Tagging Classical for iTunes

[Mark]

To give you some idea of how my tagging system is kept very simple indeed, see below.

[MN Dave]

Thanks, Mark. How do you search for pieces on your portable player?

[Mark]

Thanks, Mark. How do you search for pieces on your portable player?

I'm pretty lazy: I just select an album I want to hear and let it play all the way through. But then, so little of my listening is done on a portable these days, so I no longer bother searching for individual works.

[gmstudio]

For me, it's all-important, as I tag with album art

I tag w/ album art, too, even though I don't keep the "album" together.

and only ever download complete albums - I wouldn't dream of just taking the work that most interested me: I have to have it all. I think this is the twitchy, insane perfectionist in me. Keeping everything together by album has many times led to some interesting (re)discoveries, as it's forced me to hear things - especially while travelling - that I might not have played had I been sat in my living room, remote in hand.

And for me, that's what the iPod/iTunes "shuffle" feature is for.

[Mark]

And for me, that's what the iPod/iTunes "shuffle" feature is for.

I used to shuffle music for refreshing (re)discoveries, but that was when I had a 20Gb player. I don't bother now I only need a 2Gb one.

[Ephemerid]

Name: II. Allegro marcato
Artist: Valery Gergiev, London Symphony Orchestra
Album artist: [BLANK]
Album: Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 in B-flat, Op. 100
Grouping: 6 - Modern
Composer: Prokofiev, Sergei
Comments: [BLANK]
Genre: Classical

I have my entire collection online now and I sort them by period, which is what I use the "grouping" category for.  I have numbered the periods so that everything is more or less grouped in chronological order.  When I sort it by grouping, it automatically sorts it next under "album."  But I use the album feature for the actual composition instead.  So even a brief one movement piece will have the name for the album as well.  Also, this means any CD with multiple compositions gets broken down of course.

As a result of my set-up, I can skim thru by period, narrow down by composer and then find what I want to hear.  I don't usually look at the name, but the album column when I'm looking for a piece to play.

Of course, it took me forever, re-typing all this stuff, but its a very logical system that works for me!   

[Brian]

A picture is worth a thousand words, although this one just reveals some organized chaos:

[Morigan]

That's exactly how I work, Brian.

P.S. Die Csárdásfürstin! I need a recording of that! hahaha

[Brian]

That's exactly how I work, Brian.

P.S. Die Csárdásfürstin! I need a recording of that! hahaha

  Well, I should point out that I always, always sort composers with first name first.

[drogulus]

     Basically, I rewrite almost all the tags. I make multitrack works into albums, and single track works are either albums in themselves for the more substantial ones, or are grouped into albums of my own devising. Sometimes I can leave a CD as is, but most times I have to do the grouping myself. To choose works by composer I make composer playlists as seen on the left. The main window here shows one of these lists in detail.