Conductor - Conducting
-
-
Cris, we must keep these two separated. Conductor is a well defined profession and people like Abbado, Bernstein, Salonen and Co. are "conductors" and not "conducting" by profession; one of the properties on the "Conductor" type should be "Orchestras conducted." This is absolutely necessary when describing any conductor. We are not able to go on with work on conductors until this thing is sorted out so I BEG you, do not hesitate any longer
-
We can merge the two topics but name the resulting topic "Conductor". Would that help?
The problem is that at the moment some people have "Conducting" as their profession and others have "Conductor" and it's even more confusing!
-
Certainly. The most important is not to confuse the two. The activity of conducting exists and it is defined in any music dictionary BUT conductors are conductors and nothing else! It would be good to keep both but if this creates confusion then only Conductors should remain. Furthermore, what does a conductor do? How can one describe his work? A conductor conducts orchestras and that is why the "Orchestras conducted" property is absolutely necessary. I don't mean to say to list every minor orchestra there, that would mean to fill the databease with useless trivia, but a few major orchestras must be mentioned because this is what conductors do: they conduct orchestras.
-
I agree that this is information that it is good to model.
First, is the current model insufficient? For example, I’ve added Gustav Mahler as the conductor of the VPO (on sandbox) using the membership and rôle of the musical group. (Or, for that matter, see also myself with respect to the Brown University Band.) This would be my preference; I do not believe Conductor really needs a type of its own.
Second, if we do indeed need a Conductor type, what should its properties be? I would favor “Ensembles conducted” over a property for orchestras; there are significant wind ensembles, choruses, and marching bands that should not be orphaned.
Also, how do we model guest conductors? Looking at the VPO, I learned that they haven’t had a regular conductor since 1933, but they have had notable guest conductors throughout that time. Do we simply state that Maazel conducted the VPO at some point? Or should we model the dates?
Finally, note that musical recordings have the rôles of the participants modeled, so conductors can easily be described on particular recordings. Something similar could be done for live performances; in fact, this is what the Opera domain does, which is where this type originated. We could model significant live performances and the rôles played by different people in them.
What do you think about all this?
-
Cris, in music, after the composer who is THE most important person of all, the conductor comes next.He is a CONDUCTOR (like composer/singer/professor/etc. and NOT conducting, conducting is an activity. This is a big difference! You become a conductor yourself when conducting, and cannot define yourself as a member of some group, or conducting some people, and so on. There is a whole row of conductors out there starting with Felix Mendelssohn who would go up the wall if you would say that they are not conductors but conducting!! There is no difference between opera/jazzband/whatever conductors, they are ALL conductors so we do not need to take THAT into consideration, just develop one conductor type. We usually talk about "Opera conductors" because Opera and Ballet are such spectacular things with big audiences, major productions, etc., but practically there is no difference whatsoever between an opera conductor and other conductors.
Orchestra - Ensemble, call it as you wish, I personally think that the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra or the New York Philharmonic Orchestra are ORCHESTRAS and not ensembles, but again, an ensemble is an orchestra no matter how big or small it is. This is not a question of size but what the thing IS!
Hence, we have now a conductor who conducts orchestras. He does that sometimes on a more permanent base and sometimes (as you say) as a guest conductor. I am no expert on modelling and cannot help you there but I strongly believe that we should not fill the database with trivia! So you can think now how to present this as a type. Put something on paper and please let me know before you put it in the computer. Let us discuss this by email, (Kirrily/Jeff/Dan and others have my address)...
-
[posted to the data-modeling mailing list]
When Jeff created the Opera domain, he created a Conductor type to represent the conductor of an operatic production.
When I created the Music domain, I treated conductor as a performance role within a group, no different than the third violinist.
Now we have a Conductor with only the Operas Conducted property, which makes it look weird when talking about orchestra conductors. We also have a Performance Role that various people hold within Musical Groups.
We should reconcile this one way or the other. Opinions about which way is preferable? Please make your responses in that Music Modeling Interest Group thread so that there will be an easily visible record for future Freebase users. -
...then make them ALL conductors. The minute one takes the baton in the hand, one becomes a conductor, no matter what kind of ensemble/orchestra one leads, big or small. Certainly that there are opera conductors (Mutti, Levine) but that is only a speciality of the conductor. In essence, they are all conductors so we can get rid, at least, of this confusion...
-
Definitely in the classical orchestral world, the conductor is probably one of the most important roles, sometimes overshadowing that of the composer (Leopold Stokowski is a classic example of a conductor who would alter/rearrange/adapt scores to suit the performance and/or ensemble). Stan Kenton and Nelson Riddle in the Jazz/Vocal Pop music world, they are just as important as the artists they worked with. In opera, orchestras, & small ensembles, the role of the conductor is usually pretty much the same.
So I vote for some sort CVT that captures something of the time spent with, performances conducted, recordings made with an ensemble of any size/nature
-
Gordon, if I understand you correctly, you're proposing "Conductors" properties on Musical Group and Musical Track to link to the CVTs you're proposing? Since only a minority (even though it would definitely be a sizable minority) of groups/recordings could have a value for this property, it seems like overkill. I'd favor co-typing a Conductor type with Musical Artist to capture that information (assuming we determine that we need a Conductor type).
The question of performances conducted is another kettle of fish entirely; to my knowledge, we haven't attempted this (outside of opera, which only attempts to capture the conductor and singers) at all.
-
Let us start with a simple model at the beginning, so that we can go on with work on ANY conductor. We can have a Conductor type with the property Orchestras/Ensembles conducted (to include choruses, chamber music emsembles, etc.). Later we can develop other properties, when we get some good ideas. "When" and "How" conductors work sounds a bit like trivia to me, but we can list even that with moderation. Two-three important orchestras in the life of every conductor should be enough, don't you think?
-
I think there are two properties appropriate here. One is a generalization of “Operas Conducted”: it should be called something like “Significant performances conducted.” This would capture the opera productions conducted (which is really what “Operas Conducted” is talking about) as well as other significant performances, like premières of symphonies and such. The other would be “Ensembles conducted,” and would point to the orchestras, jazz bands, choruses, etc., that the person had led. That would be a CVT with dates.
The outstanding question, to my mind then, is what is the expected type for “Ensembles conducted”?It would seem a bit weird to have a blank “Conductor” property waiting to be filled in on Nirvana, the Beatles, etc. Should we have an “Ensemble” or “Conducted ensemble” type with “Musical group” as an included type?
-
The other outstanding question in my mind is what should the properties of Musical Performance be, and how do we distinguish individual performances from series (a one-night concert vs. a weeks-long opera production)? Also, are we talking about a "Conducted Performance" type or a general performance type that can be used for all musical artists/groups -- the issue for The Beatles is relevant here, as well.
-
Let's do the simple stuff for now: Turn "Opera Conductor" into just "Conductor", and add a new property for "Ensembles Conducted" (or words to that effect), which would be a date-mediated property. We'll have to tackle performances at some point, but we should fix the stuff that's actually wrong now.
-
