At some point I considered it would be useful from an organizing and exploring prespective to organize/browse artists/VA Collections and Albums in a genre by decade scheme. From there and in the process it evolved into linking genre origins and influences and perhaps giving an overview of major genres relationships.
So under the folder Genres by Decades this is how the subsequent folder structure looks like (there's a quick translation as well):
+ Géneros Por Años
+ Ordenados Por Fecha
01. Folk del 2000 a.c. al 500 d.c. Tradicional Antiguo
02. Folk del 500 al 1500 Tradicional
03. Folk del 1500 al 1600 Tradicional
04. Folk del 1600 al 1700 Tradicional
05. Folk del 1700 al 1800 Tradicional
06. Folk del 1800 al 1960 Tradicional
07. Folk del 1960 al 2000 Revival
08. Folk del 2000 al 2010 Revival
09. Clásica del 2000 a.c. al 500 d.c. Antigua
10. Clásica del 500 al 1400 Medieval
11. Clásica del 1400 al 1600 Renacimiento
12. Clásica del 1600 al 1760 - Barroco
13. Clásica del 1730 al 1820 Clásica
14. Clásica del 1815 al 1910 Romántico
15. Clásica del 1875 al 1925 Impresionismo
16. Clásica del 1890 al 1930 Modernismo
17. Clásica del 1900 al 2000
18. Clásica del 2000 al 2010
19. Blues del 1870 a los 1910s
20. Blues de los 1920s
21. Blues de los 1930s
22. Blues de los 1940s Jump Blues
23. Blues de los 1950s
24. Blues de los 1960s
25. Blues de los 1970s
26. Blues de los 1980s
27. Blues de los 1990s
28. Blues del 2000 al 2010
29. Jazz de los 1910s Dixieland
30. Jazz de los 1920s Jazz
31. Jazz del 1930 al 1946 Swing
32. Jazz de los 1945 al 1950 Bepop
33. Jazz del 1949 al 1955 Cool Jazz
34. Jazz del 1955 al 1960 Hard Bop
35. Jazz de los 1950s a los 1960s Free Jazz
36. Jazz del 1960 al 1965 Post Bop
37. Jazz de los 1970s Fusion Jazz
38. Jazz de los 1980s Smooth Jazz, Acid Jazz
39. Jazz de los 1990s Nu Jazz
40. Jazz del 2000 al 2010 Nu Jazz
41. Rhythm and Blues de los 1940s
42. Rhythm and Blues de los 1950s
43. Rhythm and Blues de los 1960s
44. Rhythm and Blues de los 1970s
45. Rhythm and Blues de los 1980s
46. Rhythm and Blues of the 1990s
47. Rhythm and Blues del 2000 al 2010
48. Pop de los 1940s Tradicional
49. Pop de los 1950s
50. Pop de los 1960s
51. Pop de los 1970s
52. Pop de los 1980s
53. Pop de los 1990s
54. Pop 2000-2010
55. Rock 'n Roll de los 1950s Clásico
56. Rock de los 1950s
57. Rock de los 1960s
58. Rock de los 1970s
59. Rock de los 1980s
60. Rock de los 1990s
61. Rock 2000-2010
62. Rock 'n Roll de los 1960s
63. Rock 'n Roll de los 1970s
64. Rock 'n Roll de los 1980s
65. Soul del 1954 al 1960
66. Ska del 1959 al 1966
67. Soul de los 1960s
68. Rocksteady del 1966 al 1968
69. Reggae del 1968 a los 70s
70. Reggae de los 1980s
71. Reggae de los 1990s
72. Reggae del 2000 al 2010
73. Dub de los 1970s
74. Dub de los 1980s
75. Dub de los 1990s
76. Dub del 2000 al 2010
77. Soul de los 1970s
78. Soul de los 1980s
79. Funk del 1964 al 1970
80. Hard Rock del 1965 al 1970
81. Hard Rock de los 1970s
82. Hard Rock de los 1980s
83. Hard Rock de los 1990s
83. Hard Rock de los 2000s
84. Rock Psicodélico del 1965 al 1970
85. Rock Psicodélico de los 1970s
86. Rock Psicodélico de los 1980s Neo
87. Rock Psicodélico de los 1990s Neo
87. Rock Psicodélico de los 2000s Neo
88. Rock Progresivo del 1966 al 1970
89. Rock Porgresivo de los 1970s
90. Rock Progresivo de los 1980s Neo
90. Rock Progresivo de los 1990s Neo
90. Rock Progresivo de los 2000s Neo
91. Heavy Metal 1968 a los 70s
92. Heavy Metal del 1979 al 1985 New Wave
93. Heavy Metal del 1984 a los 90s Trash Metal
94. Funk de los 1970s
95. Funk de los 1980s
96. Funk de los 1990s
96. Funk de los 2000s
97. Disco de los 1960s
98. Disco de los 1970s
99. Hip-Hop de los 1970s
100. Hip-Hop de los 1980s
101. Hip-Hop de los 1990s
102. Hip-Hop del 2000 al 2010
103. Glam Rock de los 1970s
104. Punk del 1974 al 1980
106. New Wave del 1976 al 1985
107. New Age del 1975 a los 80s
108. New Age de los 1990s
109. New Age del 2000 al 2010
110. Pop del 1977 a los 80s Synthpop
105. Punk de los 80s Hardcore
111. Rock Alternativo del 1979 a los 80s
112. Indie de los 1980s
113. Glam Metal del 1979 a los 80s
114. Glam Metal del 1990 al 1994
116. Rock Alternativo de los 1990s Grunge
117. Rock Alternativo de los 1990s Britpop
118. Punk de los 1990s Revival
119. Rock Alternativo del 2000 al 2010
120. Punk del 2000 al 2010 Pop Punk
121. Indie de los 1990s
122. Indie del 2000 al 2010
123. Italo-Disco del 1976 a los 80s
124. Hi-NRG del 1977 a los 80s
125. Boogie
126. House de los 1980s
127. House de los 1990s
128. House del 2000 al 2010
129. Electro de los 1980s
130. Electro de los 1990s
131. Electro del 2000 al 2010
132. Techno del 1985 al 1990
133. Techno de los 1990s
134. Techno del 2000 al 2010
135. Club
136. Club de los 1990s
137. Club del 2000 al 2010
139. Club Chill Outde los 1990s
140. Club Chill Out del 2000 al 2010
141. Dance del 1977 a los 80s
142. Dance de los 1990s
143. Dance del 2000 al 2010
144. Trance de los 1990s
145. Trance del 2000 al 2010
146. Goa Trance 1993 al 1998
148. Psy Trance del 1997 a los 2000s
150. Breakbeat del 1989 a los 90s
151. Jungle del 1990 al 1995 Oldschool
152. Drum and Bass del 1995 al 2000
153. Drum and Bass del 2000 al 2010
154. Happy Hardcore del 1991 al 2000
155. Dubstep del 1998 a los 2000s
156. Moombaton de los 2010s
Quick English Translation:
+ Genres by Years
+ Sort by Date
01. Folk from 2000 a.c. to 500 d.c. Ancient Traditional
02. Folk from 500 to 1500 Traditional
03. Folk from 1500 to 1600 Traditional
04. Folk from 1600 to 1700 Traditional
05. Folk from 1700 to 1800 Traditional
06. Folk from 1800 to 1960 Traditional
07. Folk from 1960 to 2000 Revival
08. Folk from 2000 to 2010 Revival
09. Classic from 2000 a.c. to 500 d.c. Ancient
10. Classic from 500 to 1400 Medieval
11. Classic from 1400 to 1600 Renacimiento
12. Classic from 1600 to 1760 Barroco
13. Classic from 1730 to 1820 Classic
14. Classic from 1815 to 1910 Romántico
15. Classic from 1875 to 1925 Impresionism
16. Classic from 1890 to 1930 Modernism
17. Classic from 1900 to 2000
18. Classic from 2000 to 2010
19. Blues from 1870 to 1910s
20. Blues from 1920s
21. Blues from 1930s
22. Blues from 1940s Jump Blues
23. Blues from 1950s
24. Blues from 1960s
25. Blues from 1970s
26. Blues from 1980s
27. Blues from 1990s
28. Blues from 2000 to 2010
29. Jazz from 1910s Dixieland
30. Jazz from 1920s Jazz
31. Jazz from 1930 to 1946 Swing
32. Jazz from 1945 to 1950 Bepop
33. Jazz from 1949 to 1955 Cool Jazz
34. Jazz from 1955 to 1960 Hard Bop
36. Jazz from 1950s 1960s Free Jazz
35. Jazz from 1960 to 1965 Post Bop
37. Jazz from 1970s Fusion Jazz
38. Jazz from 1980s Smooth Jazz, Acid Jazz
39. Jazz from 1990s Nu Jazz
40. Jazz from 2000 to 2010 Nu Jazz
41. Rhythm and Blues from 1940s
42. Rhythm and Blues from 1950s
43. Rhythm and Blues from 1960s
44. Rhythm and Blues from 1970s
45. Rhythm and Blues from 1980s
46. Rhythm and Blues from 1990s
47. Rhythm and Blues from 2000 to 2010
48. Pop from 1940s Traditional
49. Pop from 1950s
50. Pop from 1960s
51. Pop from 1970s
52. Pop from 1980s
53. Pop from 1990s
54. Pop 2000-2010
55. Rock 'n Roll from 1950s Classic
56. Rock from 1950s
57. Rock from 1960s
58. Rock from 1970s
59. Rock from 1980s
60. Rock from 1990s
61. Rock 2000-2010
62. Rock 'n Roll from 1960s
63. Rock 'n Roll from 1970s
64. Rock 'n Roll from 1980s
65. Soul from 1954 to 1960
66. Ska from 1959 to 1966
67. Soul from 1960s
68. Rocksteady from 1966 to 1968
69. Reggae from 1968 to 70s
70. Reggae from 1980s
71. Reggae from 1990s
72. Reggae from 2000 to 2010
73. Dub from 1970s
74. Dub from 1980s
75. Dub from 1990s
76. Dub from 2000 to 2010
77. Soul from 1970s
78. Soul from 1980s
79. Funk from 1964 to 1970
80. Hard Rock from 1965 to 1970
81. Hard Rock from 1970s
82. Hard Rock from 1980s
83. Hard Rock from 1990s
83. Hard Rock from the 2000s
84. Rock Psychedelic from 1965 to 1970
85. Rock Psychedelic from 1970s
86. Rock Psychedelic from 1980s Neo
87. Rock Psychedelic from 1990s Neo
87. Psychedelic Rock from 2000s Neo
88. Progressive Rock from 1966 to 1970
89. Porgressive Rock from 1970s
90. Progressive Rock from 1980s Neo
90. Progressive Rock form the 1990s Neo
90. Progressive Rock from the 2000s Neo
91. Heavy Metal 1968 to 70s
92. Heavy Metal from 1979 to 1985 New Wave
93. Heavy Metal from 1984 to 90s Trash Metal
93. Hevay Metal of the 2000s
94. Funk from 1970s
95. Funk from 1980s
96. Funk from 1990s
97. Disco from 1960s
98. Disco from 1970s
99. Hip-Hop from 1970s
100. Hip-Hop from 1980s
101. Hip-Hop from 1990s
102. Hip-Hop from 2000 to 2010
103. Glam Rock from 1970s
104. Punk from 1974 to 1980
106. New Wave from 1976 to 1985
107. New Age from 1975 to 80s
108. New Age from 1990s
109. New Age from 2000 to 2010
110. Pop from 1977 to 80s Synthpop
110. Punk from 80s Hardcore
111. Rock Alternativo from 1979 to 80s
112. Indie from 1980s
113. Glam Metal from 1979 to 80s
114. Glam Metal from 1990 to 1994
116. Rock Alternative from 1990s Grunge
117. Rock Alternative from 1990s Britpop
118. Punk from 1990s Revival
119. Rock Alternative from 2000 to 2010
120. Punk from 2000 to 2010 Pop Punk
121. Indie from 1990s
122. Indie from 2000 to 2010
123. Italo-Disco from 1976 to 80s
124. Hi-NRG from 1977 to 80s
125. Boogie
126. House from 1980s
127. House from 1990s
128. House from 2000 to 2010
129. Electro from 1980s
130. Electro from 1990s
131. Electro from 2000 to 2010
132. Techno from 1985 to 1990
133. Techno from 1990s
134. Techno from 2000 to 2010
134. Club
139. Club from 1990s
140. Club from 2000 to 2010
70.03 Club Chill Out de los 1990s
70.04 Club Chill Out del 2000 al 2010
141. Dance from 1977 to 80s
142. Dance from 1990s
143. Dance from 2000 to 2010
144. Trance from 1990s
145. Trance from 2000 to 2010
146. Goa Trance 1989 to 90s
147. Goa Trance from 2000 to 2010
148. Psy Trance from 1990s
149. Psy Trance from 2000 to 2010
150. Breakbeat from 1989 to 90s
151. Jungle from 1990 to 1995 Oldschool
152. Drum and Bass from 1995 to 2000
153. Drum and Bass from 2000 to 2010
154. Happy Hardcore from 1991 to 2000
155. Dubstep from 1998 to 2000s
156. Moombahton from 2010s
Now + Genres for years it meant for the same criteria, but in a year basis wich is useful for latest dance/electronic/pop genres for example.
+ Sorted by date is meant to order elements in the following fashion
01. Folk from 2000 a.c. to 500 d.c. Ancient Traditional
02. Classic from 2000 a.c. to 500 d.c. Ancient
03. Folk from 1500 to 1600 Traditional
04. Classic from 500 to 1400 Medieval
...
It basically groups elements by the decade.
Upon building this I took many liberties, such as replacing decades by centuries in earlier genres; don't trust the begining of major genres such as 1979 1989, they refer to "late 70s, late 80s" but as I didn't find a reference for any exact date/track release I left them intentionally as a reminder of a "late..." I have yet to find a disco track from the 60s, but as Wikipedia lists the origins of Disco as "late 1960s" I've left it (in the hope the mystery solves?). Some days ago I found a page about the first disco song. I wil find and post it later.
Regarding club and dance music, I list dance as post-disco genre or mainstream dance (?) though dance covers a veriety of genres/styles back from earlier times.
I have in time built a second list og grouped genres that are more specific (styles/subgenres) as well as genres I didn´t cover such as the one's referring to latin music, dancehall; soca ; calypso; lounge; soundtracks.
Dancehall should likely go near~112/113 as it originated in the late 70s as noted by Wikipedia.
Salsa apparently was a major influence for disco music but Wikipedia lists it as having originated later then disco (?)
70s vs late 60s, yet "salsa music" is actually music that was beign played before just without the denominator but as cuban music in New York.
Soundtracks are a major headache as TV was born in the 20s if I recap correctly, but they were populizated in the 40s, as there is no reference whatsoever as to what musical genres have been greatly or more influenced
by Soundtracks I can'r relate them by using that criteria, though Saturday Night Show was an important influence for disco music (?).
I'd go for putting Soundtracks between Jazz and R&B as 'd list their origins as late 30s, but is there a significative relation between Jazz or R&B (?)
Perhaps more to Jazz... near ~31 (?)
I'm missing as well the syles periods of Jazz from the 80s and 90s; rock jazz; smooth jazz, especially for the first I would hope I'have more or less an exact dates.
R&B could be separated as R&B contemporary from earlier 40s (?)
Some notes: building this has significately improved my understing of musicl genres and the listed scheme is like some form of reminder. It also has helped me understanding what music I have and what I don't, and from there the interest to fill the gap in significative genres/styles.
This is a work in progress so any comments/suggestions are very welcomed. Eventually the idea is that each element/folder lists in ranked order the most significative artists/VA Albums/Albums
such as:
Britpop
01. Oasis - Morning Glory
02. Album 2
03. Album 3
Sources:
Wikipedia
Allmusic Guide
Allmusic Guide - The Definitive Guide to Electronic music
Britannica Encyclopedia
I'm missing more... but I will add them this week...
Playing with Genres of Music by Decades
Playing with Genres of Music by Decades
I have had this draft for a long time. And I guess it's time to post it in the hope it may be of use to someone else. Maybe this should be posted in HA forums but actually I'd like to know TPC opinions and feedback. I'm pretty sure it can be improved and I have many doubts as well. So here it is (the original and quick translation below):
Re: Playing with Genres of Music by Decades
@Marc: what you are divulging is commonly referred in Information Science (IS) circles as a 'classification system', and even sometimes as an 'ontology' -- in your case a system for the classification of digital music according to genre and chronological origin. I will refrain here from delving into the many shortcomings and traps of subject classification (you can easily research it on the Internet, should you be interested), but I can point out two deficiencies that immediately jump out to anyone with minimal training.
The first and more easily describable flaw is the fact that you are trying to establish an enumerative list of the classes in your system. It is destined to fail or, at least, fall short by the reasons you yourself mentioned already regarding its chronological definition -- should you divide periods by year, decade, century, or arbitrarily? What if the definition changes (e.g., the so-called "Modern Age" started in 1492 while I was in school, but it has now shifted)? What if the latest developments consider integrated time-frames previously accepted as distinct (and vice-versa)? And so on...
The second pitfall is that nothing prevents what is a clear and self-evident designation shared by everyone today to acquire a whole different meaning tomorrow, turning what was clear into a murky mess, if not reversing meanings completely. Moreover, what is perfectly identifiable as a Folk song for me might be something else altogether for someone immersed in a different culture. And take, for example, "Modern Age" and "Modern Art" which both refer to completely diverse time-frames. Classifications will not solve this problem but will see its use(fulness) seriously impaired by it.
One of the ways to mitigate this conundrum is by abandoning the enumerative approach in building and managing a classification system and use instead a faceted approach. In your case, this would mean building a list of adequate musical genres, after establishing precisely their selection criteria for future review, along with a scheme for aggregating the adequate chronological delimiters. This can be quite a daunting task (for both the un-initiated and the savvy) so I'd advise you to keep it really simple and use whatever the field best practices are. In short, you don't want to be interpreting your classification scheme, you want it to be a simple and straightforward sorting method.
TL;DR, if I was in your shoes, I would use an easily accessible resource like Wikipedia or the "Music Genres List" (see below; allowing room for the inclusion of genres not mentioned there, should the need arise) followed by the year or year interval, on an arbitrary base and separated with a comma or a colon. Like this:
Some related pointers:
The first and more easily describable flaw is the fact that you are trying to establish an enumerative list of the classes in your system. It is destined to fail or, at least, fall short by the reasons you yourself mentioned already regarding its chronological definition -- should you divide periods by year, decade, century, or arbitrarily? What if the definition changes (e.g., the so-called "Modern Age" started in 1492 while I was in school, but it has now shifted)? What if the latest developments consider integrated time-frames previously accepted as distinct (and vice-versa)? And so on...
- I'll tell right away the filed best and established practice is to classify as precisely as possible by year and/or year interval -- centuries are defined by the years they encompass, so the XXth becomes 1901-2000...
The second pitfall is that nothing prevents what is a clear and self-evident designation shared by everyone today to acquire a whole different meaning tomorrow, turning what was clear into a murky mess, if not reversing meanings completely. Moreover, what is perfectly identifiable as a Folk song for me might be something else altogether for someone immersed in a different culture. And take, for example, "Modern Age" and "Modern Art" which both refer to completely diverse time-frames. Classifications will not solve this problem but will see its use(fulness) seriously impaired by it.
One of the ways to mitigate this conundrum is by abandoning the enumerative approach in building and managing a classification system and use instead a faceted approach. In your case, this would mean building a list of adequate musical genres, after establishing precisely their selection criteria for future review, along with a scheme for aggregating the adequate chronological delimiters. This can be quite a daunting task (for both the un-initiated and the savvy) so I'd advise you to keep it really simple and use whatever the field best practices are. In short, you don't want to be interpreting your classification scheme, you want it to be a simple and straightforward sorting method.
TL;DR, if I was in your shoes, I would use an easily accessible resource like Wikipedia or the "Music Genres List" (see below; allowing room for the inclusion of genres not mentioned there, should the need arise) followed by the year or year interval, on an arbitrary base and separated with a comma or a colon. Like this:
Early Music, -100--1
Jazz, 1901-2000
Folk; Jazz, 1911
Folk, 192X
Rock, c1973
Some related pointers:
Re: Playing with Genres of Music by Decades
Thank you Midas, I will try to define the criteria. The idea of categorizating into decades and genres is to allow a more precise criteria for browsing a music collection. For example: Country of the 90s (wich would go into Folk of the 1990s). It can't be too complex in order to not require previous study to understand (Like the code of CC). I don't consider regional genres (with Britpop I made an exception). The same applies to thematics or moods such as epic or uplifting trance. The styles or subgenres that are listed on the right refer to the most predominant form during that period and is an aproximation. Since in early eras music development was much slower it makes sense to group them by major periods or centuries, instead of decades. Genres with older origins are listed first, exceptions are made only to match relation of origins, for example Funk is listed right after Soul but then it appear before Disco.
This classification could be implemented in tags of the files and then using "Facets" for Foobar. The problem is that it can be too specific or too broad... Discogs IIRC distinguishes from Major Genres and Styles. A disadvantage is that you can't rank in order of most representative album or artists.
I should have mentioned, for music I have used a relative flexible structure: in "Music by Genre" there are listed major genres (which is subjective), as R&B wich may include Soul, Funk, Hip-Hop, Rap...etc Deeper in the folder structure in "+ Genres" there are subgenres or styles such as "Alternative" or "Rock and Roll" wich not necesarily may be subgenres of the major genres or may be overlapping. After wich there's another "+ Genres" which is about styles or any other type of categorization such as instruments. For example: Mashups, Trumpet, Covers, Live, Remixes, Remasters (DCC Gold, MFSL), Samba Reggae, Harp, Acordeon. And After that... it comes "Genre by Decade". For once too many clicks to get there.
I wish there was more info like
http://www.besteveralbums.com/
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_h ... nfluential
Since I'd like to define most representative Artists, Compilations (Various Artists) and albums and songs for each genre, subgenre, style, category and genre by decades. Allmusic lists Albums, Artists and Songs but I would prefer to have another source. The classification used by AMG use a generic Pop-Rock as genre, and in several areas it seems to be out of date with the selections. The Rolling Stone Magazine has a comprehensive ranking of albums and artists of rock. There's Pitchfork. Billboard ranks Songs (Hot 100) and in the website is listed top artists by year, there are charts for say R&B but I would prefer to use another criteria other than sales to define most representative albums.
Midas, how was the definition of the criteria? So-so, bad, terrible, good enough?
This classification could be implemented in tags of the files and then using "Facets" for Foobar. The problem is that it can be too specific or too broad... Discogs IIRC distinguishes from Major Genres and Styles. A disadvantage is that you can't rank in order of most representative album or artists.
I should have mentioned, for music I have used a relative flexible structure: in "Music by Genre" there are listed major genres (which is subjective), as R&B wich may include Soul, Funk, Hip-Hop, Rap...etc Deeper in the folder structure in "+ Genres" there are subgenres or styles such as "Alternative" or "Rock and Roll" wich not necesarily may be subgenres of the major genres or may be overlapping. After wich there's another "+ Genres" which is about styles or any other type of categorization such as instruments. For example: Mashups, Trumpet, Covers, Live, Remixes, Remasters (DCC Gold, MFSL), Samba Reggae, Harp, Acordeon. And After that... it comes "Genre by Decade". For once too many clicks to get there.
I was very curious how they defined wich genres to classify the music in... The Test was done with Bhangra, Pop and Jazz genres, after defining it as Classical or non classical. It does include instrumental classification (Keyboard, Woodwind, Percussion, String).
I wish there was more info like
http://www.besteveralbums.com/
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_h ... nfluential
Since I'd like to define most representative Artists, Compilations (Various Artists) and albums and songs for each genre, subgenre, style, category and genre by decades. Allmusic lists Albums, Artists and Songs but I would prefer to have another source. The classification used by AMG use a generic Pop-Rock as genre, and in several areas it seems to be out of date with the selections. The Rolling Stone Magazine has a comprehensive ranking of albums and artists of rock. There's Pitchfork. Billboard ranks Songs (Hot 100) and in the website is listed top artists by year, there are charts for say R&B but I would prefer to use another criteria other than sales to define most representative albums.
Midas, how was the definition of the criteria? So-so, bad, terrible, good enough?
Re: Playing with Genres of Music by Decades
Marc wrote:Thank you Midas, I will try to define the criteria.
- Glad to be of help. Let me note that I didn't mean you had to define the criteria to me or anyone else, the purpose of the definition is meant both as framework and and record keeping, should there be a need to revise it in the future (it will be there, I can assure you).
Marc wrote:The idea of categorizating into decades and genres is to allow a more precise criteria for browsing a music collection ...
- I get your logic. But, in the end, the system is meant to be used by yourself alone, and it can be anything you want, even some kind of weird conceptual maze for you to get lost in...
Marc wrote:I was very curious how they defined wich genres to classify the music in...
- Without really looking deeply into it, I see two main avenues here. First and the more universally applied, is popular consensus: a genre is what the majority calls it. Secondly, you have the minority take of the musicology experts, painstakingly worked out from historical and technical expertise. As with most academic fields, it can only be called a consensus in the broadest terms...
Media outlets (including some of the sources you quoted) sit somewhere in between, drawing liberally from both supplies as they see fit, but caring minimally for consistency and long-term fitness-to-purpose.
Marc wrote:Since I'd like to define most representative Artists, Compilations (Various Artists) and albums and songs for each genre, subgenre, style, category and genre by decades. Allmusic lists Albums, Artists and Songs but I would prefer to have another source. The classification used by AMG use a generic Pop-Rock as genre, and in several areas it seems to be out of date with the selections. The Rolling Stone Magazine has a comprehensive ranking of albums and artists of rock. There's Pitchfork. Billboard ranks Songs (Hot 100) and in the website is listed top artists by year, there are charts for say R&B but I would prefer to use another criteria other than sales to define most representative albums.
- Here, you are mixing together two essentially different things, i.e., the classification scheme, on one side, and ratings, on the other. For the sake of sanity, they should remain and be used separately, although you can also devise a scheme for including ratings in your music collection metadata -- I can suggest "Rating/Source/Date", as in "5*/NME/19930417", standing for "Five stars, the New Musical Express, March 17th, 1993" (that list of sources will require separated management, too).
One of the pluses of the scheme I suggested in my previous post is that it can be easily converted into a machine readable indexing system.
E.g., consider the list of genres from Music Genres List (http://www.musicgenreslist.com/). Including subdivisions, it is only two levels deep and includes twenty-odd genres at the first level (some of them are quite dumb, but that's another story). If you enumerate those genres, you can give each of them a two digit index ("Alternative" = "01", "Anime" = "02", "Blues" = "03", and so on) and still have plenty of room in that arrangement (namespace) for further additions.
Now you can do the same for the second level ("Art Punk" = "01", "Alternative Rock" = "02", "College Rock" = "03", and so on) and even add a third level for good measure, should the need arise. Following this, for "College Rock" you'd have a classification index of "010300" which is quite compact and allows retrieval at different levels of granularity (think "Main Genre", "Sub-Genre", and "Sub-sub-genre").
If you append date strings to such index (thus: "010300-19810000-19900000") you'll get a powerful machine readable classification system, that will be compact while remaining human readable. And nothing prevents you from using more than one index for the same object, should you feel it belongs in more than one subset.
Re: Playing with Genres of Music by Decades
Thats something I'm really interested in... Does it envolve creating a database I guess. I Googled ·machine readable indexing system" and found some concepts such as "It is all about the potential to enable researchers to access the data in different ways." Add to that automatic statistics... How should I get started?Midas wrote:One of the pluses of the scheme I suggested in my previous post is that it can be easily converted into a machine readable indexing system.
Midas wrote: I get your logic. But, in the end, the system is meant to be used by yourself alone, and it can be anything you want, even some kind of weird conceptual maze for you to get lost in...
Today I just explained my music collection structure to a friend, which I then realized is very complex. It took me more than one hour and half (I had previously created a "Readme, Guide" text file) so I realized that right now is okey for savy users but not for the average. And he told me that in the end I should use an application to perform what would be a faceted search with filters similar to bibliographic search...I wonder which if there is "measure" (can't recap the correct word) that could be related and be used to sort by genre "representativness". There's rating and popularity.Midas wrote:Here, you are mixing together two essentially different things, i.e., the classification scheme, on one side, and ratings, on the other. For the sake of sanity, they should remain and be used separately, although you can also devise a scheme for including ratings in your music collection metadata -- I can suggest "Rating/Source/Date", as in "5*/NME/19930417", standing for "Five stars, the New Musical Express, March 17th, 1993" (that list of sources will require separated management, too).
Now using a date string with month and day is ambitiousMarc wrote:If you append date strings to such index (thus: "010300-19810000-19900000") you'll get a powerful machine readable classification system, that will be compact while remaining human readable. And nothing prevents you from using more than one index for the same object, should you feel it belongs in more than one subset.
Question: More than one index means more than one string entry?Re: Playing with Genres of Music by Decades
Marc wrote:Thats something I'm really interested in... Does it envolve creating a database I guess. I Googled ·machine readable indexing system" and found some concepts such as "It is all about the potential to enable researchers to access the data in different ways." Add to that automatic statistics... How should I get started?
- Anything able to do string searches, really. You could do it with so called 'sidecar' text files. But most (if not all) audio formats already accommodate for metadata; there's the ID3 spec, APE, even MS audio formats make place for it. And most music managers this days are in fact also database managers, varying only in features and abilities. Choice's aplenty here at TPFC and elsewhere -- I can name a few in no particular order, some simple, some complex: foobar2000, Winyl, Clementine, MediaMonkey, MusicBee...
Marc wrote:Now using a date string with month and day is ambitious
- With a fixed length index scheme, you must accommodate for all possibilities from the get go: month and day positions are there not because they must be used but because they can be used...
You could shorten a given index to 10 digits ("010300-1981") and retain all significant information -- but then you would get different length indexes should you need to represent a time span ("010300-19810000-19900000" or even "010300-1981-1990").
And yes, by more than one index I meant more than one such strings...
Re: Playing with Genres of Music by Decades
I prefer sidecar files per album and per artist, but that's a personal preference.
https://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Yate_Music_Tagger
That's pretty much what I would like to do. Yate is for mac though, and not free.
I found a plugin for Picard
http://oldwiki.musicbrainz.org/Picard_Plugins
http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/User:Tony70/SidecarPlugin
http://ftp.musicbrainz.org/pub/musicbra ... d/?C=M;O=D
Tomorrow I will check it out with older versions.
and
https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_tags
http://www.m-tags.org/
it crashes Foobar when I select to create an m-tag... Updated Foobar to latest version and still crashes.
Supports the creation, viewing and editing of album databases. These databases are stored in CSV or TSV files with a sidecar file for enhanced Yate usage. The databases can contain common values across all tracks in an album and special aggregated fields such as duration, track count, lowest rating, average rating, highest rating and tag source. Because the content is stored in a CSV/TSV files, you can take these databases with you on your mobile devices.
https://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Yate_Music_Tagger
That's pretty much what I would like to do. Yate is for mac though, and not free.
I found a plugin for Picard
http://oldwiki.musicbrainz.org/Picard_Plugins
http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/User:Tony70/SidecarPlugin
The plugin is not compatible with the latest version 1.3.2...This plugin allows metadata edits to be exported to 'sidecar' files without changing the original files. These files can also be imported against unmatched files to move them to the albums list. Both actions are context menu items, but note that the export is only available for albums, so the album folders need to be closed up so that individual tracks are not selected.
http://ftp.musicbrainz.org/pub/musicbra ... d/?C=M;O=D
Tomorrow I will check it out with older versions.
and
https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_tags
http://www.m-tags.org/
it crashes Foobar when I select to create an m-tag... Updated Foobar to latest version and still crashes.
Re: Playing with Genres of Music by Decades
Sorry, can't really help you with those programs, that's not what I do with my files... 
Properly structured sidecar files could make what you want even easier, as you can just use the filesystem as your database, but you'll need some regex foo for retrieval (e.g., with something like this §)...
Properly structured sidecar files could make what you want even easier, as you can just use the filesystem as your database, but you'll need some regex foo for retrieval (e.g., with something like this §)...
§) See also http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/ ... php?t=8544 and
Re: Playing with Genres of Music by Decades
No problem
It appears that the way to go is m-tags, I like more csv/tsv but it will do.
There's something yet that I'm missing, m-tags work in a per album basis, why should I tag every album with the same artist info when artist info could be stored in a single place and be loaded from there. Fort example bio information (allmusic, last.fm), discography (discogs), top related artists (last.fm), etc
It appears that the way to go is m-tags, I like more csv/tsv but it will do.
I can store m-tags in a different directory and update the tags even if the initial album files are no longer present. m-tags can be managed with a separate Foobar profile to load only *.tags and configure m-tags to exclude *.cueThe m-TAGS format offers a simple yet powerful solution to the media-metadata separation problem, which impacts the efficience of digital music collections and media distribution services alike. An m-TAGS file is media-independent. It just contains metadata (tags) describing a certain media source and a locator which identifies the source to which the metadata applies.
The format of an m-TAGS file is very simple. Each tag is represented by a pair "<tag name>" : "<tag value>", with the special "@" tag containing the location of the media resource. This format allows the defininion of any tag name and the assignment of any value to a tag. Support for multivalued tags is included, as well as for multi-part media indexing.
Download the component on the foobar2000 website (http://www.foobar2000.org) or here: http://m-tags.org/foo_tags.zip
For additional information and technical details please visit http://m-tags.org
Usage
For a first "taste" of how the m-TAGS mechanism works, select File / m-TAGS / Create m-TAGS (in same folder) from the main menu. Then browse to a folder where you have some audio files and press OK.
A new file will be created in your folder, named !.tags. If you open this file with any text editor, you will see that it contains the metadata of your audio files in plain text. You can edit the metadata directly if you wish.
If you drop the file into a foobar2000 playlist, it looks like your audio files are loaded into the playlist, just as if you had dropped a playlist file. However, if you look at the properties of the playlist entries, you will notice that the !.tags file was loaded instead.
Your audio files will play normally, but any changes to the metadata will be reflected in the !.tags file, and NOT in the audio files. As long as you use m-TAGS files to load your music into foobar2000, your audio files will play normally, but they never be touched by foobar2000. They will be treated as "read-only" audio sources. Even the replaygain tags will be read and written from / to the !.tags file.
1) Use "File / m-TAGS / Create m-TAGS (in same folder)". You just select the folder to tag, and it is going to be done. If you have several folder to tag, then just select a parent folder of all of them. The folder scan process will automatically skip all folders that do not contain recognizable media, as well as all folders were m-TAGS files are already present. So, m-TAGS will be created JUST FOR THE NEW FOLDERS. As a matter of fact, you can just scan an entire drive and create m-TAGS for all "new" folders in one shot.
2) If you are a batch or command line fan (as I am), then you can use the command line version. The command is:
<Folder where you installed fb2k>\foobar2000.exe /quiet /m-TAGS "<Folder to tag>"
There's something yet that I'm missing, m-tags work in a per album basis, why should I tag every album with the same artist info when artist info could be stored in a single place and be loaded from there. Fort example bio information (allmusic, last.fm), discography (discogs), top related artists (last.fm), etc
Re: Playing with Genres of Music by Decades
An excellent resource for music genres.
Link: http://musicmap.info/Musicmap
The Genealogy and History of Popular Music Genres from Origin till Present (1870-2016)
Musicmap attempts to provide the ultimate genealogy of popular music genres, including their relations and history. It is the result of more than seven years of research with over 200 listed sources and cross examination of many other visual genealogies. Its aim is to focus on the delicate balance between comprehensibility, accuracy and accessibility. In other words: the ideal genealogy is not only complete and correct, but also easy to understand despite its complexity. This is a utopian balance that can never be achieved but only approached. By choosing the right amount of genres, determining forms of hierarchy and analogy and ordering everything in a logical but authentic manner, a satisfactory balance can be obtained. Said balance is always the main subject of discussion in music genre genealogies and the capital reason why an absolute visual reference has been absent thus far (and probably always will be). Musicmap is a platform in search for the perfect balance of popular music genres to provide a powerful tool for educational means or a complementary framework in the field of music metadata and automatic taxonomy.
The main conceptual methods of musicmap to achieve a satisfactory equilibrium consist of grouping closely related genres together (“sibling genres”), color coding much larger genre groups (“super-genres”), and introducing a deeper layer of lesser influential subgenres. Hereby the total amount of the intermediate or main genres could be reduced to 234. This is deliberately far from the possible total amount of genres (approximately 600 or more, some sources claim over 1000) to enable easy orientation and good overview.
Re: Playing with Genres of Music by Decades
I'm lost on which are the oldest folk genres (that is traditional folk or ancient folk)... I have the impression I'm missing many...
For example countries like Brazil alone has lots of folk genres such as samba, bossa nova, forro, MPB, funk carioca, Batucada, trpicalia, sertanejo (though they are not ancient genres).
So far I've got these:
Calypso (1600-1810-needs confirmation), Fandango (1705), Flamenco (1765), Polka (1830), Merengue (1844), Blues (1870), Tango (1890), Country (1920).
For example countries like Brazil alone has lots of folk genres such as samba, bossa nova, forro, MPB, funk carioca, Batucada, trpicalia, sertanejo (though they are not ancient genres).
So far I've got these:
Calypso (1600-1810-needs confirmation), Fandango (1705), Flamenco (1765), Polka (1830), Merengue (1844), Blues (1870), Tango (1890), Country (1920).