_Clavier-Jarrett

(yes, I yesterday discovered a recording of Keith Jarrett playing the Bach -- only listened to part of it so far).

This will be enough to locate a piece of music you want to hear, probably. You can use tags for further information, such as full details of conductor and orchestra, year of recording, and such, depending on what you want to have visible while you're listening.

This neat scheme (neat in outline, though I never fully implemented it) I'm now having to abandon as the unbeatable price-capacity of the iPod Classic has got me using iTunes, which doesn't understand directories, but relies on tags. I don't understand tags, but I'm working on it.

Probably, because there are so many things that need specifying for any classical track, you need to reconcile yourself to the fact that you're not going to be able to encode it all in the files. If you want to look it up, keep the album leaflet where it's easy to get at. You need to decide what information is important for you in quickly locating what you want to play, and what you might want a quick reminder of while you're playing (movement number as # of # is usually pretty important for a piece you don't know well). I, for instance, use the Genre tag for broad periods, but you might prefer to use it for Orchestral, Chamber Music, Solo, Vocal, and whatever.

There are doubtless people around who have got successful systems operating, and I'm still floundering a bit, but I hope I'll save you some of my thrashing. Certainly the first thing is a bit of analysis: what information is practically important for you, now and in the foreseeable future? What ways of recording that information are available (directories, filenames, tags) and especially understand tags, the way your player reads tags, and the possibility of custom tags.

Good luck, keep the original albums, and don't let it get in the way of enjoying the music.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #5 –
Quote from: MichaelW on
Probably, because there are so many things that need specifying for any classical track, you need to reconcile yourself to the fact that you're not going to be able to encode it all in the files.


Exactly. 

You can get ridiculously bogged down in tagging for some composers.  I had a brutal time trying to rip an Anton Webern boxset.  That experience alone influenced me to revamp my tagging/directory system.  Heres are some examples of particularly brutal cases:

16 - im sommerwind, idyll for large orchestra: ruhig bewegt/ruhig/lustig/schnell/feierlich bewegt/voll schwung/aufjauchzend/sehr ruhig und weihevoll.wv

^ There's an example of how NOT to do it.  Now I no longer include what type of instruments the piece is for nor the tempo descriptions, when they're broken up into ridiculous sections like that.

Now, I would do it like this: 16 - im sommerwind.wv

18 - cantata no.2 for soprano solo, bass solo, mixed chorus and orchestra, op.31: "schöpfen aus brunnen des himmels": sehr bewegt.tak

^ Yikes.  Now it'd be: 18 - cantata no.2, op.31: "schöpfen aus brunnen des himmels".wv

This is all just to say that sometimes you'll come across situations where your tagging/directory system doesn't work well because of various factors, such as a composer's longwinded titles or how the publisher organized and split the tracks.  You can adapt for each case of course, but it all depends on how much value you put in consistency.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #6 –
Ugh...I am NOT looking forward to doing more of these.

Thanks to your input, this is what I came up with for file names:

Sym1Op21 - 5. Adagio molto^ Allegro con brio.mp3
Sym1Op21 - 6. Andante cantabile con moto.mp3
Sym1Op21 - 7. Menuetto^ Allegro molto e vivace.mp3
Sym1Op21 - 8. Adagio; Allegro molto e vivace.mp3
Sym3Op55 - 1. Allegro con brio.mp3
Sym3Op55 - 2. Marcia funebre^ Adagio assai.mp3
Sym3Op55 - 3. Scherzo^ Allegro vivace; Trio.mp3
Sym3Op55 - 4. Finale^ Allegro molto; Poco andante; Presto.mp3

I took into consideration how Windows Explorer lists files, how WinAmp displays file names while playing, how my backup software truncates file names when archiving to DVD, how the songs should play back in order in WinAmp or on an iPod, and how little I know about classical music.

This is from an Arturo Toscanini box set of Beethoven Symphonies. So, I'll probably have my folder tree set up as Classical>Beethoven>Arturo Toscanini; as he was likely the greatest conductor of all time, he gets his own folder.

I used the comment field to record the complete symphony name and various keys.

No idea how I'll handle other orchestras, conductors, or soloists. Guess I'll refer back to this thread and figure it out as I go along.

Thanks for all the advice. You guys are great!

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #7 –
Quote from: teh roxxors on
Ugh...I am NOT looking forward to doing more of these.

Thanks to your input, this is what I came up with for file names:

Sym1Op21 - 5. Adagio molto^ Allegro con brio.mp3
Sym1Op21 - 6. Andante cantabile con moto.mp3
Sym1Op21 - 7. Menuetto^ Allegro molto e vivace.mp3
Sym1Op21 - 8. Adagio; Allegro molto e vivace.mp3
Sym3Op55 - 1. Allegro con brio.mp3
Sym3Op55 - 2. Marcia funebre^ Adagio assai.mp3
Sym3Op55 - 3. Scherzo^ Allegro vivace; Trio.mp3
Sym3Op55 - 4. Finale^ Allegro molto; Poco andante; Presto.mp3

I took into consideration how Windows Explorer lists files, how WinAmp displays file names while playing, how my backup software truncates file names when archiving to DVD, how the songs should play back in order in WinAmp or on an iPod, and how little I know about classical music.

This is from an Arturo Toscanini box set of Beethoven Symphonies. So, I'll probably have my folder tree set up as Classical>Beethoven>Arturo Toscanini; as he was likely the greatest conductor of all time, he gets his own folder.

I used the comment field to record the complete symphony name and various keys.

No idea how I'll handle other orchestras, conductors, or soloists. Guess I'll refer back to this thread and figure it out as I go along.

Thanks for all the advice. You guys are great!



Using Foobar I have made consistent use of a couple of additional tags COMPOSER and OPUS to mark up my classical collection with good results.

There's too much info to fit in any filename and, in any case, that is only one way of sorting the tracks but I can query and/or sort in Foobar by artist, composer and title - so, e.g. seeing all versions of a song or everything by an artist etc. etc. (or all versions of a song by the same artist!) I am now looking at use of CONTENT-GROUP and am adding WRITER (meaning who wrote the lyrics). It would be no problem to add INSTRUMENT or ORCHESTRA or what you will.

There was a yahoo group a while ago ("Well tempered Db") which was trying to set up tools for cataloguing classical music and organising an on-line database of works/recordings... but it has died, I think). I'd certainly support such a thing, if it was to restart.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #8 –
I am just beginning to put Classical stuff onto my PC, but my main difficulty lies in two areas: the fact that I want quite a lot of Rock/Pop/etc albums in the 'library' as well, and secondly that the source of much of the music is LP.  I am creating lots of CDs and making a library of m4a files.  All of this means some conflicting requirements and that means I need a very flexible player/library package.  Having looked at a few (e.g. iTunes, RealPlayer, WinAmp, Foobar, Helium - the last in the list being flexible but complex) I am about to commit to  Media Monkey Gold (ie the paid-for version).  It is so far the only thing that seems to give me the flexibility that I need.  It should be noted that I have not yet set up the classical side of my library; I have just been looking at what I will need.  'teh roxxors', I would strongly suggest that you look at Media Monkey in the free version, and then look at what the 'gold' version might give you.  I want different organisation or displays for classical and other music, and the different sub-genres within 'classical', and as far as I can see MM offers more in this area than any other package that I have looked at.  I believe that only when you have the required flexibility can you come up with a library 'structure', and, as with databases in other areas of IT, once there are enough data descriptors stored, and enough control over them, then one should be able to display it in the many different ways that are needed.  The simple structures of, for example, RealPlayer, let alone iTunes are just not good enough for a very varied library.

One last thought: I would try to remove considerations of the files and filenames themselves from the issues as much as possible, and rely on the database/library to navigate the music; perhaps easier said than done though.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #9 –
For me, foobar+facets work like a charm. Ultra fast, flexible. Although I have a collection of over 500 classical (in a broad sense, since I'm into early music) CDs, I can pinpoint everything I want in no time.
If age or weaknes doe prohibyte bloudletting you must use boxing

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #10 –
Quote from: eevan on
For me, foobar+facets work like a charm. Ultra fast, flexible. Although I have a collection of over 500 classical (in a broad sense, since I'm into early music) CDs, I can pinpoint everything I want in no time.


Yet another reason to wish foobar could be ported to OS X. :sigh:

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #11 –
Some things are for historical reasons. The strict composer scheme is sometimes a problem, if you have multiple composers on one CD. I put those in a "Various" folder, not a problem, because fb2k's search functions rock anyway.

Examples:

Code: [Select]
M:\Music\Classical\Sibelius\Symphonies\Complete Cycles\Blomstedt - SFSO\No.1\1.01. Allegro ma non troppo.tak
M:\Music\Classical\Sibelius\Symphonies\Complete Cycles\Blomstedt - SFSO\No.5\4.02. Andante mosso, quasi allegretto.tak
M:\Music\Classical\Sibelius\The Wood Nymph\Vänskä - LSO\The wood nymph.tak


My file names only have DISCNUMBER,TRACKNUMBER and the track name. File names are not important for me, only their order has to be correct (because on my notebook I navigate folder-wise)

I wouldn't create too long filenames because very soon you get file system/access problems.

Typical tagging I use:

Code: [Select]
Artist : Jean Sibelius
Composer : Jean Sibelius
Title : Andante mosso, quasi allegretto
Album : The Symphonies
Work : Symphony No. 5
Conductor : Herbert Blomstedt
Ensemble : San Francisco Symphony
Performer : 
Date : 2006
Track Number : 2
Total Tracks : 3
Disc Number : 4
Total Discs : 4
Comment : Recording Location: Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco (...)
Genre : Classical
Label : Decca
Original Cuesheet :


Most important for me is the consistent use of %work%, %conductor%, %composer% and %ensemble%.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #12 –
Quote from: teh roxxors on
Ugh...I am NOT looking forward to doing more of these.

Thanks to your input, this is what I came up with for file names:

Sym1Op21 - 5. Adagio molto^ Allegro con brio.mp3
Sym1Op21 - 6. Andante cantabile con moto.mp3
Sym1Op21 - 7. Menuetto^ Allegro molto e vivace.mp3
Sym1Op21 - 8. Adagio; Allegro molto e vivace.mp3
Sym3Op55 - 1. Allegro con brio.mp3
Sym3Op55 - 2. Marcia funebre^ Adagio assai.mp3
Sym3Op55 - 3. Scherzo^ Allegro vivace; Trio.mp3
Sym3Op55 - 4. Finale^ Allegro molto; Poco andante; Presto.mp3


To the original question, which was:

Quote
How do you guys organize & name the classical music on your PCs?


I don't organize it; I let iTunes do that for me.  And, in fact, I don't worry about filenames either, because iTunes automatically renames files based on the track name.  So all I do is make sure the track name reads how I want it to read.

Quote
I took into consideration how Windows Explorer lists files, how WinAmp displays file names while playing, how my backup software truncates file names when archiving to DVD, how the songs should play back in order in WinAmp or on an iPod, and how little I know about classical music.


Well, yes.  If you use WinAmp, name to suit it.

Here's what I do.

1. I usually put as the album name whatever the record label put the CD out as.  That's not hard-and-fast for me, because that can differ between the front and spine or maybe not be suitable in some other way.  Usually I'd make sure I had the composer name in there, whether or not the record label had included it, e.g.:

Bach: Mass in B minor

... but I mightn't bother where there's no room for doubt, e.g.:

Fidelio


2. I usually put the name of the performer/performers in the "Artist" field.  That's at variance with some recommendations.  Xiph says:

Quote
The artist generally considered responsible for the work. In popular music this is usually the performing band or singer. For classical music it would be the composer. For an audio book it would be the author of the original text.


But I'm not about to do that.  Since iTunes gives me a "composer" field, I use it.  (I don't know what WinAmp does.) So in the "Artist" field I put the performer/s and where there's an orchestra I put that first.  I put the conductor next, then any soloists with their instrument given in brackets after, e.g.:

The King's Consort, Robert King

Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan

Ian Partridge (Tenor), Konrad Ragossnig (Lute)


3. When it comes to the "Composer" field I always put the composer's name in its natural order, e.g.:

Leoš Janá?ek

It makes searching on a iPod when you're searching by composer name a little more fiddly, because you have to stop and remember the Christian name first, which, unlike the surname, doesn't always come to mind for every composer.  However, reversing the natural order of the name just looks too unnatural and clumsy to me.


4. In the "Genre" field I always put "Classical".  I don't worry about identifying different periods that people have applied to music (Baroque, Romantic, etc.) or identifying different musical forms (Opera, Madrigal, etc.).


5. I fill in track number and track total, because iTunes has both fields even though some players don't use both.  I also fill in disc number and disc total if there's more than one disc -- if there isn't I leave those fields blank.


6.  I think that only leaves the track name.  If that can be something short --

Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23

-- well and good.  However, I think often it can't.  Particularly where symphonies are involved I tend to think I'd better put the lot in there, i.e., the name of the piece, followed by a colon as separator, followed by the name of the track:

Symphony No. 41 in C "Jupiter" K551: I. Allegro vivace

El Decamerón Negro: El Arpa Del Guerrero

The Water Goblin: Un poco più mosso

Besides all this I like to keep consistent capitalization (using sentence case).  I also like to have titles in their original language (using the correct capitalization rules for the language in question). Usually, I make sure any opus number (or equivalent) is included as well.  And I usually put the key signature.

But I'm sure there a few files I haven't consistently done this for.

I perhaps fussier than some people -- but this serves my needs.  And as long as the track name is as I want it, iTunes will deal with the filename and folder hierarchy for me.  Because I do like to keep a fairly consistent scheme, it does mean that when I get information from Gracenote, FreeDB, or Music Brainz, I often have to do some tidying up of tags, because everyone seems to tag classical music slightly (or quite a lot) differently.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #13 –
Quote from: teh roxxors on
I''m starting to rip my classical collection, but I'm confused as how to best organize it on a computer.

I think I need separate folders for each composer. Beyond that . . . I'm not even sure what to include in the file name! For example, Beethoven's 5th & 7th:

1. Symphony No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: 1 - Allegro con brio
2. Symphonie No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: 2 - Andante con moto
3. Symphonie No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: 3 - Allegro
4. Symphonie No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: 4 - Allegro
5. SYMPHONIE NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OP. 92: 1 - Poco sostenuto - vivace
6. SYMPHONIE NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OP. 92: 2 - Allegretto
7. SYMPHONIE NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OP. 92: 3 - Presto
8. SYMPHONIE NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OP. 92: 4 - Allegro con brio

I don't know what parts above to include in a file name. Should each symphony have its own folder? What about the conductor or orchestra? YIKES!!!

How do you guys organize & name the classical music on your PCs?


Well, the tagging system has been invented for pop-rock music ...
Also with Classical music it also depends on the kind of music you generally listen to. In your above example I would create a directory Beethoven and then subdirectories as Symphonies - Harnoncourt, Symphonies - Brüggen etc., Missa solemnis - Harnoncourt, Missa solemnis - Gardiner etc.
In Renaissance polyphony I generally (but not always) create directories for the choirs /Tallis Scholars, /Sixteen /Hilliard and put the records in these directories (but the artists are the composers: Josquin, Palestrina, Taverner etc.)
In the above examples I would not include the Opus number in the file names, since Beethoven's symphonies are easily identifiable without them. On the other hand I always include the Köchel numbering for Mozart symphonies (since in the country I live Mozart symphonies - and piano concertos - are not numbered as in the English speaking world, they are identified by Köchel numbers).
It also depends if you rather listen to whole CDs or individual pieces. I have e.g. a CD which has a Beethoven symphony and a Mozart symphony on it. I put the Beethoven symphony in the Beethoven directory and the Mozart to Mozart directory. You might want to do it differently.
I also have problems with filenames. Windows does not accept in filenames characters like : ? ". I do not have such a problem as I do not use Windows, but I have problems when I copy the files on my DAP. Some opera and oratorio song titles have ?, and in symphonies it is customary to separate the name of the movement from the tempo marking with a :, as in 4. Finale: Vivace, or 3. Menuetto: Allegro which cannot be used on my DAP.
Further your choice may also depend on the audio player you use. If you use a player which finds the files by the tags, then you must avoid to have two sets of music having the same Composer and Album. E.g. If you have two recordings of Don Giovanni, and the artist in both sets are entered as Mozart and the album as Don Giovanni, a tag based player (like Amarok on Linux-KDE) in the album view will show you under Mozart Don Giovanni the entries: Overtura, Overtura, Notte e giorno faticar, Notte e giorno faticar etc. In this case you may want to put e.g. the album names as Don Giovanni - Harnoncourt, Don Giovanni - Giulini etc., so they will not show up as the same album.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Nick E on
it does mean that when I get information from Gracenote, FreeDB, or Music Brainz, I often have to do some tidying up of tags, because everyone seems to tag classical music slightly (or quite a lot) differently.


Yes, and if you happen to belong to the majority of the world's population i.e. your mother tongue is not English, you are required to do quite a lot of tidying up, e.g. to turn "Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor" into "d-moll zongoraverseny K.466" or into "Klavierkonzert d-Moll KV466", whereas in pop-rock music you're not likely to change Yesterday into Gestern or Tegnap or Hier or whatever.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #15 –
well, if you ever get serious about collecting classical, i'd personally go for a structure that is something like this:

composer\conductor, ensemble, soloist(s) (abbreviate and leave out the info that isn't relevant)\work (performance date)\"composer - title".extension, where the title info usually includes the work name, opusnumber, key, and tempo indications
ie. "Beethoven, Ludwig van - Piano Sonata N°29 in B Flat, Op 106:2 'Hammerklavier' - Scherzo: Assai vivace"

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #16 –
Quote from: imre_herceg on
Quote from: Nick E on

it does mean that when I get information from Gracenote, FreeDB, or Music Brainz, I often have to do some tidying up of tags, because everyone seems to tag classical music slightly (or quite a lot) differently.


... if you [... don't speak English] you [will need to]  to turn "Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor" into "d-moll zongoraverseny K.466" or into "Klavierkonzert d-Moll KV466" ...


Judging by your accusatory and self-pitying language --

Quote
belong to the majority of the world's population i.e. your mother tongue is not English


for

Quote
don't speak English


and

Quote
are required to do


for

Quote
will need to


you resent the fact that these services have made their databases available to you, but don't make them available to you in German. There's an obvious answer to that: if it bothers you, start your own German-language service.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #17 –
Quote from: Nick E on
you resent the fact that these services have made their databases available to you, but don't make them available to you in German. There's an obvious answer to that: if it bothers you, start your own German-language service.
Why should he start a service in another non-native language? There's enough indicators he's not german/austrian/switzerman, maybe bosnia or hungary, Mister E.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #18 –
Quote
How do you guys organize & name the classical music on your PCs?

directories:  (conductor/artist/whatever)_album title
files:  album title_track_composer, title - (movement/act/whatever)

ex:
C:\My Music\Maria Callas_La Divina 1\La Divina 1_01_Puccini, Madama Butterfly - 'Un bel di, vedremo'.mp3

in song title:
composer, title - (movement/act/whatever)
ex:
Puccini, Madama Butterfly - 'Un bel di, vedremo'

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #19 –
Quote from: teh roxxors on
I''m starting to rip my classical collection, but I'm confused as how to best organize it on a computer.

Part of this depends on how you plan to play it.    We use Sonos at home and iPods on the go.  We do not play our music on a computer (the Sonos music lives on NAS)

The first thing to keep in mind is that the ID3 tagging system has no canonical way to represent a taxonomy bigger than 1 track but smaller than, say, a CD or LP album, i.e., a multi-movement composition.    So most serious classical music listeners appropriate the "Album" tag for this, i.e, an "Album" is a work or opus.  Thus our Album tag might say

Beethoven Symphony No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, 1996

Quote
I think I need separate folders for each composer. Beyond that . . . I'm not even sure what to include in the file name! For example, Beethoven's 5th & 7th:

1. Symphony No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: 1 - Allegro con brio
2. Symphonie No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: 2 - Andante con moto
3. Symphonie No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: 3 - Allegro
4. Symphonie No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: 4 - Allegro
5. SYMPHONIE NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OP. 92: 1 - Poco sostenuto - vivace
6. SYMPHONIE NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OP. 92: 2 - Allegretto
7. SYMPHONIE NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OP. 92: 3 - Presto
8. SYMPHONIE NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OP. 92: 4 - Allegro con brio

So if you wanted to play Symphony No. 5 In C Minor, all four movements, in order, how would you do this with your scheme?  We do it by playing that "Album" - and again, this is probably the most common approach  in the classical music world to getting around this ID3 problem. 

In the Track tag we do Composer, piece, movement - with the movement number before the movement description to ensure proper sort order! 

Beethoven Symph No 5 Op 67 1 Allegro con brio

Doing it in that order ensures that even on a display with limited screen real estate you know what you're hearing.    Notice that mine is more abbreviated than yours - again this is from hard experience seeing classical tracks displayed on playback devices with small displays, like iPod Nanos.      You can always put more detail in the Album tag - the key, the year composed, Köchel or Schmieder numbers, orchestra, soloists, etc.

In the short form -i.e., the track name -  the opus is a more important de-obfuscator than the key because in chamber music a composer might have several trios or quartets in the same key and most chamer works don't get assigned a number the way symphonies do.

Also note that it's VERY IMPORTANT to spell the composer's name consistently Pick ONE:  J.S. Bach, Bach, J.S., J S Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, etc.  N.B. that you can't just say "Bach" because of C.P.E. Bach and J.C. Bach.

My wife and I are big classical music lovers and in the last year we've ripped about 1000 classical CD's to add to our collection.  In my experience you should utilize the tagging scheme, not the file system,  to maintain your taxonomy because it will self-organize across all devices that read that file type, whereas the file system approach ties you too much to the OS'es file system.    In our experience - and, again, we have quite a bit of it -  it's a mistake to wed your scheme too tightly to the computer itself.

We only use a broad file system taxonomy -  genre (only in the broadest sense - our detailed genre's are in the Genre tag), then Artist or Composer.  Within the Composer folder we use a version of the track name for the file name but we don't create subfolders for each work.    We do the same thing with rock/pop music -  we'll have a folder for, say, the Rolling Stones,  and we'll put all their songs in it and use the tagging system to keep it all organized.  Our assumption is the we'll be interfacing to our collection via applications such as iTunes which have much more powerful searching and organizing capabilities than the base OS.  If you find yourself looking at the actual files and folders of your music you probably aren't taking enough advantage of the technology.  Once we've ripped a track we hardly ever see the music through anything but Sonos, iTunes, or similar apps.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #20 –
Quote
Some things are for historical reasons. The strict composer scheme is sometimes a problem, if you have multiple composers on one CD. I put those in a "Various" folder, not a problem, because fb2k's search functions rock anyway.

This is yet another reason to ditch a taxonomy that's based on the media.  Why does it matter what CD something came on?  A CD is just a storage and transport device - it's the music that matters.  In the near future there won't even be CD's.  We already buy lots of music online, and much of our rock music collection is from used "best of-" compilation CD's.

We usually pay no attention whatsoever to the CD something came on.  We recently ripped a CD that had Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade and Debussy's La Mer.    La Mer went in a Debussy folder and Sheherazade went in a  Rimsky-Korsakov folder. 

If, for some reason, I want to retain information about the CD-of-origin - say it's a classic rock or jazz CD -  "Quadrophenia" or "Kind of Blue" - I put that in the Album tag.

I'm a strong adovcate of relying entirely on the built-in tags because this will make your collection self-organizing regardless of the storage device and playback platform, as long as the playback platform is tag-aware.  As others have already pointed out, file systems are not designed to organize music.

But just to summarize -  what makes tagging such a powerful concept is that it's embedded in the file so the file already "knows" where it belongs.  Regardless of what tag-aware tool you use to play your music, and regardless of how you like to search or sort your music - composer, artist, opus, title, etc, a properly tagged item will appear in the right place. 

You can scramble them any way you want on the hard drive -  dump 30,000 songs in one folder, put every song in its own folder, have separate folders for each artist, composer, band, CD or LP, different folders for each genre, or do it all inconsistently, and it doesn't matter as long as things are tagged properly.  That's why I've long advocated that people don't worry so much over how it's organized in the file system or on the storage medium.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #21 –
Quote from: plnelson on
Also note that it's VERY IMPORTANT to spell the composer's name consistently Pick ONE:  J.S. Bach, Bach, J.S., J S Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, etc.  N.B. that you can't just say "Bach" because of C.P.E. Bach and J.C. Bach.


What he said.

All plnelson's advice is particularly good, and it will help me as I reorganize my stuff.

It's worth noting also that the album name that turns up on a database may be quite different from what's on the cover, showing that compilation albums have more to do with marketing than musical taxonomy. However, being of the Sgt Pepper generation, I can't quite get the notion of an album out of my head.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #22 –
Quote from: imre_herceg on
Quote from: Nick E on

it does mean that when I get information from Gracenote, FreeDB, or Music Brainz, I often have to do some tidying up of tags, because everyone seems to tag classical music slightly (or quite a lot) differently.


Yes, and if you happen to belong to the majority of the world's population i.e. your mother tongue is not English, you are required to do quite a lot of tidying up, e.g. to turn "Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor" into "d-moll zongoraverseny K.466" or into "Klavierkonzert d-Moll KV466", whereas in pop-rock music you're not likely to change Yesterday into Gestern or Tegnap or Hier or whatever.

Doing it correctly requires extensive hand-editing regardless of your native language. 

1.  Gracenote (et al) are too inconsistent.  Even within a piece they don't note all the movements the same way, and between pieces they do EVERYTHING differently.  In tags like "Artist" and Album Artist" I've seen composer, orchestra, conductor, or soloists!    And while rock, pop, jazz, country and other genres are simpler they still find ways of being inconsistent.

2.  Even when Gracenote, et al, do a decent job they still won't do it the way I or you want it.    I want my tracks: composer - last name first (then initials if necessary) title, opus number (or, say Köchel number if it's Mozart), movement number, movement description.    Gracenote can't read our minds  about what we want in each tag.    I hand edit virtually every tag so I'm sure I do nearly as much work as a non-English speaker.

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #23 –


this is easily done as long as you don't stick to the stupid 'put as much as you can in the %album% field' philosophy (with foobar, granted)

Organizing Classical MP3s

Reply #24 –
Quote from: plnelson on
This is yet another reason to ditch a taxonomy that's based on the media.  Why does it matter what CD something came on?  A CD is just a storage and transport device - it's the music that matters.  In the near future there won't even be CD's.  We already buy lots of music online, and much of our rock music collection is from used "best of-" compilation CD's.

We usually pay no attention whatsoever to the CD something came on.  We recently ripped a CD that had Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade and Debussy's La Mer.    La Mer went in a Debussy folder and Sheherazade went in a  Rimsky-Korsakov folder.
I fully agree. And this is how I do it. But I try to keep my "Album" tags very precise (string needs to be written precisely) and unique, so then I'm able to find the CD where the track belongs to. I was thinking about adding a unique identifier to the album tag, I guess there's something like ISBN also for CDs, but then I found this is just overkill. Finally, 99% of the searches are for artist, composer, conductor or title, but not the album name (i.e. the CD where tracks belong to).

Quote from: boombaard on
[a href="http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brahmsvonkarajanth0.jpg" target="_blank"] Must have been a lot of work.

BTW people, how do you format %TITLE%? For the works name and opus number I have introduced %work% here, so in %title% it's enough to have "Allegro ma non troppo"... No works name etc... I don't see any disadvantages.

I'm not consistent in the use of tracknumbers, pnelson, how do you handle those and what file names do you use then? E.g. if the 3rd track on CD is the first movement of a symphony, e.g. called "Allegro". %tracknumber%=3 is all in all correct, if we want to preserve the original media information. But it's a bit ugly when it comes to displaying -> "3. Allegro" (though "allegro" is the 1st mvmt here). So I was thinking about using "I. Allegro" as a track title... But still not consistently using it.