{"id":919,"date":"2010-08-10T20:48:48","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T19:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/?p=919"},"modified":"2013-04-04T13:30:53","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T12:30:53","slug":"classical-music-in-itunes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/2010\/08\/classical-music-in-itunes\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing classical music in iTunes"},"content":{"rendered":"

[UPDATE 25\/02\/2013: iTunes 11 was released towards the end of 2012. It introduces<\/del>\u00a0(in the comments Paul points out the column browser function did exist in iTunes before version 11) the ‘column browser’ which allows you to navigate your music collection by multiple ‘facets’. The ‘Column Browser’ can only be used when a list is displayed in ‘List’ (as opposed to ‘Grid’ or ‘Artist’) view. To display the column browser, go to the ‘List’ view for a playlist, then (on a Mac at least) use the ‘View’ menu to ‘Show Column Browser’. Once the Column Browser is active you can decide which fields from the item records display in the column browser.<\/p>\n

\"iTunes<\/a><\/p>\n

The Column Browser seems to be visible in the ‘Classical’ smart playlist by default, with the three columns chosen as ‘Composers’, ‘Artists’ and ‘Albums’. However, you can also display ‘Groupings’ (which were displayed by default for Classical music in iTunes 10 – see note below).<\/p>\n

A final thing to note is that there are a couple of options with the Column Browser which are turned on by default and (in my opinion) work better turned off. These are ‘Group Compilations’ (which means when you have a variety of music on a single disc marked as a compilation, you don’t see these broken down by artist) and ‘Use Album Artists’.]<\/p>\n

[UPDATE 29\/07\/2011: I’ve just noticed that in iTunes 10, if you use the ‘Classical’ smart playlist that comes pre-setup on the software, the display is different from all other iTunes screens, with the Composer appearing automatically on the left, followed by a ‘Grouping’ column, and finally the track listing. I need to have a play around to find what works best, but I think it pushes towards using ‘Groupings’ to define the ‘Piece’ – the iTunes release notes (at time of writing at\u00a0http:\/\/www.apple.com\/itunes\/features\/) say “You can also use iTunes Groupings to specify Works” (for library geeks, interesting use of FRBR terminology there)]<\/p>\n

A quick post inspired by Chris Keene<\/a> who recently asked:<\/p>\n

On itunes, should classical music ‘Artist’ be the composer or conductor?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since I had similar questions around entering classical music into iTunes I thought I’d just note down quickly the method I’ve settled on, and why.<\/p>\n

iTunes isn’t really well designed (some would say I could stop right there) for handling music metadata beyond the basic stuff you might need for a collection of popular music. The data entry, and the browse interface, tends to focus on:<\/p>\n