Focus by Artist Role

A suggested feature, which should be straightforward to implement.

I described a scenario recently: I’m not a fan of vibraphone, but Coltrane made an album named Bags and Trane that nearly turned me around, because Bags is great. I talked about the difficulty of finding that album under folder-based search, because it has to be filed under one thing, maybe John Coltrane but what if dBPoweramp chose to put it under Milt Jackson, and you don’t remember Bags’s real name. But under Roon, I can type Bags or Trane or Milt or Jackson or Coltrane or even John.

But what if I don’t remember Bags’s nickname either? All I remember is an album with sax and vibes?

I think it would be useful to Focus based on Artist Role. This could be done in the Artist browser: show all Artists that play vibes. But it could be used for Albums too: show all albums that have somebody playing vibes.

Many scenarios come to mind. I find myself loving the accordion or bandoneon in new forms of music: Dino Saluzzi and Astor Piazzola and Jean-Louis Matinier. I used to hate it, there was a lot of stupid sailor-type folk music in Sweden, it was suggested that stereo systems should have an accordion filter. But Saluzzi and Piazzola and Matinier are not your father’s accordion. I tag these today so I can bring them up, but a Role filter would be automatic and dynamic and less error-prone.

And cello in jazz, Anna Lechner and Rufus Cappadocia. And what is the name of that crazy Italian who plays the nyckelharpa, a Swedish folk instrument like a cranked violin with keys (look it up). I remember this exists even if I don’t remember Marco Ambrosiano (a duet with Matinier, strongly recommended).

Wouldn’t this be cool? Just means traversing links in the database. Ten minutes, hey @Mike?

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