(Approx. 1,824 words)

There Is More to Music than the iPod®
Written by Mike Morris, Editor, Front Range PC Users Group, CO
http://www.frpcug.org
twriterext (at) gmail.com

This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author’s permission for publication by APCUG member groups; all other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above).

There is more to music—and more to life—than the iPod.  I think I can prove that statement with the words that follow.  Please don’t misunderstand me.  I admire the iPod as a successful product—a success technically and financially—even though I don’t have one.  However . . . .

I need to start my “proof” by saying that in previous articles that I have written for this newsletter, I made a claim to being an Old Analog Guy (as a reminder, the acronym = OAG and is pronounced “ogre”).   It is with that persona that I bring this subject to your attention.

I just completed a catalog of nearly 300 old LP’s that belonged to a family member who died last year.  And when I say old, I mean some of those LP’s have release dates more than 50 years old.  Some of the recordings are much older than that.  There are many memorable, and even historic, performances recorded on those albums.

A small part of that music has been re-released on CDs.  But there is much of that music—almost all Jazz—that you will not currently find in any digital format.  So put down your iPod (or one of its imitators) and please listen to what I have to say.

I decided to create a database for this catalog using Microsoft Access®.  One significant issue, as you might expect, is just how much information to include in the database.  This database is for family use—not for radio station or other broadcast use.  I did, however, want to make a record (no pun intended) of whatever information was necessary to properly document the collection.  The most significant decision was related to the track (song) names, sequence and times on each side of each LP.  Clearly, if I needed to document that information, both the data entry task and complexity of the database were going to be much higher.  If the average number of tracks per side is 4 (it is probably higher), and I wanted to include all that information, then I was faced with a data entry task of 4 x 2 x 300 = 2400 entries (plus all the other information I wanted to include). 

“No big deal” you say—there are many much much larger databases in the world.  You are correct.  But remember, I am an OAG (please correctly pronounce that acronym).  Therefore I was looking for an “easy” way to complete this task.  Credit is due to Ken Campbell of radio station KRFC (more on that in a moment), a local public radio station, for a solution.  Ken told me about an online music database called allmusic.com (http://www.allmusic.com) (yes, it is spelled with all lower case letters).  It turns out there are many online music databases (a Google® search turned up more than 68,000, using the phrase “online music database”).  The allmusic.com database was the best for my catalog project for the following reasons:

1.	A successful search for an artist will provide an Overview, a Biography, a Discography (a list of all albums by the artist known to the database, with title, date and label), Songs, Credits, and Charts and Awards.

2.	From the discography, one can click on an album and get information (usually) on the album tracks (including times), composer(s), recording date(s), release date, label, format (LP or CD), the label’s catalog number, and, for some albums, a review of the album.

3.	The search options include artist/group, album, song, classical work.

4.	There is substantially more information about the Jazz genre that just a list of names and dates.  For example, on the Jazz “home page,” there are a number of "Related Essays" on Jazz, including "A Brief History of Jazz."

For a project such as the cataloging of an existing music collection, with LP’s that are up to 50 years old, this database is the best choice by far of all of the databases examined or considered.  It is the equivalent of an encyclopedia, and the functionality makes searching easy, with related data presented on a single page.  The ability to link from a list of albums (discography) to a single album (or CD reissue) provides very efficient searching for a project of this type.  That is not to say that it is error free.  There are albums not included in the database—the web site makes no claim that it contains every album ever released.  There are also tracks missing from some albums (or the track order in the database doesn’t match the order on the disk).  An album may be in the database, but not in the artist’s discography.  And, there are numerous problems with release and recording dates.  Still, the “pros” far outweigh the “cons.”

There is a feature offered by this web site that is unique.  Each page (any of the choices listed in item 1 above) has a “Corrections to this entry?” option, allowing the user to submit corrections.  Those corrections are then researched for confirmation (if the web site statement is correct) before they are added to the database.  That feature was used extensively during the research for this music cataloging project—although not every error or missing item was submitted.

For my project, the search by artist was the most effective.  If an album was not listed in the artist’s discography, a search by album was the alternate choice.  Although the database has many very early jazz albums, there were a few albums in the collection, both old and new—or at least “newer”—by well-known artists that were missing from the allmusic database.  So, although not perfect, the allmusic database is an excellent research tool, and you don’t need the iTunes media player (or any other media player) to use it.

The database is not limited to research, however.  You can listen to short sound bytes from some tracks, and there are links that allow you to buy selected tracks or albums (correction – CDs).

OK, so your iPod and the iTunes media player are great for listening to (and buying) current and even “relatively” old music.  But the iTunes media player is not going to help you—to same extent as the allmusic database will—find classic old Jazz performances (and perhaps classic performances from other genres).  And, you must have the iTunes media player installed on your computer before you can do any searching with it.

You may be wondering why I am talking about online databases and why I consider a good online database important to my “proof.”  Yes, there is a relationship.  But before I offer the conclusion, I have several comments on other databases.

Another online database used rarely was Gracenote®, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America.  Gracenote is used “…for digital media recognition of CDs, digital music files, and streaming audio. With the most comprehensive database of music information in the world, the Gracenote Media Database contains information for more than 80 million tracks and 6 million CDs….”  This database is normally linked to media players, such as Winamp©, to automatically identify music on a CD or from a download.  It provides album title (and, in some cases, an image of the album cover), and track names—if you connect through a media player (or other audio/video equipment with the enabling software installed that is connected to the internet).

If you connect to Gracenote directly from a browser (http://www.gracenote.com/), the search options are artists, albums, tracks.  A successful search on an artist returns a list of albums (a lot less than the allmusic database) released by that artist that are known to the database.  It is important to note that the quantity information in the Gracenote advertisement makes an explicit reference to CDs.  The album information is similar to that in the allmusic database, except that there are no track times.  There are, however, links to the lyrics of some tracks—for those songs that have them.  Also the “Buy” buttons are much more prevalent, and much more obvious in the Gracenote database, compared to the allmusic database.

Another online database examined briefly was Rhapsody®, http://www.rhapsody.com/home.html, a service provided by RealNetworks.com, better known for its Real® media player.  The company claims to provide "Technology and services that help people enjoy digital entertainment whenever and wherever they want."

Connect to the Rhapsody website and the first thing you will notice are the annoying animated ads.  Get beyond that and the search options are artist, keyword, track, album, composer, video, lyrics, and playlist.  If a search for an album is successful, you can, for most albums, get track information by clicking on the album image—but that track information (no times) is very probably going to be from a more current CD release, not from the original LP, depending on how old that original LP is and how popular the album was.  However, there is nowhere near the same level of information available from this database, compared to the allmusic database.  The Rhapsody database is organized for listening to (or buying) music that is already known to the user, either by song name or by artist (in my opinion).  It is not an effective research tool for finding information on old LP’s.

It is not necessary to have the Real player installed in order to search the Rhapsody database.

Now listen up everyone!  Here is my reason for talking about music databases:

There is some great old music out there!  In all genres.  Please don’t get so comfortable with your iPod that you ignore that music.  Especially when you have a resource such as the allmusic online database to help you identify it, catalog it, find reviews on it and find some history of it.

I suspect that many of you reading this article (I hope there are many readers) have some of that “great old music” sitting on your shelves or in your cabinets.  Or perhaps stored away somewhere.  If so, “unstore” it.  You will, I am certain, enjoy that music, especially with the added information available from the allmusic database.

And that is what I mean when I say “There Is More to Music than the iPod.”

Here is the additional information I promised on radio station KRFC:

Front Range PC Users Group (FRPCUG) has a partnership with KRFC, 88.9 FM in Fort Collins, CO. KRFC provides "Community powered music, news and entertainment." For more information, connect to http://krfcfm.org/. FRPCUG provides computer maintenance help to KRFC, and, in return, KRFC helps expand the knowledge of FRPCUG activities within the local community.  An internet audio stream is available from the KRFC web site.