Composition

Composition: dates and location of composition

2008-09-08T22:02:15.0012Z

ok - i'll look into the catalog numbers seperately in a classical music domain once i get around to it.

i set up a user domain for dedications (Dedicated Work). I think this could be generally useful (applied to literature and what not) and does not need to be directly tied to composition.

Place of composition should likely be non unique since there are numerous instances where the composer travelled while writing the piece. I think for modeling place composed similar to places lived is sufficient. Similarly, capturing a start and end date is also likely sufficient. Modelling compositions begun by one composer and finished by others is basically just hard (see this example) and happens infrequently enough that i think if someone cared enough they could break out the variant completions into seperate compositions. but for simplicity's sake, i think just having a date begun, date completed pair on the composition itself would help capture lots of useful data.

Composition: dates and location of composition

2008-09-08T17:25:56.0012Z

As with most good user suggestions, I will say: Go try it out!

The question of catalog keys is easiest. Go make /user/arielb/koechel, and create an enumerated property for a Mozart composition type. Other notable catalogs (Schickele) can be similarly modeled. Opus numbers could be a machine-readable string, but probably on a Classical composition type; other compositions do not tend to have those.

The key, dedication, commission, première, all seem like good properties for classical compositions as well.

The date and place of composition is an interesting challenge, an example of a frequent modeling challenge in Freebase. Representing this information complicates the model when done properly; one really wants the composer-composition relationship to be a CVT. However, most compositions don’t have this information readily available, making it an unnecessary composition. Would it be acceptable to have the date(s) and place of composition simply depending from the composition itself? That would mean, for example, that one could not correctly describe compositions begun by one composer and completed by another.

Composition: dates and location of composition

2008-09-06T18:19:09.0012Z

and some more ideas:

to whom the composition was dedicated is often interesting.

who (person, or sometimes entity such as the san francisco opera) commisioned the work is also often interesting.

location, date, and performer of the premeir is also often interesting.

Composition: dates and location of composition

2008-09-06T18:14:53.0018Z

can we add dates for when a work was composed (start, end)? i'd like to start building timeline visualizations of this. this is particularly applicable to classical music but could be generally useful. for instance a timeline of brahms's symphonys (it took him ~14 years to write it because he felt so pressured coming after beethoven's 9th).

secondly - place composed (probably non unique) would be interesting for mapping the works composed. for example - dvorak's new world symphony and american string quartet, and mapping liszt's travels. in general there's quite a lot of data on location composed particularly for classical music that we could easily structure.

thirdly - and this is more complicated, at least for classical music, we should capture the catalog ID - which for many composers is an opus, number combination, but for mozart it was K for Ludwig Ritter von Köchel and haydn and bach also had their own thing.

fourthly - we should also capture key for classical compositions.

Composition: Date Created

2008-06-25T17:11:53.0012Z

Good suggestions. I’ve made these changes over on sandbox for comment; I’ll recreate them here if folks like them.

Composition: Date Created

2008-06-25T11:09:10.0015Z

Could we have a Date Created (type Date/Time) property?

Also a First Played (type Date/Time) property would be good. Possibly extend this to a compound type including a first played (type Location) property?

Composition: Traditional compositions

2008-05-28T03:55:57.0000Z

That’s a good question, Joe. A particular recording of a traditional tune is likely a recording of an arrangement of the tune, true. But one might still want to discuss a folk song in its own right, and there is a difference between the lack of a composer assertion and the positive assertion that the tune is traditional.

I don’t know what the right answer is. Should there be a Boolean property for traditional compositions? Should we do what every other database does and create a pseudo-composer named Traditional?

Do you want to start a discussion on the Music Modeling Interest Group or possibly the data modeling mailing list?

Composition: Traditional compositions

2008-05-26T15:41:21.0012Z

Is there a preferred way to indicate that a piece is generally credited as "traditional" (often with an arranger credit)? It's clear that imported data sometimes perpetuates "Trad" as a composer.

I suppose using "Arrangement" and leaving "Composer" blank is the best alternative?

Composition: Opus Numbers

2008-05-20T23:49:15.0000Z

Welcome!

Unfortunately—as you probably know from using MusicBrainz and other databases—classical music is not generally well-modeled. We have it on our to-do list, but just plain haven’t gotten to it yet.

You can help us out, though! First, check out and join the Music Modeling Interest Group; start a conversation or three there.

Second, you can model the features you feel are missing in your own personal domain. Then post about them on the interest group or on the data modeling mailing list, and once there’s agreement, we can easily promote them to the music domain.

Thanks!

Composition: Opus Numbers

2008-05-20T23:38:30.0005Z

Hi,

I've just discovered Freebase (through musicbrainz) and have quite a lot of classical music data which I would like to add.

What about Opus Numbers and catalogue numbers - I can't find anywhere to put them!

A table of which composers have which types of catalogue numbers would be a good entry too ( I have some data on this, too).