soundtracks to different releases of the film.
I was meaning different releases of the same soundtrack of the same film. You may get an original vinyl release, then 25 years later a more “complete” release comes out with more of the film music included on an expanded disc set.
With Fantasia the different versions of the film lead to different musical releases with a large amount in common. The guidelines say to make a Fantasia “Work” and then link all those other works to it as “parts”.
This is MusicBrainz so surely you’d expect to find the Releases that were common to that Release Group. MB documents musical releases, not films. These are the official CD\Vinyl\Digital Media Release to accompany that film which is very natural for MB to document.
What I do agree with in this thread is “Work” seems to be twisted to cover this meaning of the word “soundtrack”. The content of that Clockwork Orange CD is a collection of Works, but not really a Work itself. Yet current guidelines are to make a work called “Clockwork Orange” and make all those other Works part of it.
See the 28 Days Later . example. This is how we are asked to document a soundtrack to a film. Using a Work to pull together all the other works on the released CD. This seems to distort the meaning of “Work” and leads to some of the confusions of this thread.
When a theatrical soundtrack is created, it is a collection of pieces which are discussed as a “Film Soundtrack” but this word is used in a different way to when it is seen attached to a MusicBrainz Work of type Soundtrack. Really those are more of a series.
(I do realise I am out of my depth in part of this discussion as I don’t understand the different parts of classical music and their naming… you are getting the feedback here of a fan of film music)
Please can you explain/ expand?
I realise my lack of understanding of Classical terms makes this description harder to type. I just don’t know your language, but I enjoy my film music. So please bear with me.
Look at the Soundtrack Work for 28 Days Later. These are the musical parts you hear in the film. These have been gathered together on a CD and released as 28 Day’s Later:The Soundtrack Album. So when you look at the CD, you have lots of instrumental pieces linked to works. And these Works are all linked as “Part of” the overall Soundtrack.
This is how we are told to use Soundtrack Work. It is for the music of the whole film, not the parts. One Soundtrack Work per film.
As I understand it, this is where the initial confusion of this thread lies. The Work for Track 13 will now confuse Requiem, op. 48: VII. In Paradisum and what that Work is part of due to a very specific meaning in Classical Language of “part of”.
If you follow the guideline and try and create a Soundtrack Work for the film The Exorcist you would make a single work to gather the works in the film as “part of”. But you would not be allowed to include Tubular Bells as it was a Pop Tune.
If the Pop Tune was not written specifically for the film, then it is not allowed to be part of the Soundtrack Work. Talk to any film music nut and they will tell you that Tubular Bells was part of the Soundtrack.
I can’t find an exact example at the moment, so will update this reply when I can dig one out. Many film soundtrack releases don’t have Soundtrack Works due to this confusion.
Can’t the Picard plugin be tweaked to ignore Soundtrack Works? This would then bypass this issue? A Soundtrack Work is a special thing and not really fitting other Work of Works in Classical language. It should be easy to tweak it out of the Classical Addon?
Even better would be a new entity type for this use of Soundtrack Works… there are too many different meanings of the word “Soundtrack” in use here. But it would be really good to have a way to ask the database “which films was xx used in?”
I saw your reply:
Etc…but it doesn’t answer my question…I’ll try again….
Please can you explain/ expand on what you mean by ‘a famous pop tune has to be kept off a Soundtrack - Pulp Fiction’ - which one and why etc…
I guess not then 
If I find an example I’ll link it. Currently all I seem to be doing is confusing you. Probably should just delete my posts as clearly I am not making any sense.
Thanks
MB soundtracks are confusing!
no, sountracks are confusing
One small note amid all the understandable confusion: the issue with Fantasia is different than with most soundtracks. In most films, a prior work will be incorporated in part, usually just a few minutes’ worth. A citation will usually mention a specific movement of a larger work. As an example, look at the soundtrack to the 1984 film Amadeus. There is great value in having that citation captured in the movement’s metadata.
The issue with Fantasia is that the citation is at the complete composition level, rather than the individual movement. The entire symphony, not the movement. That somehow has a different semantic meaning. Beethoven’s 6th is not a “part” of Fantasia in the same way that its first movement is a part of the complete symphony.
Our challenge is to figure out a way to capture this distinction. Is it as simple as requiring soundtracks to cite works only at the movement level? Or do we need a new “soundtrack work” type?
That is not “simple” when you are someone like me who has zero understanding of the language of classical. You might as well be talking Greek when you talk of movements… I struggle enough trying to find the correct Work to select when something pops up in a film like 2001 or 28 Days Later.
Something that makes it easier for us non-classical editors would be of great value.
For classical music my understanding is that a ‘work’ is either a stand-alone composition, or several compositions (by the same composer) that are intended to be performed (played) in sequence and kept together.
Without having fully read and digested this specific thread, I have always doubted if ‘MusicBrainz’ has the same understanding of that concept.
I have noticed Picard incorrectly labeling some of my classical music as being an element of a work being some movie, game or anime title.
It’s bad.
edit:
hmm, I shouldn’t post responses like these off of my sleeve.
It’s actually more complicated:
There are also levels of works.
Die Walküre is a work.
But it is part of Der Ring des Nibelungen which is also a work.
And indeed, it’s not as simple as I first thought. There are, of course, classical pieces without a multi-level hierarchy of works, such as sonatas, études, songs, etc.
I guess this argues in favor of creating a new soundtrack work type, and not trying to enforce some sort of rule about not using a “top-level” work in a soundtrack.
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Operas can have quite deep hierarchies: an aria can be part of a scene which is part of an act which is part of an opera, which in the case of The Ring can be part of a cycle of four operas. I’ve seen operas on MB structured like this.
But you wouldn’t consider a scene or an act to be a work.
Or would you?
I have minimal understanding of how the multi-level work thing operates with Classical, but I do understand it enough to know that a Soundtrack trying to act as its own kind of top-level work is what is causing confusions.
Could we get this partially “fixed” in Picard if the Classical Extras plugin discards the “Soundtrack Work” when making its judgements of multi-level works? If I understand things correctly, this would then fix the problem for those tagging in Picard? You don’t care Die Walküre was used in Apocalypse Now, you want to know it is part of the Der Ring des Nibelungen.
“work part of work” relationship has multiple meanings depending on the types of work. The fact it is “part of a soundtrack” is of minimal interest to the classical tagger.
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Wonder if we should rename the type to “score”
Basically, the soundtrack work is mostly meant for stuff like “John Williams composed the score for A New Hope” with all its parts - it’s not really that useful for something like “nobody in particular composed this collection of pre-existing pop songs”.
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Some of the confusion is caused by what is and is not counted. If “Soundtrack” changes to “Score” it needs to be made more clear that only music written specifically for the film is included. Give us non-classical editors better definition of the terms.
I don’t think I’m the only one who is looking for a way to note that Die Walküre was used in the soundtrack to Apocalypse Now. Or 2001’s use of works like Blue Danube Waltz and Also sprach Zarathustra. They have iconic connections to those films.
If Soundtrack is to be changed to Score, does that mean most of the works linked to Fantasia are then removed?
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