# Sorting music



## vavaving (Apr 20, 2009)

There are overlapping aspects in describing classical recordings, and therfore various ways to categorize them. How do you go about it?


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

vavaving said:


> There are overlapping aspects in describing classical recordings, and therfore various ways to categorize them. How do you go about it?


I would go by composer, name of the recording (in this column indicate whether it's a box set or not, if it is a box set list how many discs it contains), the orchestra(s), the conductor(s), and finally the record label. Be sure to have all the composers in alphabetical order and each recording in alphabetical order or in numeric order (i. e. Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 2, etc.).

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Mendelssohn:

-The Symphonies (3-CD set)
Orch: Berlin Philharmonic
Cond: Herbert von Karajan
Label: Deutsche Grammophon

Mussorgsky:

-Pictures At An Exhibition; A Night On Bald Mountain, etc.
Orch: Chicago Symphony Orch.
Cond: Fritz Reiner
Label: RCA

This is what I'm talking about. Good luck.


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## vavaving (Apr 20, 2009)

In what medium do you list the information?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I've tried databases and spreadsheets, but they have never worked for me. I really have found a long list in a word processor to be the only useful way for me. Then I can print the list (quite a few pages I'm afraid) and take it with me if I'm shopping, or better yet just shop on line.

I put the composer's name in bold and then list the works alphabetically, performers, albums under that. So a sample entry in the list would look like:

*d'Indy, Vincent* 1851 - 1931
Chanson et Danses, Op. 50 - The Sylvan Winds, Koch Classics 
Piano Quintet in Gm, Op. 81 - New Budapest Quartet (1995) Marco Polo 8.223691 
String Quartet No. 3 in Db, Op. 96 - New Budapest Quartet (1995) Marco Polo 8.223691
Symphony on a French Mountain Aire - Antonio Carlos Nobrega d Almeida / National Symphony
Orchestra of Ireland; Francois-Joel Thiollier, piano (1994) Naxos 550754

The automatic parsing here doesn't quite show the spacing I use to make it more readable, but it's the general idea. Obviously I'm more interested in the composers and the works than I am in the performers.

All have been converted to mp3 and are stored on a computer dedicated to music, so finding where I stored the disc is not really an issue.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

vavaving said:


> In what medium do you list the information?


I use Microsoft Word for my collection. It's really the best way to do it.

Also the way I list my recordings is not complicated. It's very simplistic and to the point. It has the composer and under the composer has the album title, then the orchestra, conductor, and record label. That's really all the information you need I think. I'm not worried about years so much, because everything I own, with the exception of two or three recordings, are stereo recordings.

Doing what Weston, and no offense to Weston of course, is very complicated. What does he do when he wants to find a specific album? He can't look by album because it's all divided up by composer, which is good, but then it's divided alphabetically by composition title. That, for me, and again it may work for him, makes it very difficult to find a specific album you're looking for.

The plus side to the way Weston does his sorting/cataloging is if he's looking for a particular composition he can bring up the composer then the compostion's name and look at what album it is on.

No way is better. It's all a matter of what is easier for you, but the biggest problem most people have when their cataloging is they over-complicate a not very complicated problem. The more simplistic, straight-forward you have your recordings listed, the better off you are in the long run.


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## vavaving (Apr 20, 2009)

I've been separating things by period and instrumentation, or composer and instrumentation. It works well when I don't remember the title but know what kind of arrangement to look for.

So both of you enter the information into a word processor, and then access a collection from that somehow...


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

vavaving said:


> I've been separating things by period and instrumentation, or composer and instrumentation. It works well when I don't remember the title but know what kind of arrangement to look for.
> 
> So both of you enter the information into a word processor, and then access a collection from that somehow...


There's only two ways you can access saved data through a word processor: from an external source or from an internal source. Mine is saved on an external flash drive, which is the smartest, most reliable way to go I think. Hard drives go bad sooner or later, so instead worrying about it, go ahead and get a flash drive with at least a gig of memory and you'll be okay.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

vavaving said:


> I've been separating things by period and instrumentation, or composer and instrumentation. It works well when I don't remember the title but know what kind of arrangement to look for..


Sounds complicated to me. You're making this harder than it should be. There's nothing to cataloging.

People come up with some really overly complicated ways of going about cataloging CD collections. There's nothing hard or difficult about it. The only hard part is entering the information into the computer starting from nothing. That's the hard part, the easy part is maintaining it and keeping it up to date.

Composer, title of the recording, orchestra, conductor, and then record label is as simple as it gets.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

vavaving said:


> I've been separating things by period and instrumentation, or composer and instrumentation. It works well when I don't remember the title but know what kind of arrangement to look for.
> 
> So both of you enter the information into a word processor, and then access a collection from that somehow...


I don't access my collection from the word processor. That is just to keep me from buying too many versions of the same piece. I often find it relaxing to physically browse my CD's to look for something to hear.

If I'm just listening to mp3 files on my computer, they pretty much sort themselves because all the information about the piece is embedded in the mp3 sound file as an ID tag, So I can sort the playlist by composer, by piece title, by conductor, or by genre, etc. This sounds closer to what you are trying to do.

I agree with Mirror Image. Your catalog should be as simple as possible. Otherwise you get too bogged down in minutiae.


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

Mirror Image, how would you classify something like








?

Chopin, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Schumann, Scriabin, Clementi, Wagner, Horowitz, and Schubert. So you put the set down under all of them? Or under a separate artist name?


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

Weston said:


> I don't access my collection from the word processor. That is just to keep me from buying too many versions of the same piece.


You do realize that you can never have too many versions of the same piece right?

I don't care what conductor and orchestra you listen to performing Mahler, for example, they are all different. The more you hear different interpretations, the more you love that piece of music even more I think and sometimes if you don't like a piece of music hearing it from a different conductor makes you hear something completely new in it.

There's much more to classical music than just the composer's music. A composer's music rest upon the interpretation of the conductor and the performance of the orchestra. All conductors feel different things about a composer's work. This is where classical music comes alive in my opinion. The music on the paper is one thing, but putting feeling into those notes is a completely different matter and no matter who you hear it's always going to be played differently.

This is a topic I can go on and on about, but I'll save that for another thread.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

airad2 said:


> Mirror Image, how would you classify something like
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That would get it's own special entry and wouldn't file under any composer's name at all. The same applies to something like the new Chandos Milestones box set. It would get it's own entry or "The Leonard Bernstein Collection," (just made up a title), would again, get it's own entry, so all of these entries aren't dealing with a specific composer, but rather, a conductor, performer, or record label.


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## vavaving (Apr 20, 2009)

I tend to compile works with similar instrumentation, and sorting them as such allows me to access them by kind. There are actually fewer groups of instruments than there are composers, so that might be simpler somehow, intuitively.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Mirror Image said:


> You do realize that you can never have too many versions of the same piece right?


Yes, don't worry. I do realize this. My wallet doesn't though.


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