Hi,
I’m new to this and would love some guidance. I’ve found many songs that exist in the the artists recordings but there is no release-group for them.
As an example, Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption song’. So I went and created the release-group for this, https://musicbrainz.org/release-group/b5fc677a-7fd0-4b67-aed0-b13d3f2b3252, but can’t figure out how to add the song into it.
Thanks in advance.
If you open the link you provided, on the right hand side there is an option called “Add release”. Click on that and you should be in business.
A release group is a collection of releases, not a collection of recordings. A release group is an album, in all its forms. The release is the specific instance of that album, released on a certain format, on a certain date, in a certain country. The recording is a particular instance of a song, so a studio version of a song would be a different recording from the live version of the same song. A work can be thought of as the “sheet music” of a song and will connect to the different recordings.
For example: Uprising by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Inside that release group, you’ll find releases like the 1980 French vinyl release or the 1992 British CD release. Then on those releases, you’ll find the tracks that link to the recordings of Redemption Song.
You don’t need a release for a recording to exist in the database.
A release is generally something that can be purchased ie an album or a single.
For things that are known to exist but not commercially available you can just have standalone recordings such as a random song available from soundcloud or a live performace on tv etc.
See: https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Standalone_Recording
You should also look at the “Load as non-album track” plugin that can make this a llittle easier to tag in picard.