I am hoping the experience and wisdom of the collective of collectors can help. I am looking for ways to capture, credit, and display the Arranger of a particular track or composition. To add a layer of complication, a person might serve as Composer of original music and in other instances serve as Arranger of an existing composition. Let me give an example:
The familiar Christmas hymn, “Joy to the World,” has several people involved in its creation:
George Frideric Handel - Composer
Lowell Mason - “Adapter” (or Arranger) of Handel’s tune(s) into what he named “Antioch” (the actual hymn tune)
Isaac Watts - Hymnist (wrote the text of the hymn)
Those are the three names that appear in most hymnals representing the “traditional” hymn. However, when a new arrangement of the piece is made, that adds additional necessary credits. For example, one of the most recent arrangements was penned by Composer/Arranger Taylor Scott Davis (recorded by Voces8, chorus, and orchestra for the 2023 release, “A Choral Christmas.”
So, we add another Arranger, Taylor Scott Davis. A problem I have run into is how to identify the role of a person who has many different roles – as with Davis, sometimes Composer, sometimes Arranger, sometimes Conductor, sometimes Performer.
What would you do when adding the CD, “A Choral Christmas,” in your database? Which fields would be most appropriate for the various people and is it possible to make these fields visible (e.g. listing someone in the track-level People tab does not result in them being displayed - unless I’m missing something).
Apologies for all the details, but in my years using Music Collector I have been so pleased to be able to capture as much information as I like in the music I study and most enjoy. Thanks for any suggestions you have.
I suppose another solution might be to inquire if there is any view, other than the edit album window, in which significantly more detailed information can be displayed. I am not aware of any such way to display these details, but it’s worth asking. 
I have found it best to assume most information about popular hymns/carols is already known, or already entered in another record. For this particular album I only added that Taylor Scott Davis is an arranger of the already-entered-in-a-different-record carol.
I happen to already know the initial info so anything done differently is what I’m after.
(Isn’t this album excellent?)
Thanks for your response, voicerboy. YES!!! I am a longtime fan of VOCES8 and of Taylor Scott Davis, but this collaboration is my new favorite Christmas album. It’s nice to find a kindred spirit.
Re. the topic, my current practice with Classical music (including A Choral Christmas) is to make use of the very flexible People tab fields. In the Credits section, I could define a Role for “Arranger” and list the person there. However, I prefer to use the Musician section. A nice feature here is that the Instrument field can be edited without overwriting the saved person details. So, in my example above, Taylor Scott Davis is in my Persons Pick List with the “Instrument” of “Composer, Arranger.” If I list him in the Musician section, I am able to edit the Instrument text to show only Arranger. In fact, the Instrument text can be changed completely without permanently changing the person’s record.
The only issue with this method is that fields on the People tab are not included in any of the existing view templates. I would be interested to know if anyone has created a template that would display these details.
Having said all of this, ultimately it is a very minor issue. As you wrote, voicerboy, for familiar Christmas tunes most of this is irrelevant. While I like to capture a lot of detail in my Classical music recordings, it’s not difficult to find this information outside of Music Collector with a simple web search or, heaven forbid, I actually open the CD booklet itself.
Still, I am interested to know how others manage their collections, particularly Classical music and EXCELLENT recordings like the one in my example. Thanks!
I have found, ultimately, that searching is far easier than relying on a template view. I use JHR’s classical template and it works fine for both my CDs and vinyl. If it makes it onto the template fine but I don’t rely on it. And yes, renaming and reusing the musician/people fields is a plus. I have added a few of my own but that’s mostly for obscure organ CDs I own.
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I’m intrigued by your “obscure organ cds.” One of my interests is organ and brass. I have a modest collection of organ recordings.
I am a pipe organ technician so I’m into CDs of music I like. Usually they aren’t already in core so I am slowly working on adding mine. I, too, like organ and brass. They were created for each other, in my opinion.
