# Built a tool that maps music history through session credits — MusicBrainz data, feedback wanted

**URL:** <https://community.metabrainz.org/t/built-a-tool-that-maps-music-history-through-session-credits-musicbrainz-data-feedback-wanted/815588>\
**Category:** MusicBrainz\
**Tags:** software, musicbrainz, relationships\
**Created:** [September 5, 2026, 12:25pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/built-a-tool-that-maps-music-history-through-session-credits-musicbrainz-data-feedback-wanted/815588 "2026-09-05T12:25:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jazzboy](https://community.metabrainz.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7ab992/32.png) [@jazzboy](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/jazzboy)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2026, 12:25pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/built-a-tool-that-maps-music-history-through-session-credits-musicbrainz-data-feedback-wanted/815588/1 "2026-09-05T12:25:01Z")

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Hi all — I’ve built something on top of MusicBrainz and I’d like the people who know this data best to tell me what they think and if there’s any issues/mistakes. It’s not comprehensive but I’m added in manageable chunks to avoid big data bills!

> It’s called Antecedent. The idea: most music-history tools connect artists who _sound_ alike. This one connects them through the people who actually carried sounds between them — the session players, producers and engineers in the relationship data. You can pick two artists and it finds the shortest real path between them through the credits.
> 
> Rudy Van Gelder alone sits at over 1,100 connections in the graph. An enormous amount of what we think of as “the Blue Note sound” is one engineer in a room in New Jersey.
> 
> Where it comes from: MusicBrainz core (CC0) for artists, releases and — crucially — the relationship data, which is the part nobody else models as connective tissue. Wikidata and Discogs dumps for extra info. Everything is CC0 or attributed; I’ve deliberately kept out the NC-licensed tables. Full sources are on the attribution page. It’s a bit of fun but I really interested in making it useful.
> 
> What I’d genuinely like input on:
> 
> 1. Spot-check some credits. Where has my mapping from MB relationship types to my own edge types gone wrong?
> 2. Any ideas for improvements.
> 3. Any placeholder or special-purpose entities I should be excluding that I haven’t?
> 4. Double ups or glaring holes in the data (there are plenty..).
> 
> [Antecedent](https://antecedent.app/)
> 
> Thanks for the database. It’s remarkable, and this wouldn’t exist without it.
> 
> Joel.