Better organised database

4 May 2009

You may notice our database is now better organised. In particular:

• Every composer has their own page, listing their sheet music. This makes it easier to search for music by composer. Some composers, such as Mozart, also have compositions listed that we don't have sheet music for. This is the start of our campaign to list all works written by all composers. Ever. Including the ones still in copyright (though obviously we won't include sheet music for them).
• We now have a collection of "pieces", and each bit of sheet music is attached to a piece. Eg, for Beethoven's 5th Symphony there are full scores, piano arrangements, scans, typeset files, etc. all in one place. We have defined a "piece" as a musical entity generally performed all in one go that does not form part of a larger musical entity that is generally performed all in one go. For example, the whole of an opera is a piece, but its overture is part of the larger piece. So the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro is filed under the piece The Marriage of Figaro. On the other hand, each prelude from Chopin's Preludes Op. 28 is a separate piece, because they are generally not all performed in one go. Of course, we're talking about the crazy world of sheet music here, so of course there are some anomalies. For example, we've called Bach's 371 chorale harmonizations a single piece, because it just makes more sense for everyone that way.

We're still in a transitional phase since we're still working on making the database editable by anyone, so you'll have to bear with us for a while. If you have uploaded anything you'll probably notice it's been assigned to a piece. And if you're a composer we've probably made a composer page for you too. If you'd like us to add any information about you do contact us. If you upload anything in the near future, you'll have to fill in the same form as before, and we will assign it to the correct place in the database.