But drum set is called “drums (drum set)” now specifically to make this clear 
Nobody is saying it’s a mistake. All we’re saying is all our existing “drums” credits were for the “generic” instrument, and we need to do something about that
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Of course I do understand, and respect all opposing arguments, and find this discussion interesting and enlightening.
Whatever decision is made, it will always have some flaws for some situations.
But I honestly do not understand why you would want to prevent an editor to select ‘drums’, or ‘bass’, when an album or a recording says ‘drums’, or ‘bass’.
That is forcing an editor to make another choice that he/she might not fully understand, or is interested in to make.
But I am beginning to understand that MusicBrainz doesn’t have a specific intention to primarily allow editors to just enter what it says on album/track notes to begin with.
That’s probably one of the things I didn’t understand when I started this thread one and a half year ago.
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I can only apologise for not picking up on this before the change was made… I did glance at the discussion, and it all made sense (and still does), but in practice ‘membranophone’ does have issues.
Adding your first release in MB is already hard enough, and having to also (probably once again) resort to docs/Google/Wikipedia when your in hand release just says ‘drums’ and now you’re looking at a flippin ‘membranophone’ option… ouch
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Another thing that probably needs corrected while on this topic:
At https://musicbrainz.org/instruments it says that a membranophone is “Any kind of idiophone with membranes”
But that is similar to saying that a cat is a fish with legs.
They are two different species that are clearly separated.
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I thought an idiotphone was the full name of iPhone.
This is a fascinating thread… never knew there were so many bizarre names for drums.
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If it is a drumset than drumset should be used. If it is not clear if it is a drumset then something like “drums (unspecified)” sounds absolutely right, because it is actually not specified.
And for the appearance on the displayed credits you can still change the credit name and set it to just “drums”.
Saying this I am absolutely in favor of naming the generic entry “drums (unspecified)”. As a non native speaker I have never heard the name membranophone before. I would have just considered this a very special thing and would never had gotten the idea to choose it for any credits that I know are not drumset but don’t specify the kind of drums.
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Following that line of thought, it probably means that ‘bass’ should be removed as an instrument, and making it compulsory to use ‘bass (unspecified)’.
Since you can’t be sure if it is bass guitar, somebody playing a bassline on a Moog, a programmed TB303, etc.
Is that going to happen?
And what I am also curious about:
Besides pretty much every existing recording, also all websites that I know (MB being the only exception) are not using the word ‘drumset’, but ‘drums’.
What happens when importing credits from websites such as discogs, allmusic, bandcamp, wikipedia, etc. etc.
Will ‘drums’ automatically be transformed to ‘drums (unspecified)’?
Can an editor who just wants to enter credits from liner notes select ‘drums’, when the notes says ‘drums’?
“bass” as an instrument is already “bass (unspecified)”: “Bass is a common but generic credit which refers to more than one instrument, the most common being the bass guitar and the double bass (a.k.a. contrabass, acoustic upright bass, wood bass). Please use the correct instrument if you know which one is intended.”
We don’t import these automatically, so it’s up to the editor to decide what kind of drums these are. If unsure, sure, go for drums (unspecified) or the equivalent.
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And, for the record, there is the drumset on Discogs.
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Yes, but in MB’s instrument list (which I assume is the leading source for the matters concerning this discussion), there is an entry for just ‘bass’.
There is also an entry for just ‘guitar’.
But there is no entry for just ‘drums’.
And that’s what was the main trigger for me raising this matter.
I would expect an entry similar to the one for guitar or bass, perhaps something like:
Drums - Drums is a common but generic credit which refers to more than one instrument, the most common being the drumset, but it could mean any instrument from the families of membranophones or idiophones. Please use the correct instrument if you know which one is intended.
But I have also done some testing and I found the fear of what I imagined that might happen doesn’t seem to be the case.
I was afraid that for any new entries for drums, MB (and thus Picard) would by default literally say: ‘drums (unspecified)’.
(also when using plugins to import from discogs, wikipedia etc.)
And that is what would bother me.
But it seems that it will just say ‘drums’ in those cases, and not ‘drums (unspecified)’.
So that’s good, and it could mean that this thread got a bit lengthier and perhaps confusing than I intended because of a misunderstanding from my side.
I’m sorry if that’s the case.
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Maybe there should be two types of hierarchies in the instruments tree?
One “scientific”:
- percussion
- membranophone
- drumset
- membranophone
- strings
- plucked string instrument
- guitar family
- bass guitar
- guitar family
- plucked string instrument
And one “colloquial”:
- drums
- membranophone
- drumset
- …
- bass
- bass guitar
- electronic bass
- bass drum
- …
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Perhaps, but that would probably raise more issues and discussion than solve them?
But the point is interesting and probably quite to the point, since I am arguing here that for both ‘scientific’ and ‘colloquial’, ‘drums’ would be an instrument on it’s own account.
But that seems to be denied here by some, only because the word ‘drums’ in spoken (English) language also literally happens to mean ‘more than one membraphone/isophone’.
How so?
If you don’t know how to correctly classify the instrument, you choose the colloquial umbrella term. Someone else will probably know which type is meant and will categorize it correctly.
If you generally know how to classify instruments correctly you’ll choose the scientific super-type.
How would you categorize “drum” scientifically? Wouldn’t it just be a synonym of membranophone or percussion?
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I’m no expert on classification, but I am guessing that if you can’t correctly classify something, either you are doing something wrong, or the classification system needs an overhaul.
For ‘drum’, yes.
For ‘drums’, no.
A short story. The setting, a bar atop Mount Olympus in the early 1930’s. Zeus (@Z), Poseidon (@P) and Thor (@T) are meeting for their annual “Think Tank” get together.
@Z, Gentlemen, what shall we mess with this year? @T, I’m tired of badgering our wives, girlfriends and children, lets do things to humans this year. @P, Okay but nothing to do with nature, the last Ice Age really froze my Begonias. Say, where’s that pounding noise coming from? @T, That’s the orchestras’ percussion section warming up. @Z, Percussion? I remember now, we made a human come up with that word to replace “stuff we bang on”. Boy that caused a little uproar.
@P, How about if we take it a step further and add some other categories that make no sense? @Z, Like what? @P, Let’s subdivide percussion! I think one like “Dried Hide Guide” to list all drums. @T, That’s cool but how about “Types of skinned beaters”? @Z, No, it has to be in Latin, so it will sound impressive and sophisticated. How about “Membrano ‘something’”?
@T, Oh, like when we had Alexander G. Bell change his “Talk from a distance machine” to telephone. @Z, Exactly, and I have just the word. Membranophone! If we do that, the humans will come up with all types of “phones”. This will cause all kinds of consternation!
@P, Okay, Zeus, you chose some really uppity humans to work with and have them create the word ‘Membranophone’. Thor, work on your thunder. The last one sounded a little flat. I’ll work on something to keep @CatQuests blood pressure down.
@Z, Who’s CatQuest? @P, A future extremely proficient instrument inserter for a major web site. @T, “Web site”? What? Spiders are going to take over the world? @P, No, it’s part of a future means of communication they will call the internet. Maybe I’ll have them call it a “Universumophone”. Ta ta for now!
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I never saw this discussion until I went to edit a group member to add “drums” since that is the only information about him I could find.
I understand the changes that “need” to be made, I do not agree with how it was done.
I do not mean to offend anyone, but does MusicBrainz want to encourage adding new editors who are not classical or musicians? I am not a musician but love to listen to most kinds of music. I took piano and guitar lessons but could never read music. I understand more than the basics about music, but I am not a musician, please do not expect me to be a musician to add information to the database.
This has been a emotional and very technical discussion, I have not read everything, but enough to be frustrated. I love MusicBrainz because of the precise nature of its information and the relationships it has. At times, I feel it is getting more difficult and frustrating, but I have no choice because there is no other DB that can do what MusicBrainz can does.
It is interesting to see that the nature of adding the same release multiple (sometimes many) times due to art or verbiage difference is not carried over to vocals and instruments where the editor may need to have a musical degree in order to interpret the difference between what is on the back, liner, booklet, or resource page that the information is coming from. Older rock, country, bluegrass, other albums simply do not in most cases have the fine detail that MusicBrainz mandates. Please just make it a little easier.
My apologizes if I have offended anyone.
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Agree with EVERY WORD that @dashv says in his post. The bit I add to his comments is that the decisions that do get made on this site are not only strange to us outsiders, but often it is not properly and clearly documented. The decision gets lost in a long forum thread and not transferred to the online documents.
If you want more people to add to the databases, then please keep the methods clear and accessible to outsiders. Users like @dashv and I are fans of the music, and will use our CDs \ Vinyl and general fandom to make sure what we enter is as accurate as possible - to the best of our abilities. We want to share our enthusiasm for our favoured music. But if all we have in our hands is a re-release CD from a band from the 1960s then there is only so far we can get with that accuracy.
Now and then MB can be very frustrating for a noob.
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You know what’s frustrating?
-Spending hours, hours researching something, finding out that what you thought all a long was wrong and having to make a lot of changes in a very complicated web of links and entities.
-Spending a long time writing replies forum posts and Meeting topics where only 1 or 2 people - if any, reply.
-Then having 100+ comments about people arguing about the choices you made making things so much harder for them. 
I don’t know what to do honestly. No solution is favourable to everyone.
But please Please try to understand that this was done for a reason,
I’ll try to explain as simple as possible:
The “drums” instrument, now the “membranophone”, was always meant to be the “membranophone” header definition instrument in the instrument tree.
People had (myself included 
) been using it wrongly for *years*
I’ve been looking at it since 2016 wanting to just do something about it already.
Anyway, I’m genuinely sorry if I’ve made MusicBrainz harder or more frustrating to use for people - however: I saw quite a lot of examples earlier in this tread where people were arguing about “this is that not this”, if you know specifically that something is wrong, fix it!
-Most likely it is drums (drumkit)
–(sure sometimes it just says “drums” but 90% of all general bands will be using this. See the description! Even 1940’s early Jazz with conga and other drums would count as “drumset” * (reference is the excellent “The Drum book” by Geoff Nicholls, if you are interested in the huge development of the drumkit from the early start to current, I can’t recommend it enough!))
-If it’s completely impossible to figure out, then it can be drum (generic)
I’m sorry for the extra work this would create for people but sometimes life gives you bitter pills.
However I’d like to say this; while MusicBrainz is definitely for users to casually add things and edit, It is also for people dvelveing completely into obscure things, becoming super specific and generally “mega technical geekery” both “extremes” can and will co-exist.
But in order to facilitate both of these, there also needs to be “super extreme detailed technical instrument things” as well.
I am not a musicologist, and I have not even started to chip the huge mountain of things about music instruments I don’t know.
I might have to remember to stay “grounded” and not get overly “geeky” but it’s kinda hard, since I have really found my niche here with researching instruments, fixing broken or wrong linkages and descriptions, and making our previously simple “generic instrument list” into something to be proud of, even for super smart instrumentologists and musicologists (and let’s all be honest here, we all have a bit of that in us else we wouldn’t be here 
)
This whole debacle (and it’s worn me out a bit to be honest) might be considered “teething problems” on the road to MusicBrainz World Domination.
Anyway, I’m going on Vacation now, Please keep things civil and constructive.
If anyone has any good ideas to fix issues, any scripts to help fix things, etc. go ahead and discuss them!
Thank you ~ Cat
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You are obviously very motivated, invested, and also instrumental (phun intended) in getting instruments ‘right’ for Musicbrainz.
I can imagine that long discussions and the exchange of personal preferences and opinions are not always the most effective to get things done.
So, thank you very much for everything you are doing, and for what you are putting up with 
But there are also some specific suggestions in this thread that might be helpful, and it would be good if those were addressed and responded to.
To quote two of my earlier more specific comments from this thread:
-
At https://musicbrainz.org/instruments it says that a membranophone is “Any kind of idiophone with membranes”
But that is similar to saying that a cat is a fish with legs. They are two different species that are clearly separated. -
My suggestion for a new entry for 'just’drums, same as there is for bass and guitar:
Drums - Drums is a common but generic credit which refers to more than one instrument, the most common being the drumset, but it could mean any instrument from the families of membranophones or idiophones. Please use the correct instrument if you know which one is intended.
I am curious if you have an opinion on these, and could respond to them.
(feel free to respond after your surely well-deserved vacation)
Secondly, and this is addressed to comments such as those from dashv IvanDobsky:
I fully agree with the sentiment that there could be done more to make it easier for newer editors, and editors that don’t have degrees in IT or in music.
But to keep this specific thread a bit focused:
Could you formulate specific issues with how MB currently handles ‘instruments’ that you run into, and do you have specific suggestions for changes or improvements on those?
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After thinking a bit more about the membranophone/isophone thing:
If I understand correctly, the intention of MB’s listing of musical instruments ( https://musicbrainz.org/instruments ) is strictly to be a simple but comprehensive list of musical instruments that are ‘allowed’ to be selected as a choice when entering them in MusicBrainz.
Many will have some description or explanation about the instrument, or in case of possible ambiguity, there will be some guideline text added.
(e.g. in case of drums being both a group of instruments and an instrument)
But the main requirement is that anything listed there can be considered a musical instrument, and will make it’s appearance as such on liner notes.
It’s objective is not to classify the whole family of musical instruments in a scientific manner.
It’s objective is to be a real-world representation of what happens ‘in the wild’, and making it as easy as possible for editors to make correct entries with the smallest chance of errors and obstacles.
If this assumption is correct, wouldn’t it be better to keep this list clear of ‘academic’ family names of instruments?
So, no aerophones, chordophones, idiophones, membranophones, electrophones, etc.?
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