Classical: A Compilation

I’ve edited in some more content in my initial post about ROONTAG. #. I may edit in more and will note it like this if I do.

It might be worth a discussion if the ROONTAG (TAG) could get assigned externally, and in more than one way; in another thread I came up with

  • ROONALBUMTAG (in the sense of a Tag in the Roon UI) and
  • ROONTRACKTAG

That way one had more flexibility for pre-organisation.

Thanks to the general state of classical related metadata it would help a lot if we could pre-fill all fields available in Roon (Instrumentation, Form, Period for example). It might become tricky with composition related fields.

But this also creates tremendous possibilities to confuse an import module; something the Roon team is probably not too keen to let happen.

An alternative route could be some API for this kind of stuff. If there’s really a need, an non-official import module (extension) will appear. Roon might still have to implement sanity checks on an API level, but no UI required. No support for imports via the API. Just a thought …

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Another thought

In the Composition browser, we seem to have Sort by Conductor, Ensemble but not Artist

Get 25 Moonlight Sonatas apparently randomly sorted, that should be easy peasy

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On the Performances page:

  • Use track artists and composers to describe the performance. In particular, DON’t use Various Artists to describe the artist.
  • Use only Recorded Date to sort performances. Now, Release dates are used where recording dates aren’t present. Apples and oranges.
  • What to do about partial composition performances, e.g., a performance of just a single movement of the Moonlight Sonata? One can easily detect them by their length, but I think the first sort order should be length, then recorded date, so that all the partial performance fall to the bottom (or top) as a group.
  • Allow favoriting (and/or ratings) of performances. Album level ratings are more geared for non-classical.
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On Now Playing displays:

  • ALWAYs have a fixed location for composer. It is critical for the accurate display of the title.
  • I would argue for separate lines to display the WORK, then PART. OR, a scrolling text with the two munged together.
  • Always use contents of WORK and PART tags if present. OR, allow for the possibility
  • Classical artists, being mostly old men, are hard to distinguish visually. Put their names somewhere on the screen when displaying their face/art.
  • Not really a classical thing exclusively, but fix the focal point problem with the art.
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2 posts were split to a new topic: Multi-part Composition Grouping

On the Artists’ Compositions page:

  • Enable an easier way to compare “My Library” compositions with “TIDAL” compositions. I often want to enable all available metadata linkages, and to do that (presently), one has to import TIDAL albums to validate other compositions in your library. This is particularly important in classical collections where compositions are primary.

Going back and forth between My Library and TIDAL is a pain, in large part because they share the same index counter. If you are in your Library at, say, composition #50, and then transfer to TIDAL, Roon shows you TIDAL’s composition #50. Problem is, it won’t be the same composition since TIDAL’s collections are usually larger. Basically, I want to go back and forth to the same approximate alphabet position. That doesn’t happen now.

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On Roon’s basic classical metadata (Form, Period, Instrumentation, Date):

  • Please finish the job, or allow users to finish (i.e. editable variables) for their own library’s use.

A large minority of my classical library has one or more holes in these variables. And, it looks like some composers, periods, and forms are systematically underrepresented. I say this with full understanding of the possibilities of incomplete DBs.

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On complicated compositions:

  • Add a third or fourth “tier” of display. For Operas, it might have 1) the work’s name; 2) the Act; 3) the Scene; and finally, 4) the track name

PS: Sorry, already mentioned

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All of yours were good, this one particularly so, @andybob. Very powerful.

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Prefer file WORK title

At the moment multi-part WORK titles revert to generic roon composition titles. There are many scenarios where the works should be grouped but distinguishing file WORK titles should be allowed. For example it would be much less confusing if a Bach violin partita transcribed for guitar has that fact reflected in the WORK title.

Greater composer granularity

Instead of bundling composers, arrangers, orchestrators, transcribers, lyricists under a single “composer” category on the main album page (and various other pages), the various contributions should be distinguished by role. Personally I am not a fan of the credits pages and would just like the option of more detail for an at a glance 360 degree view on the primary pages.

Edition handling

Some way of distinguishing different editions of scores. E.g. Nowak vs. Hass for the Bruckner symphonies or Breitkopf & Härtel vs. Bärenreiter-Verlag (Kassel) for Beethoven.

Prefer file album artist order

At the moment on the main album page, album artists at the top of the page are listed alphabetically by roon. In my file tags I have them listed “soloist; ensemble; conductor”. It would be better to retain this order than re-ordering alphabetically. This convention is useful if you are unfamiliar with the album artists, It also adds uniformity to the pages rather than the artists constantly jumping around as you scroll through the pages. Famous conductors for example will appear before or after the orchestra depending on alphabetical order of the orchestras they have been paired with.

Genres at track / composition level

Not especially a classical requirement but it it is very common to have markedly different genres on classical discs and boxes. For example, vocal and instrumental music on the same disc.

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2 posts were split to a new topic: Search by Label

A much needed initiative. Thank you!

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2 posts were split to a new topic: BBC through Roon

4 posts were split to a new topic: Sorting Bookmarks

A post was merged into an existing topic: BBC through Roon

Edited in a paragraph about Work grouping in Radio and Playlists.

Another thing which bothers me regularly and of which I got reminded by this thread:

Enhanced WORKID capabilities

The WORKID tag should also be able to clamp parts of a performance together on an album. See also Not consecutively appearing multi-part works and performance count

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Yes, this is an interesting one. It is another case where digital offers different listening scenarios than the analogue one of just playing the album through. So when playing the album through I would want to listen to the non-continuous work as the artist intended. But when browsing compositions I would like the option instead of playing the composition through without the inserts.

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Yes, all my collection is filed as Artist = Composer. Are you trying to force a different filing structure?