[vorbis] TAG Standard - ENSEMBLE/PERFORMER tags

[Jonathan Walther]

On Thu, Jan 03, 2002 at 03:27:40PM -0800, Craig Dickson wrote:
>The distinction between PERFORMER and ENSEMBLE is unnecessary. Several
>people have made this point. One could further argue that CONDUCTOR
>should be merged with these, but I think CONDUCTOR is useful to
>distinguish between, say, Daniel Barenboim as conductor and Daniel
>Barenboim as pianist.

I think in keeping with the spirit of tags in Ogg its better to say
ENSEMBLE=London Symphony Orchestra
instead of
PERFORMER=London Symphony Orchestra (orchestra)
which would require additional parsing.

People are welcome to ignore ENSEMBLE and use PERFORMER for everything
they used ARTIST for.  But when listening to classical music, you are
often more interested in knowing who the ensemble is than knowing who
the solo performers are.  Having the ENSEMBLE tag makes it easier for
playing software to sensibly display information about the Ogg, putting
the ENSEMBLE in a place thats easier to see than the rest of the
PERFORMERS.

Given that one doesn't need to use ENSEMBLE, just as one doesn't need to
use CONDUCTOR, I think theres no reason to axe it.  Groups are almost
always the focal point of interest.  Having a tag to say "GROUP" is
useful.

>COPYRIGHT is unnecessary for identifying the recording. If you know the
>composer, the title of the piece, the title of the CD, the date and
>location of recording, and the record company's brand name (LABEL), you
>don't need COPYRIGHT.

COPYRIGHT and PUBLISHER are nods to the music industry.  I was told by
several people, including the webmaster for Hyperion records that these
tags are necessary for radio streaming.  Maybe I should have added a
fourth goal:

5) Within reason, support the music industries attempts to make money

The purpose of the goal is to avert some of the antagonism that has lead
to their widespread campaign of FUD against the MP3 format.  Make it
useful for them, and if they don't endorse it, at least they won't
attack it as virulently as they have MP3.

>A similar argument might be made for ARRANGER, but I accept that
>ARRANGER is necessary for knowing what you're listening to, though not
>for being able to go out and buy it.

True.  For instance, there are some pieces by Ravel that are in a piano
version, but were then orchestrated by other parties.  You would want to
know if you were listening to the piano or orchestral version of
Cathedral Engloutie, and when knowing the ARRANGER is sufficient, its
kludgy to use a "VERSION" tag.

>The distinction between PUBLISHER and LABEL is not exactly meaningless,
>but I don't see that it's useful. LABEL="Columbia", PUBLISHER="Sony"? Do
>you update all your files if a label is sold? I think identifying the

No.  PUBLISHER and LABEL are encoded as they were when the CD was
manufactured and released.  You don't change existing files, you just
change the tags if the CD is re-released.

>The distinction between AUTHOR and LYRICIST is not exactly meaningless,
>but also not terribly helpful. I would prefer the simplicity of using a
>single field for "the people who wrote the words", whatever you want to
>call it. (Actually, the problem of what to call such a field may be the
>best argument for keeping them separate!) There may be an argument for
>also merging COMPOSER in with these, but it's less significant.

Thats the problem with PERFORMER and ENSEMBLE too.  No really good middle
ground.  If you could find a term that would resolve the distinction
between an "individual" and a "group"...

>> 4) Identify the track for location in the external database that
>>   contains ALL POSSIBLE information about the track.
>
>That seems reasonable, once such a database exists and can be guaranteed
>to remain free (or at least licensed in such a way that it can be forked
>if necessary).

Maybe you and I will just have to get it started ourselves and see what
happens.  I've been mulling over something like this for a while.
freedb seems too MP3 centric.  At this point, its still not that big a
deal to start over.  People that want detailed information would be
entering it themselves anyway; when we network it everyone will benefit.
I've also made some tagging and file-naming scripts that comply with the
standard which I will post here later.

Jonathan

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