Is there a way to associate an instrument with an artist, other than in a recording? Many artists are known for playing a particular one (or handful).
This would then allow searches for artists who specialise in certain instruments, optionally by region. eg. a harp ensemble in London, or a mandolin teacher in Wales.
If this information is already present in other relationships, as you say, recordings or band relationships, maybe we can pull this to the artist page somehow (eg âthis person plays/does these thingsâ) rather than having another field to fill out.
Might be trickier to implement but youâd instantly have a large and useful dataset.
Or is that information already accessible? Someone will know!
When I want to make sure I select the proper musician, I click their Relationships tab to quickly make an idea of their skills at this/that instrument(s).
Yep @reosarevok I completely support that ticket of yours!! 
Also I really support your input at the ticket, that only should be mentioned the main (primary) instruments that an artist performs with, not all kind of special instruments they occasionally use. For example a drummer normally using a regular drum set but sometimes performing percussion on bongos and congas, I think the last instruments could be left out, after all itâs still drumming 
I would argue that there could be more than one âmainâ instrument, such as a percussionist who plays all kinds. I would just describe the field as âMain instrument(s)â, and assume that most musicians wouldnât want to add instruments that they are not comfortable with.
Yes @iantresman that is exactly what I meant too 
However, not all musicians are making their page here at MB themselves, but their labels or other editors do so. Thatâs why I wanted to tell the editors to keep in mind: only mention the main instruments of the artist. Indeed most musicians wouldnât want to add instruments theyâre not comfortable with, you are so right with that!
Off-topic, but Iâd say the majority of artist pages are actually not edited by artists or their managers or labels. The typical MB editor is at least a music nerd in some way 
, editing for their own benefit (tagging / cataloging their music collection, getting nice artwork etc.) or just fun. I always enjoy it seeing artists or their representatives here, though, as they bring their own view into it and provide first hand information. Sometimes there is some conflict in interests (marketing vs reality ;)), but so far Iâve seen this sorted out pretty quickly once everybody understood what MusicBrainz is and is not.
Well said, @outsidecontext and such valuable info too! 
and thank you for giving likes to my posts! 