If a person is shown as an Arranger in the MB database, this is properly added to the ARRANGER tag by SongKong. However, if someone is described as Piano Arranger, SongKong seems to put them as an ARTIST, not ARRANGER. E.g. https://musicbrainz.org/track/37a2372c-4a5d-39d0-90ac-cc885d8ef605. (The style guidelines are for specific arrangement types to be given whenever possible)
Tags for specific arranger roles
Artist would be based on performer for Classical release, who is added as performer (and artist) Angela Hewitt or Dame Myra Hess. Regardless Myra Hess should be added as a an arranger not ignored but it is possible you have found a bug.
Only Angela Hewitt is listed as PERFORMER in the tags. Myra Hess is actually listed as CONDUCTOR, which is I guess what causes her to appear as ARTIST. But you will see from the MB link that she is not conductor but “piano arranger” (which conjures up a slightly odd image in my mind).
and nobody is listed as arranger ?
Nope.
I can see that they are both added to ARTISTS field, so must both be in ARTIST field as well, this will be listed under Fields Changed rather than Fields Added because already has a value.
Anyway I think there could certainly be a bug some where in here I will raise it as an issue.
HI, okay the problem is the ARRANGER field just lists people, i.e it cant document what type of arranger they are. So we try to filter out arrangers with the Additional attribute because it made more sense to only list the primary arranger if there was more than one. However the code that filters out the additional arranger also filters out any arrangers that specify the actual instrument for instrument arranger, this was unintentional and I wil reinstate such arrangers.
Both people are listed in the ARTISTS field by virtue of Angela Hewitt having a performance credit for playing piano and Myra Hess having a track artist credit for the track
I don’t think the arranger should get a track artist credit (in your scheme), as they are more like a composer. Of course, if they are performing as well (which is often the case when the arrangement is for a specific instrument), that’s different, but then they should be listed as performer as well.
They are not getting an artist credit because they are an arranger, SongKong is not seeing them as an arranger because they are a piano arranger, and that is the bug. They are being added as an artist simply because they are listed by MusicBrainz on the track artist credit (together with Bach). We know Bach is the composer so they are removed from the artist credit, but we dont know who Hess is so they dont get removed.
In summary if I fix the bug that prevents them being added as arranger that will also fix it so they are not listed as artist.
I see it wasn’t possible to fix this in the latest release. Hopefully it will be resolved shortly. Nevertheless, I am very impressed with the classical music capability and will buy SongKong on the basis of the track record so far. I’ll write up my findings and post them for the Muso users when I’ve thoroughly road-tested the full version. Thanks for all the help.
Hi SongKong and Jaikoz use Albunack database which almalgamates MusicBrainz and Discogs and has tagging and performance and stability improvements over using MusicBrainz or Discogs directly.
The Arranger bug was in this database rather than SongKong itself, I have found the problem and it should be fixed and new database deployed by Tuesday at the latest.
Just tested this again. The specific “piano arranger” is no longer being added as Artist. However, it is being shown as “Conductor” not “Arranger”.
Also, I cannot see the Arranger field anywhere in the spreadsheet view.
BTW, on a broader note, is there a better way of tagging “specific” arranger roles, much like with performers? E.g. To store the name with the specific type in brackets such as “Myra Hess (piano arr.)”. I note that the “Orchestrator” type gets saved in the Arranger tag as well, so this could be shown as, say, “Maurice Ravel (Orch.)”. Just a thought.
Sorry we are a bit behind here there was a mistake in my first fix attempt, and the database has to be rebuilt which takes time, Ill post as soon as done.
Arranger should be a column on the People tab
That is an interesting idea with some merit, the main problem with it is that if the same person has different arranger roles then the value will be different so you cannot simply just group by arranger to view all tracks they have arranged, maybe it needs to be an additional field, needs some thinking about.
OK. I’ll check again when it’s done.
Re the more general point - I agree it needs a bit of thought rather than diving in. The obvious parallel is Performer, which as you say, requires two fields, Performer and Performer_name.
The issue with Piano arranger is now fixed and deployed.
Just tested this with the same album as previously - SK is still adding piano arranger to Conductor and Artist.
Fixed after emptying the database.
However, there is another little wrinkle (boy, this stuff is complicated!). For tracks 8, 9 and 17, Angela Hewitt is the “piano arranger” as well as the performer (piano) (see https://musicbrainz.org/release/40bc2a67-0a31-47da-a5dc-e53ab6c13399). I think she should therefore be added as Arranger as well as Performer.
Ah, the issue here is that the arranger relationship ia attached directly to the recording, whereas the other arranger relationships are attached to the work the recording is attached to.
I didn’t realize you could have arranger relationship directly attached to the recording so they are currently ignored, this is another database fix.
Actually I do process recording arrangers after all, but instrument arranger and vocal arranger are falling foul of the same issue of arrangers with attributes being ignored
The issue with missing recording instrument and vocal arrangers is now fixed in the database, please run File:Empty Database and retry.