Enhanced Genre hierarchy list

[ThY]

I thought your post was an answer for my own previous post / question.
Can you take a look at it ?

To answer your own last question, i think it will greatly depend on what the purpose is when people use the genre tags.
Personnaly i use them to regroup sonically my tracks, be able to create music neighborhoods, and listen for specific types of music (like most people do).

Cultural scenes and movements move away from sonic and musical description which allow to regroup, differentiate and bring music tracks closer, according to these criteria.
For me, thos tags are like another "grouping" tool, but based on more abstract and too much diverse parameters.
Although it can satisfy some people.

[hiccup]

I thought your post was an answer for my own previous post / question.
Can you take a look at it ?

I'm sorry that I didn't reply to it.
Not sure if I missed it or perhaps didn't know how to answer it before.

Concerning 'workflow':
I'm doing my best to ignore my personal opinions on what constitutes to be a valid genre name.
So I will add any and all genres that RYM and MusicBrainz have decided on to be a genre.
Regardless of my own opinions om some of them.
And then I position them under a genre category structure that I believe makes sense.

Regarding MusicBrainz, that is useful already, since MusicBrainz' Picard is able to retrieve and match their genres.
Regarding RYM (RateYourMusic, or Sonemic in the future) it is currently pretty much useless, since after all these years they still haven't been able to publish an API that makes it possible to retrieve and match genres to releases.
But I'm of the opinion that (thanks to their community) they have a pretty good understanding and repository regarding genres, so I have been adding all of them to my 'Genre Hierarchy table'. Often but not always following their genre hierarchy.
Let's hope some day they will deliver on what they have been promising for many years now. (don't hold your breath, a drunk turtle with a wooden leg and an eye patch would probably beat a RYM developer in a race)

So, the genres that are added is objective, the hierarchy and where I place the genres is subjective.

edit:
Besides MusicBrainz and  RateYourMusic, my table also includes all Discogs genres.
But they haven't made any additions or updates for a very long time.
Not sure what is going on there but it looks like nobody over there cares about genres anymore

[ThY]

Thank you for your answer

...
My main objective with this is to gather any and all genres that both RYM and MusicBrainz have decided on to be a genre.
Regardless of my own opinions or thoughts.
And then I position them under a genre category that I believe makes sense.
...
(including 'AKA's, that's some 3400 genres in my table as we speak)

I'm also working on my own genres hierarchy, strongly inspired by RyM's one which i think, like you do, is the most complete and well-crafted one.
But i adapt and modify it through my own understandings and opinions.
It's more than a hierarchy because i also include my own descriptions in french (because it's my language), also inspired by RyM ones but from other web sources too.
I even look for some most representative songs to illustrate each genres, and include them in my hierarchy.

If RyM had an API i probably would be using it, at least as a strong starting point.
But seeing that it's not the case, how do you use your hierarchy of genres to tag your music files ?
What is your specific workflow at that moment ?

In my case:
• I play a file.
• I jump further to skip any kind of intro, to find the most representative parts of the song.
• I listen to them until i got a genre coming to my mind.
• I relate to my hierarchy and its song examples, to confirm or adapt the choice i made.
• Then i tag my file, but with only one genre. I choose the most representative one, which is sometime difficult with some artists, but it's less time consuming for me.

So this is the "workflow" i was thinking about.
How is yours ?

[hiccup]

But seeing that it's not the case, how do you use your hierarchy of genres to tag your music files ?
What is your specific workflow at that moment ?

Oh, I thought you meant what my workflow was for maintaining my genre hierarchy table.

My workflow for tagging my music with genres is as follows:
I don't add genres to the files manually.
I am using Picard and some scripts to have that done automatically.
When I see genres in my music files that I strongly disagree with, I will use the  MusicBrainz website to vote those genres down, and possibly add, or vote-up other genres for the song/album.
If a track has no genre at all listed at MusicBrainz, I will add them to the tracks in MusicBrainz' database.
That works instantly. As soon as the genre addition is saved in their database, I run the album through Picard and the tracks get tagged with those genres.

I think it's a much better approach than tagging files manually.
In this way the genres are stored much more permanently, and it will benefit other users that use Picard for tagging their music.

[ThY]

Oh so, in the end, you're not using your hierarchy list at all to tag your files ?

[hiccup]

Oh so, in the end, you're not using your hierarchy list at all to tag your files ?

That's correct.

[hiccup]

Updated

Some 40+ genres have been added since the previous update.
It now contains 2886 genres plus 512 AKA's.

[hiccup]

Oh so, in the end, you're not using your hierarchy list at all to tag your files ?

That's correct.

A small correction to that statement:
I'm using the contents of my genre hierarchy sheet to populate the Picard scripts that will make it that my music gets tagged (only) by genres that exist in my Enhanced Genre Hierarchy sheet.
So in a roundabout way you could say that I am using that hierarchy sheet to tag my music.

[hiccup]

updated

- 'new' genres were added
- fixed an issue with Album genres
  (genres starting somewhere with the letter 'P' and up were missing)

[ThY]

Oh so, in the end, you're not using your hierarchy list at all to tag your files ?

That's correct.

A small correction to that statement:
I'm using the contents of my genre hierarchy sheet to populate the Picard scripts that will make it that my music gets tagged (only) by genres that exist in my Enhanced Genre Hierarchy sheet.
So in a roundabout way you could say that I am using that hierarchy sheet to tag my music.

I realised i didn't get notified by your answer, so i missed it.
My main issue / interrogation is about "how do you decide which genre to associate to a song ?" when you have to do it.
This is what is time consuming for me, because when the number of genres and sub-genres are too much granular, it's sometimes hard to decide which one(s) to assign.
I tried many times to simplify the number and the hierarchy of the used genres, but then i could complain about the fact that it's too simple...

I'm regularly seeking an AI able to analyse music genres precisely and efficiently, but nothing is good enough for now...

[phred]

I'm regularly seeking an AI able to analyse music genres precisely and efficiently, but nothing is good enough for now...

AI at this point in development would be hit or miss. When in  doubt I use AllMusic, Discogs, or Wikipedia.

[hiccup]

AI at this point in development would be hit or miss. When in  doubt I use AllMusic, Discogs, or Wikipedia.

RYM is superior to these three in my humble opinion.

But since they still don't have a working API (it's probably going to be released somewhere between WW III and IV), using MusicBrainz Picard is the best option if you want this to be automated.

[phred]

RYM is superior to these three in my humble opinion.

I'll give it a look and see if I can create a Custom Web Link for it.

But since they still don't have a working API (it's probably going to be released somewhere between WW III and IV)

So in the next couple of weeks, eh?    

using MusicBrainz Picard is the best option if you want this to be automated.

I  don't want/need genre selection to be automated as I have my own, very loosely defined criteria.

[hiccup]

I'll give it a look and see if I can create a Custom Web Link for it.

I've been using this as a weblink. But it's been a while since I concocted it, so it may need a fresh look and perhaps some updating:

Code

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/$lower($replace($replace($replace(<Artist>"/"<Album>," ",-),"'",),",",-))

But since they still don't have a working API (it's probably going to be released somewhere between WW III and IV)

So in the next couple of weeks, eh?    

That would be great!
Ehh…

[phred]

That would be great!
Ehh…

Exactly.  :-(