A question from earlier, why can’t a recording just be marked as both?
Some instrumental tracks are used as karaoke. And some are just instrumental. Sometimes the track is specifically for karaoke.
This is why this whole question confuses me.
1 Like
I meant a name for the relationship attributes.
To add to the discussion. It’s common for reggae or ska singles in Jamaica to feature the backing track as a b-side.
But they are not karaoke tracks.
Instrumental is not ambiguous to me. It designates a track without vocals.
I’m not sure where the idea comes that an instrumental needs to have the vocal melody included but that seems massively restrictive to me and surely can’t be what is commonly understood as an instrumental.
6 Likes
I’m not so sure about this - I would attribute TLT’s early practice of including “instrumental” versions more to their heavy participation in internet remix culture (See Discord, red/blue versions, etc). In any case, around this time, they were stopping doing that in new releases (see Drunk, Sunburn), and this particular release is part of a larger commissioned game OST where of six compositions with lyrics, they only released this one with an instrumental version.
I absolutely agree with this.
Really, there are so many reasons to release a track without some or all of the vocals, and karaoke is only one. I wouldn’t agree with “Replace all “instrumental” type tracks with “karaoke” if there is no instrumentation for the vocal track” at all, and really I only think it’s appropriate to label something as karaoke if that’s what the recording is labelled/marketed as - at least for western music.
3 Likes
Well, it is the definition of karaoke, it’s why apparently we should change the karaoke attribute name to something else.
Two names that mean the same thing is no good.
The melody is a big big part of a composition.
It’s really different to listening to backing tracks vs listening to a true instrumental version.
Here too, maybe we should choose the attribute name wisely.
But mostly explain this and that in the 2 attribute help texts.
1 Like
Exactly, that’s why we should not name our attributes per artist intent or listener intent or even marketing trends, but objectively describing the content of the recording in regards to the work.
The original purpose of the “instrumental” attribute is to delete the lyrics language and lyricist. Picard does this.
That’s fundamentally incompatible with the purpose of the brand new “karaoke” attribute as stated above.
The idea of “instrumental” was supposed to be that the MB Recording is a faithful/complete performance of the melody represented by the MB Work. By deleting the vocal track and not substituting in a new instrument for the missing melody, it’s a significant change to the music and many would argue it should be a different MB Work in that case. [1]
3 Likes
For “work-recording / karaoke” attribute:
I feel that treating “karaoke” and “instrumental” as the same thing is a rough definition.
Prior to the introduction of the “karaoke” attribute (~2018), the “Instrumental” attribute was only for recordings that were instrumental-ized and arranged. On the other hand, the Japanese 〈Karaoke ver.〉 is simply a post-processing mix engineer omitting the vocal parts from a recording with vocals, so it should not be marked with the “instrumental” attribute.
In other words, it should have been treated the same as a normal recording. However, there could be confusion due to the existence of a karaoke recording that is labeled as an 〈Instrumental ver.〉, and there is also the possibility of an original vocal-less recording that was not post-processed. Although there is the idea of making everything “instrumental,” some〈Karaoke ver.〉 may still have background vocals, or only one of the duo vocals.
I understand the karaoke attribute was introduced as a compromise as a result of this process. Therefore, I believe that they cannot be generally equated. I wish there was a more appropriate naming.
For “recording - recording / karaoke” attribute:
As for this one, I think it is just an indication of the purpose or usage of the recorded material rather than the concept of that recording – it is not objective but rather a subjective thought. I think this is different from the essence of MB.
2 Likes
Where did this idea come from? The original addition for the attribute said “This indicates that the recording is just of the instrumental portion of the work (doesn’t include its lyrics).” It’s always meant the same thing.
4 Likes
I have the same memory of it.
Maybe based on mailing list and old forum, or… based on what seemed normal for me?
I don’t remember having ever read the help page for Instrumental, before (the one that does not say melody must be present).
I don’t know since when we have those contextual helps…
Anyway this doesn’t mean that it does not contain the melody.
Melody, as being essential part of a work, its lacking would necessarily be mentioned in that help.
Being not mentioned certainly implies its presence, no?
(I joined MB in 2019, so any history prior to that may contain my misperceptions. I apologize in advance.)
I was either taught as such by someone in the edit note or forum at the time, or I saw someone teaching it to someone else. The idea is objective and convincing, so I recognize it as a not-documented-but-well-known best practice.
I don’t know if it was the same as the current one, but the style guide has a limited clarification of the karaoke and instrumental attributes, which is why I asked for further explanation in the forum or in the edit note.
1 Like
As can be seen in this thread, different areas of music have different editors with different opinions.
1 Like
It doesn’t indeed! “instrumental” as an attribute was meant to be used for all cases where the lyrics are irrelevant, whether the lead vocals are replaced by instruments or not. We don’t currently have a specific way to mark “the lead vocals are replaced by an instrument”.
3 Likes
Anyway, the style guides are clear about the karaoke vs instrumental distinction, and it’s consistently one and the same:
- Karaoke has no (main) vocals, but the lyrics are considered relevant.
- Instrumental has no vocals, and the lyrics are considered irrelevant.
That’s the whole of it, it’s the only reason why we have two separate things. Originally, “karaoke” was only a recording-recording option, while “instrumental” was only recording-work. But people linking works did want to be able to indicate that the vocals are missing even if the lyrics were relevant (so in cases where they couldn’t use “instrumental”) and people linking recordings still wanted to be able to link instrumentals to originals when they were not meant in any way for karaoke, so we have the two options on both sides now.
I understand that “karaoke” as per @kepstin didn’t use to mean “meant to sing on top”, but that’s the usage with which it has been used in MB previously (since it emphasizes the importance of the vocals).
I’m still partial to the suggestion of having karaoke be the default for Japanese music unless intent shows the opposite, and instrumental the default for Western music unless intent shows the opposite.
In any case, a big reason why “instrumental” was added for recordings (same with “a cappella”) was to be able to link hip hop beats and a cappella recordings to the originals, and those are literally “removed vocal/instrumental track” situations (but ones where “karaoke” just doesn’t seem appropriate and the removed lyrics/music are generally understood to become irrelevant). If we looked only at “is the main vocal melody replaced”, all of those hip hop instrumentals would be put together with karaoke tracks, and then we would have to entirely lose the “lyrics are irrelevant” point. That doesn’t seem ideal.
An extra problem I can see is that right now “instrumental” is fairly trivial to use (for non-Japanese music at least): “is this a recording of a work that usually has vocals, but without the vocals? if so, mark instrumental” and more specifically, in most cases, even without having access to the music, “does it say instrumental? mark instrumental”. Any change that requires understanding if the vocal melody has been replaced (which won’t usually be specified in the credits / titles!) requires the user to both have access to the music to compare and be able to understand if the replacement has been made.
11 Likes
So us who know the radical difference between instrumental with and without melody from the work, us who were using Instrumental for the former and Karaoke for the latter,
We are now regressing and there is no solution to the problem?
And it’s not a question of Japan.
It’s a question of partial work performance in general.
Ask someone to play Yesterday on their flute, or guitar, or to whistle in their shower: they will certainly not play the chords, but the melody!
Even on piano or accordion, which would allow playing the chords, they will most certainly play the melody, if they want to play Yesterday.
This is Instrumental version, not only in Japan.
I’m wondering how to edit that, now.
Maybe I should try stop using these attributes and let the user guess with displayed track version names, as we do without MB.
1 Like
Funny discussion. I never thought there could be a problem.
I have never added a release as karaoke, because I was convinced that this attribute was only intended for releases/recordings that were also marketed as karaoke. And I have never had the desire to own such a thing.
An example:
Recently I bought Caroline Polachek’s Pang (instrumental).¹ It was a little disappointing because it is actually only the instrumental part of the recordings without vocals and the music without her voice rather uninteresting. But I would never have thought that it could be karaoke. No one would seriously try to take over her singing part.² And you would also need additional singers since lead, choir and background vocals were removed (all sung by Caroline Polachek).
I can’t imagine that this could be karaoke.
¹) currently recordings are “karaoke”, but there’s a little maintenance needed anyway - I haven’t edited it yet
²) listening example (with vocals): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn3cHUtNZKo
EDIT: better example, though without additional vocals, but absolutely impossible to replace her singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6HDrFxDVX8
4 Likes
I was actually wondering why we got a recording-recording Instrumental relationship… that would explain it, lol
I think in the case of hip-hop beats (at least cases where a rapper or sometimes singer uses a pre-made beat), I would imagine the beat could get it’s own work, like this example I just edited (partly based on this thread), and therefore the Instrumental performance attribute wouldn’t apply in this particular case (does make this whole thing a bit more confusing, using the same word for different things)
I think a main point to connect the original intent/the style guides and what appears to be a large consensus is that the vocal melody being included in a recording is a fairly obvious indicator that the lyrics aren’t relevant (or at least as relevant) to the recording in question
for instance, this marching band arrangement of YMCA includes the vocal melody on the horns, which implies (to me, at least) that the lyrics aren’t terribly important in this case. does that mean the crowd at the football game or whatever won’t sing along? of course not, it’s the friccin’ YMCA, they’re gonna sing and dance to it 
on the other hand, you can find a ton of “karaoke” and “instrumental” versions of the YMCA, some with backing vocals, some without, as well as the “official” instrumental version made from the original recordings (don’t know if it was ever released or if it’s a bootleg instrumental). I believe the lyrics would be considered relevant for both types of karaoke versions (naturally), and it’s been my understanding that the “official” instrumental would also fall under karaoke, since it’s a very similar recording to the third-party party karaoke tracks (in that it doesn’t include some or all of the vocals or the vocal melody)
that’s where I have stood on the matter for quite some time, but I would be open to change, if need be.
3 Likes