Gamelan: orchestras, styles, locations, tracknames, artistnames, releaseartist

Gamelan is one of the great musics of the world.
But it is a cataloguers nightmare.
A very current example is https://musicbrainz.org/edit/50759319

It is not agreed who many of the trackartists are.
The coverart can be interpreted multiple ways.

Interpretation 1. (my best guess)
Rear coverart shows:
In top section:
tracknumber, gamelan style: work name, tracktime
In lower section:
trackartist=geographic location of artist

Interpretation 2. (as I understand it)
Rear coverart shows:
In top section:
tracknumber, gamelan style: work name, tracktime
In lower section:
trackartist or “gamelan style”=geographic location of artist

Interpretation 1. results in specific trackartists for all tracks.
Interpretation 2. results in a mix of specific trackartists and [unknown] for the tracks.

jesus2099, and anyone else suitably literate, would you be good enough to read the description under “face A” on the following coverart.
My suspicion is that it may indicate that the names of styles of gamelan originate with the names of specific gamelan orchestras and are in some contexts synonymous with the physical orchestra. Or to put it the other way the orchestras name can function as a style name.
Does this cover art have any bearing on this?

Input from everyone is invited.

4 Likes

I love this music. If sorting out its metadata doesn’t thrill you just have a look/listen at this instead. Multiple instruments start at 23:20 mm:ss

1 Like

IMO there should be more than one marionettist. :wink:

1 Like

From what I see the tracklist has identifiers in a “names of performer” section.
This would qualify as the MB artist in ways that parallel the situation with the “name of artist on release” vs “real name of artist”.

As I understand things we use the available info as on the Release to extract metadata from.
Whilst the track artists names as detailed on the coverart do have issues, the names provided are nonetheless superior for MB purposes to [unknown].

1 Like

Hello there! I see you’re interested in Gamelan!
Now that we have Ensembles, I would love to add the individual instruments to gamelan. However, there are a lot and, I would really appreciate it if people who know about gamelan could add tickets for the individual instruments not already present in mb --> https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/INST-556 (add as subtickets is fine)

Also, any more info than what is written in WP or even links to sites explaining stuff are welcome!

2 Likes

I have a local gamelan. :indonesia::bell::hammer_and_pick::drum::musical_note::ear_of_rice::blush:
About which I know next to nothing but am trying to find out more.
If a member shows any any interest in getting information about gamelan into MB I’ll do what I can to assist them.

2 Likes

It is on my list to start fixing things related to gamelan music and traditional music in general. The biggest hurdle is that MB does not have adequate means to represent identities, which is essential to capturing obscure and missing information from too many traditional music releases. This does not prevent the improvements on the instrument front though. However, the same issue of identities holds here: most gamelan performances are connected to a particular set of instruments (yes, the same physical set of instruments) and this is essential part to their identification. Currently there is no way to reflect this.

Your timing is eerie!
For only this/next week I will start working on Gamelan instruments which was well researched by GCI students for this(last) GCI!

Do you have the opportunity to come to IRC?
in any case the Jira ticket with all the work and subtickets are: https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/INST-556
i will be speaking about this in both the blog and the weekly monday meeting on irc as well! 😺

1 Like

I’m not quite sure what the issue is here, care to elaborate? :slight_smile:

A specific credit for the specific instrument can at least be added on the “credited as” section for the instrument performance relationship (so “gamelan [XYZ gamelan]”) - I’ve seen that done for specific organs.

3 Likes