A very informative article if you are a classical music fan and want to
organize your collection better. I felt this post was fitting for both lists.
Sent by Macbook Air Mail
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Home › Projects › How I Organize Classical Music in iTunes
How I Organize Classical Music in iTunes
Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 4:36 AM
Classical music in iTunes is a disaster. The track and album information that
is downloaded with your album is an inconsistent nightmare, and leaves one with
few options for creating a variety of rich playlists—which is almost
exclusively how I listen to my music.
To remedy this, I have a system which overhauls the existing track and album
data, and appends those data with rich metadata so that I can create a variety
of smart playlists. Here is my recipe.
Tidy Track Data and Add Metadata
Fix Album Composer
Unlike many people, I keep the composer of the work in the Composer field (many
people move it to the Artist field). I make sure I choose one consistent way to
spell the composer's name (Dvořák or Dvorak? you decide and stick with
one—personally I prefer the "řá" spelling), then I change it to a [last name],
[first name] format. And, I don't include the dates of birth and death, we have
Wikipedia for that. Once you have a composer in your library, subsequent
entries will autocomplete.
Add composer to sort fields
I put the composer, in the same [last name], [first name] format, in the Sort
Artist and Sort Album Artist fields. This bunches the works of one composer
together, but will not break up multi-composer albums. If you identify your
albums by the artist more than the composer, don't do this step.
Fix Album Artist
There are two fields here: Artist and Album Artist which, as you might imagine,
represent each track and the entire album, respectively. For the Artist field,
I tend to put the conductor and orchestra first, when applicable, and follow it
with any highlighted artists along with their reason for being highlighted.
Each artist is separated by a semi-colon. So, for example:
Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic
Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony; Sidney Harth, Violin
Alfred Brendel, Piano
Stanislaw Wislocki, Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra; Sviatoslav Richter,
Piano
For the Album Artist, I typically put the most important artist first, without
any instruments or voices. If the album is known for the pianist, then he or
she will go first. If the album is best known for the conductor, then he will
appear first (why are there no female conductors?). I still join the conductor
and his orchestra with a comma, and separate other artists with a semi-colon.
For example:
Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic
Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony; Sidney Harth (the piece is better known for
Reiner's work)
Alfred Brendel
Sviatoslav Richter; Stanislaw Wislocki, Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra
Now, I know what you're asking, what about those albums that have different
artists for different pieces on the album. Well, I personally hate when albums
have an Album Artist of Various Artists, but sometimes it is unavoidable,
particularly on compilation albums. However, if there are only two different
artists, I will join them together in the Album Artist field, thereby rescuing
it from the various artists section. The alternative is to break up
multi-artist albums so that they appear as different albums, but taken to its
extreme—compilation albums—this system breaks down. I vote to keep the original
album together.
Add Metadata
The Comments field can take a format-free string of characters, so I populate
this field with an assortment of metadata that describe the piece. These
include, in this order:
The Musical Period — Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20th Century,
or Modern.
The Musical Form — Symphony, Sonata, Concerto, Prelude, Rhapsody, Tone Poem,
Fugue, etc. If you don't know the form, then put Form?
The Ensemble — Solo, Duet, Trio, Quartet, Quintet, up to Nonet, and Orchestra
Highlighted Instruments — Violin for a violin concerto, Strings for a string
quartet, or Winds for Mozart's Serenade #10 for Wind Instruments. You get the
idea. Instruments can either be listed as a broad category, like Keyboard,
Strings, Winds, Voice, or they can be listed individually, like Harpsichord,
Cello, Oboe, etc.
The Album Date — if you feel the need, the original date that appears on the
album. Often the release date, which I include as Rel2007, or the recording
date, which I write as Rec1965. I don't pursue these dates, I only copy the
date from the Year field here, just to have a record of when the album was
released.
Date Uncertainty — if you don't know the date of the composition, which, as
you'll see next, I put in the Year field, I place a Date? at the end of the
Comments field.
Fix the Year
I like putting the year the work was composed in the Year field. This is a nice
way to put pieces in context with one another, and composers in historical
context. This is why I copy the date to the Comments field, as described in 4f
above.
Fix the track Name field
Typically, the track names, populated by the Gracenote database, are
inconsistent not only across albums but even, at times, within albums. I fix
all of this by using a standard field format, which makes the tracks more
readable and easier to sort by. For most works, I use a format like this:
[composer]: [work] in [key], [Op. #]/[number] '[known by name]' - #. [movement
name]
For example:
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto #2 in F Major, BWV 1047 - 3. Allegro Assai
Beethoven: Piano Sonata #5 in C Minor, Op. 10/1 - 1. Allegro molto e con brio
Mozart: Symphony #36 in C Major, K. 425 'Linz' - 3. Menuetto
Albéniz: Iberia Suite, Book III - 1. El Albaicin
Chopin: Mazurka #45 in G Minor, Op. 67/2 - Cantabile
R. Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30
Glass: Akhnaten, Act I: Year 1 of Akhenaten's Reign in Thebes, Scene 3 - The
Window of Appearances
Mozart: Don Giovanni, Act II, Scene 15 - Finale: Don Giovanni, A Cenar Teco
Strictly speaking, I should have listed the Brandenburg Concerto as Bach:
Concerto #2 in F Major for Orchestra, BWV 1047 'Brandenburg' - ..., but some
rules are meant to be broken when it makes sense to do so.
Some additional guidelines:
For Opera and other larger works, I use roman numerals for Acts or Books, like
the examples above.
I never use "No." for number, I use the more economical "#" instead.
Everything begins with caps except the "in"s and "for"s, etc.
I always use a hyphen between sharp and flat notes, in the format:
[note]-[Sharp | Flat] [Major | Minor]. For example B-Flat Minor.
I always put a Major or Minor in the work (Major is often left out).
I like to use numbers for the movements, instead of the traditional Roman
numerals. Numbers are easier to read.
Most tracks are listed with the primary instrument first, but others warrant
the order reversed. For example:
Schubert: String Quartet #14 in D Minor, D. 810 'Death and the Maiden' - 2.
Andante con Moto
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto #2 in C Minor, Op. 18 - I. Moderato
Mozart: Serenade #10 in B-Flat Major for 13 Wind Instruments, K. 361 'Gran
Partita' - II. Menuetto
Fix the Grouping field
The Grouping field allows you to associate the many tracks that make up one
piece into a group. I use a format that's similar to the track name, but I
remove a few items and rearrange the order a bit. I remove the composer and any
individual movement information. Then, I try to begin the piece with the
musical form, like Symphony, Concerto, Sonata, etc. which necessitates moving
the instrument (if present) to the end kicked off by a "for." Some
corresponding examples:
Brandenburg Concerto #2 in F Major, BWV 1047
Sonata #5 in C Minor for Piano, Op. 10/1
Symphony #36 in C Major, K. 425 'Linz'
Iberia Suite
Akhnaten
Don Giovanni, K. 527
Quartet #14 in D Minor for Strings, D. 810 'Death and the Maiden'
Concerto #2 in C Minor for Piano, Op. 18
Again, the Brandenburg Concerto is known more by that name, so it gets a pass.
Starting with the musical form makes it easy to see the pieces when sorted by
group in the Column Browser's Grouping column—you are using the Column Browser,
right?
Rate Your Tracks
By giving your tracks a rating, particularly for those tracks you like, you
will separate the wheat from the chaff. Spend the extra time to at least rate
those tracks that are neutral (3-star), tracks that you like (4-star), and
tracks that you love (5-star).
Creating Smart Playlists
Once you have all the metadata in place, you can then begin to create a
multitude of smart playlists that cull these data. Here is how I organize my
Classical playlists. First, make a playlist folder called Classical, then put
these folders inside it.
Composers
These can be smart lists to pull one composer's work out, or, what I find more
enjoyable are dumb playlists populated with one composers work one piece at a
time. Say you have Bach's Trio sonatas, Cello Suites, Brandenburg Concertos,
and his Violin Concertos. Make a normal playlist called Bach Mix which takes
one piece from the Trio Sonatas, then one from the Cello Suite, then a
Brandenburg Concerto, then a Violin Concerto. Repeat the process until you
exhaust the album's tracks and you have a nice little mix.
Ensemble
Create a smart playlist that culls data in the Comments field (4c above). You
can have one list for Solo, one for Duet, Trio, Quartet, etc., up to Orchestra.
(Yes, I know Solo does not an ensemble make, but it makes sense in this
context.)
Forms
Smart playlists for the musical forms present in your library (4b above).
Instruments
You can make smart playlists for various instruments (Violin, Piano, Cello,
etc.). You can also make broad playlists that source the individual instruments
playlists, but also collect data for Strings, Keyboard, or Winds. For example,
if you set up playlists for Violin, Viola, Cello, Guitar, Harp, Lute, and
Mandolin, you could then make a Strings playlist that takes items from all
those playlists, and takes items that have Strings in their metadata.
Periods
For me, this is the most important set of playlists because I like to listen to
my music by period. One for each in 4a above. I also attach dates to these
lists, like Baroque (1600-1760) but you can do what you like.
Popular
Using the ratings and the play count, you can construct smart playlists that
bring out the best of your collection. You can have compound lists that use,
say, the Romantic playlist and only skim off the 5-star-rated tracks, giving
you the best of Romantic period. You can do the same for a particular composer,
for an ensemble, an instrument, a musical form, or a tempo (defined next). I
use special characters for the 5-star playlists and the 4- plus 5-star
playlists. Five-star playlists get a filled-in heart symbol, while 4- plus
5-star lists get a hollow heart symbol. Use Edit > Special Characters to choose
a symbol you like.
Tempo
Using the basic tempo markings, you can sort your collection by tempo. This
relies on the tempo appearing in the track name, which for many pre-20th
century pieces is a given. For more modern pieces, tempo indicators may not be
present. You can make smart playlists for Adagio, Allegro, Vivace, and Presto,
to name a few, then listen to tracks with a slower tempo, or lively, vivacious
tracks.
Beyond this, any combination of these is feasible. If you want 5-star, solo
string pieces, you can make that list. If you want all keyboard sonatas, you
can make that too. Say you want all C Major works, or all C Major, 5-star,
string works—all easy to make with smart playlists. You can easily find all
Scherzos, or all duet sonatas. The possibilities are endless.
With this recipe, I've shown you how I harness the power of data to make
super-smart playlists. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact
me.
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