T
Terry Pinnell
My first post here, so hope I'm in an appropriate group?
I'm trying to organise my media library. That includes assigning an
appropriate genre to every one of my 2,000 or so WMA files. I see that
the Genre drop-down list in WMP9 contains no fewer than 127 types. As
I'm a certain age, happily I can remain contentedly ignorant of many
of these. But that still leaves a lot that with which I'm having some
trouble. So I'd appreciate some help, or pointers to useful resources
please. Ideally, I'd like to *listen* to one or two examples of each
of the dozen or so genres I expect to use. That way, for instance,
presumably I'd be pretty sure when to assign Acid Jazz instead of
Jazz. But short of that, any comments or resource pointers would be
helpful please.
Apart from the fundamental problem that the definitions are inherently
subjective, the main cause of my haziness is that any track can
logically have multiple genres. Pop and Oldie, Rock and Musicals,
Instrumental & Pop, Rock and Pop and Oldie, Pop and Easy Listening,
etc. But you can assign only one. So that limits the use you can make
of them later (which is presumably the only point of entering genres).
If say you've spurned the use Oldie and chosen on the basis of style
rather than age, then you will never be able to rustle up a nostalgic
playlist of your childhood and teen stuff. And if you've rejected Easy
Listening for something slightly more specific, maybe you'll rue the
day when you just want to curl up with a bottle of dry white for some,
er, easy listening.
The following short list of examples illustrates my descending order
of confidence. Some of the assignments are mine, added from cold, and
some are those already inherited in my files, awaiting possible
re-consideration.
Tchaikovsky, Symphony #6 = Classical
Frank Sinatra, Come Fly with Me = Vocal
Barbra Streisand, Big Bad Wolf = Vocals
Dave Brubeck, Take Five = Jazz
Presley, Hound Dog = Rock (Pop? Rock/Pop? Soundtrack? Oldies)
Ray Charles, Georgia = Pop (Oldie?)
Swingle Singers, Pink Panther Theme = A capella (Easy Listening?)
Swingle Singers, Liebster Jesu, (from Bach Hits Back) = A capella
All unaccompanied Swingle whether pop/jazz/classical = A capella (?)
Bach, Various on Moog = Electronic (not Classical)
Presley, Don't = Pop (Rock? Slow love song; so why not Vocal?)
Beatles, Love Me Do = Pop (But original had Rock)
Beatles, Yesterday = Pop (Not Rock? Pop/Rock?)
Herb Alpert, La Virgen de la Macarena = Instrumental Pop (?)
Elton John, Candle in the Wind = Easy Listening (Pop? Vocals?)
Ella Fitzgerald, Lady Is A Tramp = Jazz (Vocals?)
Sarah Vaughan & Thelonius Monk, Fly Me To The Moon = Jazz (Vocals?)
Peggy Lee & Thelonius Monk, Fever = Jazz (Oldies? Vocals?)
Barbra Streisand & Michael Crawford, Music of the Night = Vocals
(Showtunes?)
Platters, (American Graffiti), Smoke Gets in Your Eyes = Musicals
Platters, isolated track, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes = Pop (?)
Chris Andrews, Yesterday Man = Oldies? Pop?
Acker Bilk, Stranger on the Shore = Pop (Instrumental?)
I'm trying to organise my media library. That includes assigning an
appropriate genre to every one of my 2,000 or so WMA files. I see that
the Genre drop-down list in WMP9 contains no fewer than 127 types. As
I'm a certain age, happily I can remain contentedly ignorant of many
of these. But that still leaves a lot that with which I'm having some
trouble. So I'd appreciate some help, or pointers to useful resources
please. Ideally, I'd like to *listen* to one or two examples of each
of the dozen or so genres I expect to use. That way, for instance,
presumably I'd be pretty sure when to assign Acid Jazz instead of
Jazz. But short of that, any comments or resource pointers would be
helpful please.
Apart from the fundamental problem that the definitions are inherently
subjective, the main cause of my haziness is that any track can
logically have multiple genres. Pop and Oldie, Rock and Musicals,
Instrumental & Pop, Rock and Pop and Oldie, Pop and Easy Listening,
etc. But you can assign only one. So that limits the use you can make
of them later (which is presumably the only point of entering genres).
If say you've spurned the use Oldie and chosen on the basis of style
rather than age, then you will never be able to rustle up a nostalgic
playlist of your childhood and teen stuff. And if you've rejected Easy
Listening for something slightly more specific, maybe you'll rue the
day when you just want to curl up with a bottle of dry white for some,
er, easy listening.
The following short list of examples illustrates my descending order
of confidence. Some of the assignments are mine, added from cold, and
some are those already inherited in my files, awaiting possible
re-consideration.
Tchaikovsky, Symphony #6 = Classical
Frank Sinatra, Come Fly with Me = Vocal
Barbra Streisand, Big Bad Wolf = Vocals
Dave Brubeck, Take Five = Jazz
Presley, Hound Dog = Rock (Pop? Rock/Pop? Soundtrack? Oldies)
Ray Charles, Georgia = Pop (Oldie?)
Swingle Singers, Pink Panther Theme = A capella (Easy Listening?)
Swingle Singers, Liebster Jesu, (from Bach Hits Back) = A capella
All unaccompanied Swingle whether pop/jazz/classical = A capella (?)
Bach, Various on Moog = Electronic (not Classical)
Presley, Don't = Pop (Rock? Slow love song; so why not Vocal?)
Beatles, Love Me Do = Pop (But original had Rock)
Beatles, Yesterday = Pop (Not Rock? Pop/Rock?)
Herb Alpert, La Virgen de la Macarena = Instrumental Pop (?)
Elton John, Candle in the Wind = Easy Listening (Pop? Vocals?)
Ella Fitzgerald, Lady Is A Tramp = Jazz (Vocals?)
Sarah Vaughan & Thelonius Monk, Fly Me To The Moon = Jazz (Vocals?)
Peggy Lee & Thelonius Monk, Fever = Jazz (Oldies? Vocals?)
Barbra Streisand & Michael Crawford, Music of the Night = Vocals
(Showtunes?)
Platters, (American Graffiti), Smoke Gets in Your Eyes = Musicals
Platters, isolated track, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes = Pop (?)
Chris Andrews, Yesterday Man = Oldies? Pop?
Acker Bilk, Stranger on the Shore = Pop (Instrumental?)