Correct artist credits for fairground organs

What’s the correct way to handle recordings of fairground organs? I’ve set the track artist to the composer. Would it be OK if I used [unknown] as the performer and “barrel organ [fairground organ]” as the instrument? Or should I use [no artist]?

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Does your example have a name, and how is it presented on the release?

I have added named street organs as their own artist in the past, and I see there are quite a few others added by other editors: https://beta.musicbrainz.org/search?query=draaiorgel&type=artist&limit=25&method=indexed

In those cases, the name of the organ is usually prominently featured on the cover (sometimes the operator even isn’t at all on the release) and the configuration and other characteristics of street organs have a large effect on how the music sounds, which in my view warrants inclusion as artists, even if it’s very much a stretch of the current guidelines. :wink:

But I don’t know how common that is with fairground organs (street and fairground organs are much alike) and how it is presented on your release.

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@mfmeulenbelt: I like that :slightly_smiling_face:

@mfmeulenbelt That depends a lot on the particular release. In some cases the booklet goes into great detail (name, manufacturer, power source, instrumentation etc.), in other cases there is basically no information at all.

Adding clearly identifiable fairground organs as their own artist seems reasonable. The follow-up question would of course be: What about recordings of musical clocks or famous (church) bells? I guess some of them would then also deserve their own artist. Maybe @reosarevok or @CatCat might want to chime in here :slight_smile:

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