[split] Browse by Composer

[GStevens]

Tagging and selecting classical music has been discussed over the years (I, for one, have strong opinions about it) and I think should a topic in Feature Requests [1] separate from Tim's announcements of what will be in 7.5.0. 

Regards,
Kent

[1] Looking just now, I see at least two such threads already exist.

I agree, I have been going back and forth since four years I think between different solutions for the RaspberryPi with a huge classical music collection. I've been involved in many threads over at different "competitors's" forums. Everyone of course have their pet peeves and projects, but based on all the discussions I see in the fora I for one really think there is a "market opportunity" for a player that offers composer browsing.

It is true that there is no common standard for tagging classical music, but it seems to me that one common denominator for most classical collections is the use of the composer tag. It's use strikes me as much more frequent than for instance classical "style" (chamber/opera/symphonic), instrument or conductor. Everyone who uses the latter also uses the former, but the opposite is not true. Therefore composer could be a minimal common ground to begin with.

I certainly am no programmer, but I humbly still fail to see what makes the genre tag so different from the composer tag. Why can't one just re-use the same code for the current Tag Browser, but instead of populating the first panel with genres, fetch the composer tag that MPD is already indexing for each track, and populate the first panel with them.

One suggestion I proposed to the Volu.... devs and that I thought was very nifty but never got any feedback on, was a three panel solution that is not hard-coded with respect to what tags to use for the panels. Instead they are customizable by use of variables $1, $2 and $3 in the code. Those variables are set in the GUI by the user. One would also be able to define several such panel triptychs, essentially using the same code but a different namespace for each triptych.

I would like to add my 'weight' behind the inclusion of composer (as per genre).  I realise that 7.5 will not include this, but for those whose main listening is classical, I think that this addition would be welcomed.  The final paragraph from guermantes above seems like good option.

Regards,
Geoff