Tagging Indian Classical Music

[ananth]

Hi,

I've uploaded some Indian Classical music scores. The present set of Categories/Tags are inadequate to properly classify Indian classical music. I've come up with some possible categories here. (work, talk page)

Cheers,
Ananth

[Davydov]

Thanks for taking the trouble to help with this, Ananth. There are issues about how works should be described in the general information section of the work page, as well as the tagging.

Let's start with the tagging first. There are three things we need to know:

1) Work type. For solo vocal works these would include: songs, lieder, melodies, romances. The equivalents in Indian Carnatic music would be varnams, kritis, geethams, etc. (we always use the plural forms for our category names).

2) Instrumentation. We need to know the voices and/or instruments for which the work was originally written. If this is left to the discretion of the performers then they can be placed in the "open instrumentation" category, but we may need your assistance if this isn't obvious from the score.

3) Language. Such as Tamil, Telugu, Sanskrit.

So the three sets of tags above (work type, instrumentation, language) will set the categories for a particular work.

The box for "General Information" on the work page can accommodate the other details you mentioned:

• Alternative Title could include the meter and first line, e.g. Varnam in Dharbar Raga, Chalamela
• Piece style could be Carnatic or Indian (Carnatic)
• Key would be the mode, e.g. Raga

You also raised the point of whether works had been transcribed or transliterated. This information should go in the "Language" and "Misc. Comments" section of each edition on the work page, as it applies just to individual published scores and not to the composition in general.

Does this sound like a practical approach?

[ananth]

Sounds perfectly logical. Fantastic!

[*]Key would be the mode, e.g. Raga[/list]

If a composition is in Aeolian mode, will the Key be Mode or Aeolian, or something like mode: aeolian. I'm wondering what should be the specific value; key: Raga or Key: Raga Dharbar

A Raga is somewhat similar to a mode. There are many ragas. Students learn ragas one by one. It'll be very useful to have a proper place/mechanism to accommodate the name of the raga. This is way one can locate all compositions in a particular raga. Same with Tala (meter).

We don't have to overload the tags Key & meter with the impressive list of Indian scales and meters, though. Key = Raga / Raga (Carnatic), Meter = Tala / Tala (Carnatic) will server as a good top level structure. However, it'll be great to have some subcategory/meta-tag to accommodate the specific Raga & Tala rather than keeping them in a comment field.

Ofcourse, these tags/categories can be created as and when needed.

Cheers,
Ananth