Music by "session"

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

I am opening up here another topic on music software, as I am developing my own application (as an "amateur"), and want to gage whether what I am doing is relevant for others or not. I do not know if this is the right place to do this - let me know. Also, people may point towards existing software with these features, that I may be unaware of (though I have tested "a lot" of solutions).

 

I listen to various types of music, but my main "genre" of interest is Jazz, and it is only with Jazz music that I spend time "collecting" information on my albums.  There are two types of information that I "collect":

- who plays on what track, and on what date, and for this, I organize the tracks of my albums by "session"

- comments and reviews on albums and or "sessions" - this is the topic of another thread.

 

Being able to view information by "session" if to me a "must have" feature when I browse my music collection, and the absence of this feature led me to stop using Roon (among other reasons) after having subscribed for 2 years. 

 

On albums that have multiple sessions, having credits (who plays what) organized by session makes it simply more "readable". Witness this example, on Discogs, MusicBrains, and AllMusic:

 

https://www.discogs.com/Stanley-Turrentine-The-Blue-Note-QuintetSextet-Studio-Sessions/release/7501732

 

https://musicbrainz.org/release/5a5b93b8-684f-4d25-8b61-43261fd6b6ae 

 

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-blue-note-quintet-sextet-studio-sessions-mw0000979620/credits 

 

So here is an example of what I have done instead: https://gentle-ridge-34867.herokuapp.com/album#1582845271261

 

As mentioned above, I am trying to use this to enter comments as well, but have not included any (yet) in this example.

 

Once could argue that this "session" information can be "accessed" in other ways and does not need to be a "feature" of a music app (i.e. not relevant for just "playing music"). However, as we rely more on purchasing digital music, we no longer have the physical media, and we are "losing" access to this information, as the booklets, artwork, are not always provided by the music "distributors". Finding this information is sometimes difficult. Even with we do own the physical media (and I just bought that Mosaic box set), you may not have it "handy" while you are listening to music (this is obviously the case when you are not at home), and find it convenient to read the fine print and match the track you are listening to with the credits in the booklets. So perhaps instead what is needed is a new "discogs" that would easily allow one to enter and access this information - or one could contribute to Wikipedia to enter the information on albums when it is missing...

 

So my question is this: do you see this as an interesting feature for a music player ? Or should it simply be something available more easily on the web, but not necessarily a part of the "user experience" in a music app ?

 

 

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

And here is an example with comments added: https://gentle-ridge-34867.herokuapp.com/album#1567009114585

One of the comments if from a copyrighted book, so hoping this will fall under "fair use". The other is from an interesting website if you are a fan of "classic" jazz (for lack of a better term - swing, mainstream...)

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Here is another example, with another Mosaic Box Set: https://gentle-ridge-34867.herokuapp.com/album#1567010982773

When I load an album, the tracks are included in a markdown text file (stored in the album's folder), which I can edit (online or with any text editor), to re-organize the tracks, add comments, links, etc...

 

The example is incomplete, I have not added comments to all the "sessions" of the set, and again some of it may be copyrighted, but it is just for the purpose of illustrating the benefits of "customizing" the presentation of an album.

 

It would be nice to find others interested in sharing this type of information (i.e. the content of my text files). Any suggestions are welcome. Perhaps posting this in a "music" forum would be more appropriate - as this is really not related in any way to "sound quality".

[jamesg11]

Well I’m fully on board with this ‘high concept’. Looks an extraordinary amount of work involved!

[astrotoy]

I like what you are doing. My main interest is classical, so I like to compare sessions, what hall was used, microphone setup, recording engineer(s), producer, tape recorder(s) used, artists, pieces, dates.  Often recordings were done in blocks - the recording company booked several days in a row and either had the same group of artists/orchestra during that time or sometimes would bring a new conductor with the same orchestra, and sometimes a new recording engineer and or producer.  I have access to a lot of information from one of the major companies, so i can do comparisons.  However, no one has put it together, with the appropriate linkages which would make it easier to understand what was happening.  Most of those involved (during the golden age of analogue stereo classical recording (mid-'50's to early '80's) - I think similar for jazz - are no longer with us. 

 

Larry