[HeresJohnny]

I have some albums which contain information under the COMPOSER tag, e.g. this one:



This tag is then evaluated and put under ARTISTS in the database like so:



It doesn't appear under ARTISTS in the frontend, though, but correctly under COMPOSERS.

However, this observation leads me to the question if roles are really useful (at this point). There seems to be no MBID associated with the composers tag so any info that is shown in Kodi will be wildy inconsistent again and just adds an unnecessary level of complexity. Like sometimes, the composer is "Bach", sometimes it's "Johann Sebastian Bach" and sometimes even "Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)", just to name an example.

[scott967]

Well, I suppose there is somewhat of an issue in that capabilities were added without rebuilding the entire data model.   I would say, yes, every "artist" (and other entity) should have the ability to have an MBID attribute assigned to it, ideally in the metadata if not via scraping/nfo file process.

The idea of the "role" attribute which describes the relation of the artist to the creative process is somewhat different than the "performer" attribute which is more of a partitioning of a particular role (eg, the instrument played).  Performers should probably be treated differently from roles as typically all the performers are involved in the same role.  Then you have the concept of "ensemble" which is a grouping of performers that has some permanence such that it is treated as an entity in its own right.  I suppose "ensemble" could also be applied to other roles, for example "Rodgers & Hammerstein" could be considered an ensemble of the "composer" role (in this case of course one "performer" is the lyricist, the other the music composer). 

scott s.
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[HeresJohnny]

Sorry to have lead you astray, the screenshots/topic title show that I meant to talk about the COMPOSER tag, but wrote PERFORMER instead in the text.

[DaveBlake]

Not sure the point of this thread, are you requesting the functionality is removed?

However, this observation leads me to the question if roles are really useful (at this point). There seems to be no MBID associated with the composers tag so any info that is shown in Kodi will be wildy inconsistent again and just adds an unnecessary level of complexity. Like sometimes, the composer is "Bach", sometimes it's "Johann Sebastian Bach" and sometimes even "Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)", just to name an example.

It need not be a mess, just up to the user to ensure that their COMPOSER tag is completed using consistent naming. If that name matches an artist that Kodi has the mbid for then it is associated with it (often composer is a song or album artist too, and that makes it immediate). Because of the Artist Information Folder it is also possible to create NFO and local art for such artists (that are not song or album artists).

But hey, you don't have to use it

[scott967]

My only problem with "composer" role is I don't want "songwriters" included within "composers" (with no way to filter out).  So my personal practice is to bastardize "performer" by using "songwriter" as a performer "instrument" which then shows up in Kodi as a "role".

What I would really like in "all contributors" node is some way to see in artist info all roles for an artist (and ideally, a way to directly see all library items grouped by role for the artist.)  AFAIK there's no way to do that.

But I guess there is an issue as MB treats composers as having a dual-role of track and release artist in addition to composer role.

Thinking about it some more, maybe a real problem is that the concept of "album artist" seems a bit sketchy to me.  I mean, the "album artist" is really just a union of all track artists.  I get that for commercial purposes certain artists will be listed on a physical medium and users might want to capture that, but I don't see that the concept of "album artist" adds any knowledge.  Perhaps the "album artist" provides overall direction to the release as a value-added (or artistic) function and thus is its own role, but I suspect that's in a minority of cases.

scott s.
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[DaveBlake]

My motivation for adding the entire extra tag reading and roles functionality to Kodi was so that I could separate the composers, conductors and orchestras for classical music. I hated seeing the artists list with them all mixed together because mostly I select what Classical music I want to hear by genre (=classical) and then composer, finally seeing a list of albums by that composer. I added a generic feature rather than one specific to my use as that is good design. It seems to me a good start, and something that could be deveolped further.
 

My only problem with "composer" role is I don't want "songwriters" included within "composers" (with no way to filter out).  So my personal practice is to bastardize "performer" by using "songwriter" as a performer "instrument" which then shows up in Kodi as a "role".

Yes that composer list across all genres does end up with song writers etc., I get around that by ensuring that for my classical music COMPOSER is tagged carefully and then use a "Classical Composers" custom node that filters on genre as well as role.

Ironically, because I use Kodi with TV off, I don't get to use this custom node much. Instead I use SQL (although I could use artist NFO files, but find SQL easier) to put "Composer" in the instruments field of the artist table for those classical music artists that have role "composer". Then use Yatse which can filter artists on instruments (or style or mood) to show me just classcial composers.
 

What I would really like in "all contributors" node is some way to see in artist info all roles for an artist (and ideally, a way to directly see all library items grouped by role for the artist.)  AFAIK there's no way to do that.

The only issue with fetching the roles for an artist as part of the artists node is not wanting to slow down that kind of node when most of the time users don't care about roles. It means making the data fetching/loading use specific i.e. only fetch what the skin is going to show, an approach that could be more efficient generally but is a big change from the original fetch it all into an item list approach.

As for grouping, again a whole new GUI feature - the facility to group things by some criteria.  But what to do with library items that belong under more than one group e.g. artist is both composer and lyricist? List twice, or have a "Composer & Lyricist" section?

Nice ideas and I would certainly be interested in extending the use of this role/contributor data. New core GUI functionality needed to achieve it, sadly that middle part of GUI design lacks devs, and I'm not sure where to start.  Since I don't use the music GUI most of the time probably I'm not the guy for the job, at least not on my own.
 

But I guess there is an issue as MB treats composers as having a dual-role of track and release artist in addition to composer role.

That is the thing, sometimes the composer is just the composer of the track, others they are also an artist, sometimes an album artist too and others just an album artist (not track).
 

Thinking about it some more, maybe a real problem is that the concept of "album artist" seems a bit sketchy to me.  I mean, the "album artist" is really just a union of all track artists.  I get that for commercial purposes certain artists will be listed on a physical medium and users might want to capture that, but I don't see that the concept of "album artist" adds any knowledge.  Perhaps the "album artist" provides overall direction to the release as a value-added (or artistic) function and thus is its own role, but I suspect that's in a minority of cases.

As someone that almost always plays albums not songs, the concept of "album artist" is clear to me, and it is not a union of track artists. For example I would not want to see all the song artists on a various artist compilation listed as the album artists, nor would I want to see artists that made guest appearances (song artists) listed as the album artist.

Album artist(s) plus album title identifies the album in a human way (unlike a Musicbrainz release group id), not just for commericial purposes. Many artists also create albums as a concept, not just a random collection of songs. It is how for many years I selected what physical medium to stick in the player, and still how I select what digital media I want to play.

Perhaps it seems "sketchy" to you because the use of album artist varies with music genre and user doing the tagging, even the MB guidelines vary (and are useful in what they advise). For example classical guitar albums you would tag the gutarist e.g. "Andre Segovia" as the album artist, but use the piece composer as the artist for each track. This results in an album artist that isn't also a song artist. But it makes sense on both browsing and playback - pick the album based on artist "Andre Segovia", or the song based on who composed it and see "Study No. 8, Tarrega" during playback.

Maybe we would not have that if composer and performer tagging had been standard from the beginning, but if as a minimum a media player is going to show album artist, song artist and title then you put the values in there that are useful as a human picking and listening to the music.

[HeresJohnny]

I'm giving classical music roughly the same treatment as Dave. If Andres Segovia plays all the pieces but by different composers, I put him as the album artist and the respective composer of each piece as the song artist. If an album is about pieces of the same composer I put him as album artist and the players and director (if applicable) as song artist. It gets more complicated with orchestras playing different composers.

However, I'm curious about one thing: Classical composers are usually only referred to by their last name (except where composers of equal fame share the last name (e.g. Richard Strauss / Johann Strauss). Do you put the full name or just the last name in the composer tag, or to phrase it differently, do you search your library by last name?

[DaveBlake]

However, I'm curious about one thing: Classical composers are usually only referred to by their last name (except where composers of equal fame share the last name (e.g. Richard Strauss / Johann Strauss). Do you put the full name or just the last name in the composer tag, or to phrase it differently, do you search your library by last name?

I take full advantage of having ALBUMARTIST and ALBUMARTISTS tags, which allows (pretending I am using a single frame tag format when actually it is Vorbis so supports multiple values)

ALBUMARTIST = "Beethoven; Charles Dutoit, Montreal Symphony Orchestra"
ALBUMARTISTS = "Ludvig van Beethoven / Charles Dutoit / Montreal Symphony Orchestra"
ALBUM ARTIST SORT = "Beethoven, Ludvig van / Dutoit, Charles / Montreal Symphony Orchestra"
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID = [3 values]
COMPOSER = Ludvig van Beethoven

This means that the album gets displayed with "Beethoven...", "Ludvig van Beethoven" appears in the artist lists (yet sorted under "B" where I am likely to look), and during scanning Kodi can match the composer by name to the artist name and so knows the mbid.

Remember the first artist name/mbid pairing that is hit become the artist name associated with that mbid. But if you wanted to see just "Beethoven" everywhere then use that on every tag. I am happy seeing the full name but having sort name order. Sorting by first name is a disaster for me, no way can I remember all the composers first names e.g. Shostakovich, not a clue.

[HeresJohnny]

Sorting by first name is a disaster for me, no way can I remember all the composers first names e.g. Shostakovich, not a clue.

Hehe... I always thought that would make for a nice party quiz. May I just politely point out that it is "Ludwig" with a "w" and the last name is "van Beethoven" so sort order is not the same as natural sorting.

[scott967]

A specific use case I have with roles is that I can have an "artist" who is a vocalist.  She can be credited as "soprano", "soprano I", "Countess Rosina Almaviva" etc.  So I open the all contributors node, select an artist, and then I have drill down to the track and open song info for the track and scroll through the roles to see what role the artist had on the track.  At least if I could see the roles on the artist info I could maybe find a way to direct jump to all roles / specific role node.  In general my "all roles" node isn't that useful as a starting point.

scott s.
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