Need an alternative to iPad Remote with Apple Mini setup.

[Bob Stern]

A while ago when switching to iTunes I decided to put the Composer in the Artist field for all of my albums. I know some of you might be against adapting metadata for a particular software program, but I liked the ability to just click on "Artists" in iTunes and see a neat list of composers rather than a haphazard long list of a bunch of performers/ensembles/etc.

 

A scheme I adopted from another classical music listener:

 

1. Use the Artist field for the performers, not the composer.

 

2. To facilitate display of composer in the Apple Remote app, insert a composer prefix at the beginning of the album name. For example, all Beethoven albums begin BE—, Brahms BR—, Mahler MH—, Mozart MZ—, Schubert SBT—, Schumann Schm—, etc.

 

3. Use the Album field to represent the name of the composition, not the entire CD. If I want to search for a particular Schubert sonata, I don't care which other sonata happens to be on the same CD. With downloadable classical music, the traditional concept of an album is obsolete, except for collections of short works by multiple composers. I store a reference to the physical album in the Grouping field, since that field has no other purpose I can think of.

 

4. Use the Date field for the original performance date. If the original recording was analog, include the date of the digital transfer in the Grouping field (along with other physical album info per the last sentence of paragraph 2).