Tutorial 1 A composition is not a musical recording - freebase-schema/freebase GitHub Wiki
On Freebase, a composition is a written musical work. It includes musical works ranging from classical to modern. It may or may not have words.
The word "written" is going to be key here. Let’s have a look at some examples of compositions.
A quick look to get us started:
- Here is the first 6 bars of Borodin's "Scherzo in A-flat", part of a composition.
- Here is the first bit of a musical composition by Vampire Weekend.
- Here is an excerpt from a 13th-century Dominican missal, a musical composition.
- Here is an example of a musical composition created using the rare graphic notation: "Terretektorh 1966" by Iannis Xenakis.
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One thing you’ll notice in all of the examples above is that we don’t hear anything!
That’s obvious, but we have to keep the difference in mind: a composition is not a musical recording.
Let’s use the first example from above to explore why composition and musical recording are different.
Borodin's "Scherzo in A-flat" is a musical composition, a written musical work.
This composition has been recorded many times by many people. Here are 2 such examples, which you can listen to on YouTube:
- as played by Ricardo Viñes in 1930 (♫)
- as played by Sergio Fiorentino in 1966 (♫)
What you are listening to above are musical recordings, separate recordings of a single composition.
For any single composition, there can be many musical recordings (though some compositions may have only one accompanying recording, and a composition that was never recorded would have no musical recordings to connect with).
To reiterate: a composition is a more general concept, represented in some way by writing, and a musical recording is a single instance of a single recording of that composition.
It's also worth noting that a recording of a composition can be done in a studio, a home studio, during a concert, or in any other way that results in audio that can be stored as a file, a master disc, on tape, etc.
Now let’s use a very famous example to really grasp the idea of separating composition and musical recording.
"Yesterday" has been a very popular song for musical artists to record since the original musical recording was released in 1965 by The Beatles. Wikipedia tells us that there are 2200+ known cover version recordings. These are all considered musical recordings of the single composition we see above.
"Yesterday" is an extreme example, so the difference is clear: 1 composition, 2200+ musical recordings.
Here are just a few examples of cover version musical recordings of "Yesterday"; maybe you already know other examples as well:
- Boyz II Men (1994)
- Frank Sinatra (1969)
- Ray Charles (1977?)
- Bob Dylan (1970)
Of course, the original recording is also a musical recording!
- The Beatles (1965)
If you can break the concepts of composition and musical recording apart in your head, you’re on your way!
You can always reference the schema itself for further examples and more information:
In this lab, we are using YouTube to listen to musical recordings and images on the web to look at compositions.
However, most of the time, text-based sources are the most reliable sources for research, even for music. Below are a few sources that can be helpful for music. You can use these sources and more to answer the questions below.
- Discogs
- MusicBrainz (We will look at MusicBrainz in detail in another lab.)
- Wikipedia
- Amazon
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Which of the following is a composition?
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Which of the following is a musical recording?
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Using evidence you can find on Google search, how many musical recordings can you find for this composition? (try to find at least 3)
Composition: "Summertime", composed by George Gershwin
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Can you find other compositions or related musical recordings titled "Summertime" that are not related to the George Gershwin composition? (try to find 1 or 2 examples)
