How do you organize your classical music physical media, e.g. alphabetical?

[Multicore]

I gotta do some sorting of CDs and LPs. What sort order to use? If an album has the music of only one composer on it then I can use the composer name for it.

But what about something like this? It's a common problem so what do you do? It's about sort order for physical media. What do you do or if you have experience organizing an institutional collection.

Karlheinz Stockhausen / Krzysztof Penderecki / Earle Brown / Henri Pousseur, Rome Symphony Orchestra / Bruno Maderna – The New Music​

 

[Joe Smith]

Alpha by composer; if multiple artists involved, usually alpha by name of most prominent musician involved.

 

[Multicore]

Alpha by composer; if multiple artists involved, usually alpha by name of most prominent musician involved.

So my example above might be filed under M for Maderna?

 

[Turambar]

In your case, Maderna is the conductor of the orchestra performing music written by Stockhausen, Penderecki, Brown y Pousser.

Personally, I always go with composer (alphabetical order if more than one), performer (alphabetical order if more than one).

 

[DeLub]

Alphabetically by last name of the composer. If multiple then by the composer first named on the spine

 

[Multicore]

In your case, Maderna is the conductor of the orchestra performing music written by Stockhausen, Penderecki, Brown y Pousser.

Personally, I always go with composer (alphabetical order if more than one), performer (alphabetical order if more than one).

So you'd put that example in B for Brown?

 

[Multicore]

Alphabetically by last name of the composer. If multiple then by the composer first named on the spine

Spine! Interesting. I think that makes it S for Stockhausen. I'll have to pull the LP to check.

 

[Multicore]

Here's another hard one. On the spine it says only "NEW MUSIC FROM LONDON STEREO/MAINSTREAM/MS/5001"

Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, David Bedford, Richard Orton – New Music From London

 

[Mikig]

it's an aspect that I try to take into consideration every now and then, but then in the end, not using physical media anymore, except for the turntable every now and then, everything remained there, unobserved and in a scattered mess as always. However, my idea was to divide by genre and put them from A to Z by artist name... who knows if one day I'll start this work...

 

[Chris A]

By musical period. (My mother had a masters in musicology/music history). However, since all my discs are ripped to flac or DSD, I don't often look on the shelf.

[I've been meaning to edit my foobar2000 library to include sub-genres so tht I can more easily access the music by composed time period. I haven't gotten a "round tuit" to do it yet.]

This includes: Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Gallant, Classical, Romantic, Impressionist/Expressionist, Neoclassical, 20th century (including modern, post-modern, atonal, etc.).

Chris

 

[Mikig]

Here's another hard one. On the spine it says only "NEW MUSIC FROM LONDON STEREO/MAINSTREAM/MS/5001"

It won't be too elegant, but you can help yourself with a post-it or a label

 

[jcarys]

There's always the fall back position of Various. Useful unless you have 100s in that category.

 

[Robin L]

It's really a mess. I've got one fixture I procured from Borders Books 'n' Music when they decided to downsize audio visual goods (shortly before the chain shut down). It's got six shelves. One has DVDs, one has SACDs and DVD audio, one has boxed sets, one has Early Music, one has standard classics, one has pop/jazz. However, that's good for about 800 music discs and I've got 1600. Gotta get another set of shelfs. Sitting on top of these sub-categories, there are CDs on their sides. So, the top shelf has Brahms, Sibelius and Dvorak resting on top of the Hi-Def discs. The SACDs etc. are subdivided by company, the largest batch being the RCA "Living Stereo" series, the second largest are Bob Dylan's SACDs for Columbia/Sony. The next shelf has the boxes, the biggest is a Brilliant Classics complete Beethoven set. There's also the Klemperer, Berenstein/VPO and Harnoncourt Beethoven symphony cycles, along with Louis Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens, earliest Carter Family sides on four CDs and the first set of Stax/Volt singles. I've got two boxes of oversized boxes of Jazz classics, Charlie Parker's Verve sides in a 12" x 12" box, Billie Holiday's 78s for various Columbia labels in an album designed to look like the sort of album designed for 10" 78s. Both are backed up on ALAC files, easier to access that way. On top of those sets are (mostly) other Beethoven discs, followed by Rachmaninoff and a single stack of random selection classics. The next shelf is early music. That is mostly organized by historical/geographic subdivisions, French Baroque, English Renaissance and Baroque, etc. Bach is on mostly on its side on top, though it's also the largest subcategory sitting upright on the shelf. Then there's a row of DVDs I never watch, followed by other classical titles. That is barely organized save that it starts with CDs I engineered, then Bulgarian discs of various sorts - I recorded a group that sang classical arrangements of Bulgarian music. On top of that there are a couple of stacks of Mahler, a couple stacks of Bruckner (each stack can hold up to six jewel cases) and a couple of stacks of random selections that I'm more likely to play than others. The bottom row is pop/jazz and pretty much random and inaccessible.

That leaves 800 other discs. I desperately need more shelving. The rest of the CDs are either in little boxes in an outdoors closet, a big box in the same closet, two little boxes and a bigger box in the bedroom closet and a spinning wooden display in the bathroom with the pop titles I'm most likely to play. There are also four boxes of CDs of twenty-five each in the same room as the display case and 25 in the car. My problem, if you want to call it a problem, is that I'm finding mass quantities of CDs I want for $1 a pop, $3 for boxed sets. Have to put them somewhere. So those four boxes stacked up near the display case are discs I want to hear the most right now. One of my goals this year is to get additional shelving for those 800 CDs. Meanwhile, I'm expecting 14 CDs from Ebay in the next week. "The open palm of desire wants everything." And my desire to organize all these discs is undermined by my recent subscription to Tidal, which I now use more frequently than spinning discs.

 

[Chris A]

[I've been meaning to edit my foobar2000 library to include sub-genres so tht I can more easily access the music by composed time period. I haven't gotten a "round tuit" to do it yet.]

I just added the field in my standard foobar2000 schema. Not a big deal.

 

[bluefuzz]

What sort order to use?

I would consider how you actually use your 'library' and go from there. Is it important to you to be able to lay your hands on every Penderecki recording in your posession at a moments notice or do you just browse aimlessly and let serendipity take its course? Is 'mood' important? Or country of origin?

If most of your albums are of single composers with just a few multi-composer titles then a 'various' section is a decent enough solution ordered by album title or conductor perhaps. If you have a huge collection then some kind of formal organisation is probably necessary. That would mean some kind of card index or register if you want to stay in the physical world or, less romantically, some kind of digital database app to keep track of titles.

I don't do physical media any more for music and never had more than a handful of 'classical' recordings anyway, so Artist > Title always worked for me when I could be bothered, where Artist = composer for classical recordings and then a catch all 'various' section for the strays.

The only physical media I have now is 500 or so blu-rays which I intentionally organise randomly as I usually prefer to let chance inspire me. And if I do want to find a specific title it still only takes a minute or two to find it. For a long time I organised my vinyl albums by the colour of the cover which proved to be one of the fastest ways of locating a title. I can almost always remember what the cover looks like even if I can't remember the title or even the artist. It looked rather pretty ...

 

[Chris A]

A foobar2000 interface using columns UI:

All fields are searchable. I usually rename the individual artist fields externally tagged at ripping time (freedb, MusicBrainz, etc.) to be "ensemble name:director_last_name" or just the soloist artist's name. The date is one that I usually change to the original date of the recording release (not the disc release date).

Playlists (custom lists) are in the left pane, which override all the fields on the right.

The panes to the right include: genre, artist name, album name, and album artwork.

The next columns found below the major five panes are:

genre
artist name
album name
date of album
length in minutes:seconds (and playback time position)
number of channels (stereo, 3, 4, 5, etc.)
track dynamic range (in dB crest factor, results of the DR Database TT Plugin)
album average dynamic range (the album ave. dB crest factor results of the DR Database TT Plugin)
track ReplayGain
album ReplayGain
disc number (physical--in box collection)
codec (FLAC, DSD64, etc.)
date/time of last track modification
number of times played (by this version of foobar2000 on this computer)
date last played
date that the track was added to database

All of these fields will instantly sort the entire database. The search field on the top towards the right-hand side works for all fields in the database. All you need do is to start typing and all the database records are instantly sorted in real time. "Bernstein" typed there will get you all records with "Bernstein" in any field, instantly.

Since I demaster almost all of my incoming albums (in all formats except DSD), I need to keep track of the last time that I edited the track using Audacity, etc.

The only format that cannot be faithfully played back using foobar2000 is DSD. All PC hardware internally converts DSD files to PCM before sending them to the external preamp/DAC. It takes a disc player with HDMI output that can handle DSD over HDMI to send DSD-native bit streams to the preamp/DACs.

What more do you need?

Chris

 

[Leporello]

On my hard disk:
1. If the cd contains music of Arnold Schönberg it goes to folder /classical/Schönberg
2. If the cd contains music by Schönberg, Berg and Webern it typically goes to folder /classical/Schönberg, Berg, Webern

In cases like 2. I have sometimes separated the tracks and put them in different folders according to the composer but usually I find this too much of a hassle. I used to be somewhat fussier about organizing, metadata etc. but nowadays I do not bother that much.

 

[Multicore]

...
That leaves 800 other discs. I desperately need more shelving.
...

Well, you answered the question I asked and it was an entertaining read so thank you but I think I'll not adopt this method for my current problems

 

[Multicore]

I would consider how you actually use your 'library' and go from there. Is it important to you to be able to lay your hands on every Penderecki recording in your posession at a moments notice or do you just browse aimlessly and let serendipity take its course? Is 'mood' important? Or country of origin?

If most of your albums are of single composers with just a few multi-composer titles then a 'various' section is a decent enough solution ordered by album title or conductor perhaps. If you have a huge collection then some kind of formal organisation is probably necessary. That would mean some kind of card index or register if you want to stay in the physical world or, less romantically, some kind of digital database app to keep track of titles.

I don't do physical media any more for music and never had more than a handful of 'classical' recordings anyway, so Artist > Title always worked for me when I could be bothered, where Artist = composer for classical recordings and then a catch all 'various' section for the strays.

The only physical media I have now is 500 or so blu-rays which I intentionally organise randomly as I usually prefer to let chance inspire me. And if I do want to find a specific title it still only takes a minute or two to find it. For a long time I organised my vinyl albums by the colour of the cover which proved to be one of the fastest ways of locating a title. I can almost always remember what the cover looks like even if I can't remember the title or even the artist. It looked rather pretty ...

Ah, the competing dimensions of the OCD mind. What do I want?

 

[Robin L]

Well, you answered the question I asked and it was an entertaining read so thank you but I think I'll not adopt this method for my current problems

Mind you, I also have a mid-fi DAP with 1600 CDs worth of content, and that is really well organized. It's got multiple genres and subdivisions within those categories. "Classical" subdivides into Baroque, Classical, Medieval, Modern, Piano Collections, Renaissance and Romantic. "Baroque" has 16 subdivisions mostly by Composer. There are 23 subdivisions of Bach, alphabetically arranged, mostly by the name of the composition. "Goldberg Variations" has six different performers. The same set of performances is also on a thumb drive attached to the laptop, which is hooked up to the audio system via an outboard DAC. That is arranged mostly by composer or performer in alpha order. I find I'm using the DAP more - can also hook that up to the stereo - as it's easier to navigate. But Tidal is the easiest to navigate.