Classical music playlists

Hi,
Desperately seeking software tools to aid in building classical music playlists that sort the symphony movements correctly. There are no standards in the classical world to labeling the different movements--typically, four (or five) movements to a symphony. Order is important in classical music. Any leads?

It's the age old story of Mohammed and the mountain. If the tags in the files don't allow you to do what you want, then you have to bite the bullet and change the tags.
I don't have much experience with classical, but give me an example of what's giving you trouble and I'll see if I can help.

Similar Messages

Restoring the "Classical Music" smart playlist

At some point I must have deleted the specially formatted "Classical Music" playlist that appeared in iTunes 9, probably because I had like two pieces of classical music on my laptop and didn't need the playlist taking up real estate (I left it on another computer). Well, now I've got more on this computer and I'd like it back.
Subsequent upgrades of iTunes have not brought it back. Is there something I can tweak to make this come back, or perhaps a template I can download, or bring over from another computer? (just the playlist format, not the contents) I can see the playlist on the other computer, but when looking at it via library sharing it's not the same format, but is instead just a plain old playlist with plain old columns. It's really the special formatting with Composer and whatnot that I'm interested in.

Thanks for the rules. That was helpful in getting the general selection of songs into the playlist, but then there's something else going on in how it displays and sorts them that I can't manage to reproduce. As you can probably see when you select that playlist, the column heads in the track info area, left to right, are Composer, Grouping, and then the more familiar number, Name, Artist, Time etc. It will display tracks based first on what's selected in Composer, then on Grouping (which is used for a "work" like a symphony or concerto that doesn't necessarily align with an album, or which you could have multiple artists doing different versions of).
But I can't get the columns to work the same way through the normal dropdown list of columns. I can get all the same elements, but not in that order: nothing will go to the left of Name or the number.

Can I create Composer sub-playlists in Classical Music?

I made the terrible mistake of upgrading to itunes 11. I've managed to mostly get it the way I want it with the exception of my Classical Music. In itunes 10 I had playlists for each composer under the Classical Music heading, which was the easiest way to sort things. Now I just have a list of tracks by composer, and it's impossible to navigate. I can't figure out a way to change this, and am thinking about reinstalling 10.7, but that looks painfully difficult - does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

Use MetaZ to tag the files as TV Shows and the correct series and all other info.
-> http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/36029/metaz

How can I see my classical music sorted according to composers - individual works - performers ?

How can I see my classical music sorted according to composers - individual works - performers ? This is much more useful than sorting according albums.
I have tried using the Grouping tag, writing Composer - Work - conductor there. But if I make a smart playlist, showing only Genre: "classical" and sorting according to Grouping, I see a line for each part in every work: one line for each movement of Mahler's 4th Symphony performed by George Solti, for instance.
What I am looking for is a way so that there is ONE line for each PERFORMANCE, ie, one line for Mahler's 4th Symphony performed by George Solti, below that one line for Mahler's 4th Symphony performed by William Mackerras, and so on.
Anyone found the golden solution? :-)
Peter P.

How can it be possible because the resoution of my video source is the same before and after conversion process ... thanks to my ADSL Box and my PS3 the video is ok ... not with ATV ...
Could you please give me the resolution I should have for my video in SD or HD720 ?
All my video have converted in 768x576 ...
Is there another way to convert my video for iTunes instead AVS Video Converter ?
Thanks all

Uploading classical music (large files)

Hi everyone.
I'm having trouble uploading classical music from my MacBook to the iphone via itunes. Uploads all contemporary music, but won't bring the larger classical music files across.
I can see the classical music albums in my itunes playlists and it has the option to select this file when i do a manual sync with the iphone (too much music on my Mac to do a complete sync with the small iphone) but nothing comes across.
Not sure what to do and would appreciate any help!
cheers
B
PS Not sure if this is relevant, but when I open Finder and go to the itunes folder, under the sub-folder "Itunes Music", none of the classical music folders are there. (but they're definitely in the library as I can play them on the Mac).

I think its possible, You can use NPM modules like "ftp", "ssh2" and so on.
I often use ssh2 module like below code:
(function () {
var Connection = require('ssh2');
var conn = new Connection();
conn.on('ready', function() {
    conn.sftp(function(err, sftp) {
      if (err) throw err;
      sftp.fastPut('<local file>',
          '<remote file>',
          function(err){
            if (err) throw err;
            conn.end();
}).connect({
    host: '<server address>',
    port: 22,
    username: '<user name>',
    password: '<password>'
Ten

Organising classical music

I started to write this as a response to somebody else's query, but then I thought no, I'm asking for general guidance on the best way to organise classical music to be listened to on my Mac and on my iPod.
I know that classical music lovers are a (threatened) minority, but oh, how I wish Apple would heed these regular sounds of anguish from us.
*What we need*
The 'Song' is an almost meaningless concept when organising classical music; 'Artist' is not much better.
Classical music fans may want to:
1. sort by composer
2. within composer, possibly sort by type (eg symphony)
3. within type, sort by work (eg Symphony 1)
4. within work sort by movement.
*Nested folders?*
A pretty obvious case for nested folders? (Not to mention having a clear consistent way to order and group movements.)
Yes - provided you dont have an iPod.
Thus I can have a folder 'Beethoven', within that I have a folder 'Symphonies' and within that I can have a playlist 'Symphony 5' ( actually two playlists for my two different recordings, otherwise I risk hearing the first movement twice before moving to the second movement). To ensure the movements are played in order, I have to ensure they are listed in the right order in Names (ie have 1,2,3,4 in the title).
This cludge sems to work in ITunes (although how nice it would be if Names and Albums were replaced by something a bit more akin to the world of classical music, and how nice it would be if one could have an Opus field.
*Not if you have an iPod*
But then this scheme falls apart if I sync with my iPod, which can't handle nested folders.
I quote from my message of 21 October 2006:
+... is there any sign of Apple introducing nested folders for the iPod (as it did with iTunes) and if not is there any manageable workaround for organising large collections of music?+
If you have a playlist for every symphony within a folder called Symphonies within Beethoven, you end up with at least nine playlists to scroll through! (Imagine the effect on my 400+ Bach items.)
I have found the only two useable viewing methods on the ipod are Playlists and Composers and both have serious problems. This is how they seem to work:
Under Playlists on the iPod:
If in iTunes, you have a playlist Symphony 1, within a folder Symphonies, within a folder Beethoven,
on your iPod there will be an item for each playlist, ie lines for each of the nine symphonies And if you select one, you will get the four movements of that symphony.
If you had made a playlist Beethoven Symphonies, there would be just one item in the playlist - but then once selected there would be all the movements of all the symphonies.
Under Composers on the iPod,
everything by Beethoven is listed, with a line per movement! Things are better if you have sussed (as I did not) that if the Album name for All the movements of Symphony 1 was exactly the same, eg 'Beethoven: Symphony 1', then this particular item appears once in the list.
*So, what am I doing?*
When not cursing Apple, I have already grouped music in folders by composer/broad category of music (in the case of the main composers) and under one playlist for minor composers (ie ones which I dont have much music for).
I'm painfully renaming every Name of every piece so that the movements appear in the correct order.
I'm painfully renaming the Album name of each piece so that all movements have exactly the same Album name (starting with 'Composername: )
(By the way I tried and abandoned some people's strategies involving calling Composers 'Artists' and vice versa. Too messy, and besides, I do from time to time download the metadata from Gracenote CDDB - deeply flawed though it is - and don't want to have to do more editing than necessary.
So, for example, for the first movement of one recording of Beethoven's Symphony Number 1 I have the following:
Name-- Symphony 1 In C, Op. 21 - 1. Adagio Molto, Allegro Con Brio (crucial that the movements are numbered, to get them in the right order)
Artist-- Nikolaus Harnoncourt; Chamber Orchestra Of Europe
Composer-- Beethoven (I also put Bach for JS and only put the initials for the other Bachs)
Album-- Beethoven: Symphony 1 In C, Op. 21
*Is there a better way to do this?*
Wouldn't be surprised. But you don't expect Apple software to be so bad that simple users like me have to work out a logic to make things work on both Mac and iPod.

ed2345 wrote:
What, for example will you do with an albmum of Maria Callas singing arias from many composers?
I have indeed got an album of Maria Callas and I put each song under the composer. (I can after all select Callas under Artist and get all her songs that way.)
ed2345 wrote:
As a workaround for the iPod, I suggest to manually add the composer in to the Artist field (since the Composer field does not show on the iPod).
As I said, I tried that and, apart from finding it a messy fix, it means changing EVERY entry, whereas sometimes I get a semi decent one from the CD or the database. (Actually the Composer field does show on the iPod - the problem is that I scroll for ages to get through Bach.)
I'm pretty certain I sent feedback a couple of years ago, but see absolutely no signs of development of the metadata behind iTunes or the iPod. Sad. I'm an Apple user going back 20 years.

Music Playlist shows video playlists - iPod BUG. IS IT JUST ME?

I have the 160GB ipod classic. I have several video playlists set up (to manage music videos, other movies, etc.). When I select "music" from the main menu, then select "playlists" to pull up my music playlists as set up on iTunes, I see all of my video playlists listed and they show "0 SONGS" under the playlist name, obviously because they are not supposed to have songs and only have videos. When I click on the video playlist from this menu, the ipod hangs on a white screen (forever!) until I press menu to return the music playlist menu... Is it just me or is this one of the many continued bugs that the iPod classic still has even after the 1.0.2 software update?
APPLE - PLEASE FIX THIS BUG WITH THE OTHERS AND RELEASE 1.0.3 SOFTWARE ASAP!!!

I did realize that I also have a "music videos" (smart) playlist that shows all music videos. Since these have songs in them, they are listed also...

Classical Music is Searched by Composer-How?

Could it be that no one at Apple has ever had formal music education? In Verion 11 they (for some unfathomable reason) took away the Power Search option. Now you are left with Artist and Title and somekind of ranking. I have a news break for Apple, classical music is searched by COMPOSER and is OPERA in many cases. If you can't return the composer option, then dump the Classical category. It's essentially useless. Apple-people, you may cyber-geniuses but you apparently know little about music. How could they have overlooked this?

In the SONGS or PLAYLISTS lists view, turn on the Column Browser (View Menu, Column Browser) and then select Composers.

Classical Music Information is incorrect

I have been having a problem with Classical Music when I rip my own Classical CDs. After contacting Gracenote about this problem (I had assumed that they were putting track information under the "Artist" category), and they claimed that this is a problem with iTunes and how it massages data from Gracenote. When I rip a CD I find I have to hand-enter much of the information - almost nothing is right - and if you know Classical music, you know there is LOTS of information. Like What is the composer, work, work number, opus number, what key, movement, movement identifier, orchestra, soloist, or other performer - well you get the picture. And some have even more info. Even Microsoft Windows Player gets more things right - if they have the data. I find that Gracenote is more likely to have knowledge of the CD, but the data really is all in the wrong place. If I just go with the way it comes on iTunes, I can't even put all the movements of one Symphony together easily without searching around for all the bits, and then making a specific playlist for that Symphony (heaven help me when I have more than one different CDs with the same Symphony on it with a different performance). You know, Classical listeners buy a LOT of music, and I love the idea of having a great library that I can hook up to any stereo in the house or car, but if I have to re-enter all this information I suspect Classical music lovers will look someplace else. It makes me wonder if Apple understands the breadth of the music marketplace.

Donna, I fully agree. The tags provided for classical music are not helpful / informatic in most cases. Also, there are annoying mistakes in the database structure, i.e. sortings by first name (!!). I wonder if furture updates will provide a better usablility. As for me - I do the entries on my own.

ITunes 11 and Classical Music: a catastrophe!

Been plyaing around with iTunes 11, and I am sorry to say, listeners of classical music should absolutly avoid this update. The usual setting on iTunes 10 form classicla music is to have the composer on the left column followed by the grouping. This is impossible in iTunes 11. Worst, it's almost impossible to sort your music by composer, and completly impossible if your viewing a playlist. The ONLY way possible consists of selecting Music Library, and in this view, you can see the column browser. Its workable, but incredibly poor, and takes away any interest any classical music listener might have in switching to this version: the big advantage of iTunes 11 is how colorful it is, but this view is drab as heck, almost sovietic in its colour scheme!
Obviously, the new iTunes has been designed by people who have absolutly no clue how to classical music works. That's fair enough, we're a minority among all music listeners. I still hope Apple will correct this. iTunes 11 is a very average update in general, and a catastrophe for us. Please, make an effort, this is supposed to be your flagship software for all your iPods.

Individual downloads over 20MB require wifi. It can't be changed. Like all things in life, there are limitations.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

ITunes 9 store classical music nightmare

I foolishly upgraded my iTunes from 8 to 9 and now I am finding it much harder to find things. One reason is that Composer and Release Date are no longer displayable in the "See all" view (which requires an extra click and wait to get to). Another reason is this view is divided into pages and sort only works within the current page.
Suppose I want to see the most recent albums by Steve Reich (say). How can I do that with iTunes 9?
Column Browser is no use for classical music either, because it uses Artist rather than Composer to filter for Album. I can't see any way of changing this.
Until searching the store for classical music becomes feasible again, I will go back to buying CDs and importing those. iTunes is simply too much hassle.

I find this and the white background both very irritating. And, on my collections, they have split my Classical genre into two playlists: Classical & Classical Music. Why? I now can't browse in one category of music. I have no way of readily knowing if the two overlap or not, since there are 700+ albums in each slot. I'm all for upgrading the quality of the software engine and improving the experience of using it. But not when there are such ill-conceived changes that make it more difficult. I would like an option to retain genre categories and the store interface.

Itunes & ATV: Classical Music Question

Hi - I'm usually really excellent with organizing my library of classical but I just caem across something via my new Apple TV which has stumped me - I'm sure there is an easy fix...just not sure what it is. Here is the scenario:
I have in my library multiple complete sets of the Beethoven Symphonies (1-9). I don't have any issues when using iTunes alone or even my iPhone with this - on my Applek TV, I scroll down in the COMPOSER field and choose Beethoven. I am then presented with an alphabetical list of the works in my library on the track level - when you get down to the "Symphonies" instead of seeing:
Beethoven: Symphony 1: mvt 1 (Bernstein)
Beethoven: Symphony 2: mvt 2 (Bernstein)
etc., etc.
I see something like
Beethoven: Symphony 1: mvt 1 (Bernstein)
Beethoven: Symphony 1: mvt 1 (Abbado)
Obviously this would "go away" if I just chose this by ALBUM - in any event, is this where either the GROUPING or SORTING would help - I have yet to use them and I rarely see them used on purchased music as well. Thank you ina dvance for any help.
Steve

From my experience, a good way to handle this issue is through playlists. I first create a new playlist for CD or CD set. When the CD is loaded and its contents appears in a new iTunes window, I select all of the tracks and drag them to the playlist. I've found it easier to work with the tracks within a playlist.
Once in a playlist, select the first track, right-click, select "get info", and select the tab labeled "sorting". There are 2 columns: the left one with "name", "artist", "album" , "album artist", "composer" etc, and the right with: "sort name", "sort artist", etc.
Because I use both an iPhone and and iPad where display space is limited, for the name, I have usually have something like this "Bach: Brandenburg #1 F 1-Allegro BWV 1046" but for the sort name "Bach: Brandenburg #1 BWV 1046-1" etc. For a piece in, for example, D minor I use "Dmin", and use musical notation for sharp and flat rather than the word or an abbreviation.
I've found absolutely no consistency in how tracks are numbered, sometimes with regular numerals, sometimes Roman numerals, occasional mislabeling, etc.
I'd like to know how others import and manage their classical music.

Music playlists

I have classical and non-classical music in my library. If use shuffle I get a mixture of rock etc and classical which I don't want. How can I get my library/ipod to shuffle & play just classical or just non-classical, and not mix the two. Do I do this by creating 2 separate playlists with 000's of tracks in each? Is it possible to get the ipod to shuffle a playlist rather than the whole library? Cheers

Hi Tim
If you've tagged your classical music with "Classical" or any other classical music terms. Then It's easy to create an iTunes 'smart playlist'.
A smart playlist obeys under your rules. You can add many variations of these rules if you like.
Here's how you create a very simple Classical music ONLY playlist:
File > New smart playlist
Match the following rule:
* Genre - Contains - Classical
* Live updating
(Note: just add a new rule by clicking on the little "+" sign if you have more classical genre terms like Baroque, String orchestra, Piano sonata etc.
Play around with it.

Organizing classical music with itunes

I am having trouble handling my classical music on itunes. I would like to be able to look up music by style and/or period (for example romantic, or renaissance) and then by composer, and then by instrument (for example oboe) and then by piece.
I listen to all kinds of music and am happy with the method itunes gives me with all but classical. I like to shuffle my music but shuffling classical is disasterous. How can I make sure that the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd movement are always played in correct order and kept together as a separate "song" en toto when I want my ipod to shuffle all music but classical?
I would also like at least two separate artist search lists. Although I don't mind coming across Beatles next to Beach Boys I don't particularly want to come across Beach Boys next to Brahms.
I have been struggling with this on my own for some time and coming up short so I figured to see if there was a better way by coming here. Any help is appreciated.

I am having trouble handling my classical music on itunes. I would like to be able to look up music by style and/or period (for example romantic, or renaissance) and then by composer, and then by instrument (for example oboe) and then by piece.
You could add thet information into the comments area and do a smart playlist, but this is a limitation of the tagging format.
I listen to all kinds of music and am happy with the method itunes gives me with all but classical. I like to shuffle my music but shuffling classical is disasterous. How can I make sure that the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd movement are always played in correct order
Shuffle by nature randomizes tracks. You can exclude tracks from being shuffled but short of importing the pieces as one big track, you cannot bring control to something random.
I would also like at least two separate artist search lists. Although I don't mind coming across Beatles next to Beach Boys I don't particularly want to come across Beach Boys next to Brahms.
Thats the nature of alphabetization. The problem of a second artist search is that it destroys the continuity of searches. That just won't happen.

Classical music editing (maybe a plugin?)

Hello,
I am a classical musician who has used a variety of audio programs for professional editing for commercial CD release of recorded classical music, but for more general teaching needs, I've started using Logic (just downloaded Logic X, but still have Logic 9).
In this world, we look for an application that allows precision edits. The work involves starting with a 3-4 hour multi-track recording session (this for about 10-15 minutes of music). During the session, every passage is played perfectly somewhere. As an editor, I string together regions chosen from around the session recording, with customizable crossfades. Logic can do all of this, but what I miss is the ability to do precision "nudging" of any and all region boundaries at any time.
The best such program for stereo only, 15 years ago, was called Sound Designer II, which worked on a playlist principle. Sound Designer was bought by Digidesign, who retired it when Mac moved from OS9 to OSX, forcing classical music editors to move to ProTools (or something else). One other program, a mastering program from TC Works, looked very much like SDII, and it lasted only a couple of years into the OSX time before it was dropped. Other programs, each with their proponents, have come and gone.
What made Sound Designer and TC Works so wonderful was something we called a "nudge box." I wonder if such a thing could be made as a plugin for Logic? I know some classical editors who use Logic, but it has surprising limitations, which cost us a LOT of time. For me the biggest thing: There is region boundary nudging, but only for the region ending, not the region beginning, nor for shared boundaries. Region beginnings and shared boundaries can be adjusted only with mouse dragging. I hoped for an improvement in the new Logic release, but it didn't happen. When I was a ProTools user, I could do all those kinds of nudges, but it was ungainly in other ways, and I HATED the proprietary plugins, the need constantly for a dongle, and the upgrades that made plugins and expensive hardware obsolete. I don't expect Avid to make things any better...
For the tracks being assembled (with all the carefully chosen regions), the nudge box in SDII and the TC Works program would show the wave for a region end (let's call it region A), a bar to represent the region end, a bar to represent the next region beginning (region B), a wave for the beginning and end of that region, a bar to represent Region B's end, a bar to represent the next region's beginning (C), and finally, the beginning of the wave for region C.
Like this:
A | | B | | C
Above were pre-roll and post-roll controls. Below were two play buttons, one for A into B, one for B into C, according to pre-post roll amounts. The boundary bars were selectable, individually or in groups. There was a pair of nudge buttons (left/right) with a place to enter a nudge amount setting (in milliseconds). Pressing the button would shorten or lengthen any region by the nudge amount according to which border bars were selected. At each border bar pair, you could select a crossfade type (equal power, X, or any combination of fast/slow in with fast/slow out) and a cross fade length (again in milliseconds). Finally, there was a button to advance through the regions, from ABC to BCD (then CDE, etc. to the end of the track).
With access to such a box -- and, of course, these all things that are controllable in Logic -- classical editors initially piece together a recording, but spend most of their time fine tuning the places where regions meet, with no need for mouse dragging. In a typical 10-15 minute piece of music, there could be 50-100 regions, each ranging in length from a minute to less than a second.
There is no program I know of that has this kind of nudge box now. Further, what never happened, to my knowledge, was applying this kind of interface to more than a stereo track. In the old days, classical sessions were either recording to stereo (mixed down on the spot), or mixed down before editing. Now, typically, the final mix down happens during mastering, after the edits are done.
Is it possible for a plug in to replicate this kind of editing control in Logic Pro X, but for multiple tracks (say, applied to a track stack)? If so, I know a LOT of people, including me, who would pay handsomely for it. It would save us folks hours and hours of work on each project, providing an ideal workflow for this particular task.
If anyone knows a plugin writer who might be interested in corresponding further with me on this topic, please write to me at:
[email protected]
If I am incorrect in anything I've said about Logic's capabilities, please let me know. The program is deep and rich, and beyond classical music editing, I'm am very pleased with it, and just scratching the surface. In classical music editing, I can get it to do what I need it to do, but am unable to find a comfortable and efficient workflow. I'd love some advice about this.
Thank you very much,
David Froom

Hi David, although I can't provide any solutions you're not already aware of, I was wondering if you have tried to use the Junction pointer to Roll edit outgoing- versus incoming-takes?
I've given up hope a long time ago for a stereo editor in Logic 'alla' this mastering program from TC Works. Instead of that I've adapted my workflow to suit Logic's edit capacities. And lets face it, even the clumsiest editor app outperforms razor blade/ scissor editing in now a days. I fully agree with what you are saying though! Having had my share of complex classical music editing of all sorts in Logic, withstanding scrutiny of even the most critical (british) producers, I can say that I can accomplish just about any classical music editing task in this very program. And about efficiency……..well, thats a different kind of story.
Have a nice day!

Classical music playlists

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