28 29 SONGWRI TERS MAGAZI NE SONGWRI TERS MAGAZI NE

T
HE SONGWRITERS
ASSOCIATION OF
CANADA is looking closely
at the role metadata will play in
its current advocacy with the Fair
Trade Music initiative. In an age
when sharing music without re-
muneration for the creators is
still very easy, when services pay
so little for their music content,
it should be of paramount
importance to be offering users
a superior experience when they
go the legal route or decide to
pay more for a better product.
Metadata is the data about
your songs and recorded tracks.
They are the digital equivalent of
physical booklet and CD or LP
linear notes. Nowadays, this
information is enriched with
several other fields such as
unique identifiers (most notably
the International Standard
Recording Code (ISRC), the
International Standard Work
Code (ISWC) and the Inter-
national Standard Name
Identifier (ISNI)), down to
minute detail of rights
ownership, instrumentation,
images, web links and more.
If you have ever tried searching
for Beyonc on a streaming
service, you will understand the
importance of metadata. There
is Beyonc, Beyonce, Beyonc
Knowles, Beyonc & Shakira,
Justin Timberlake duet with
Beyonce and more. Each of these
artists has different tracks
associated with them, which
means it can be frustrating for
the user to find their desired
track. This could result in
missed plays and lost sales.
Considering the huge amount
of data (also referred to as Big
Data) produced by countless
performances and downloads
through multiple websites and
streaming services, correct
metadata and automation of
the royalty reporting process is
the only way all of this can work
in the future.
HOW SHOULD ONE GO ABOUT
PREPARING FOR THE METADATA
WORLD?
Whenever you are preparing a
track, video or release, it is
important to tag your content
with as much information as
possible. Questions you should
ask include: How will the public
find your work?, and, How is
your music linked to other
releases in music recommenda-
tion algorithms?
SO, HOW DO YOU HANDLE THIS
PRACTICALLY?
The answer is not simple. The
first roadblock is that the music
industry has yet to establish a
consensus about what
information should constitute its
metadata descriptive core. Some
industrial standards are slowly
coming together, notably the
DDEX digital data exchange
protocol and the North
American MusicMarks new
works declaration formats.
The second roadblock is there
is no foolproof method of
linking metadata to your music.
You may consider the
MusicBrainz.org website which
offers crowd-sourced music
metadata in an open data
format. This means you can
put in your own credentials.
Its the Wikipedia of music.
S
in
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In
stin
ct
available on
Am
azon.ca
Professional Vocal Development. Superior Results.
BBVS.ca BBVS.ca
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BBVS vocal ad_1.pdf 1 2014-09-04 6:50 PM
BY TOM ALLEN AND
J EAN- ROBERT BI SAI LLON
The important role of
METADATA
SONGWRITERS
for
METADATA IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF TODAYS MUSIC INDUSTRY.
FROM POWERING DIGITAL SERVICES AND USER EXPERIENCES,
THROUGH TO SOCIETIES PAYING OUT ROYALTIES, KNOWING HOW
TO USE METADATA TO YOUR ADVANTAGE WILL BECOME KEY
WHEN IT COMES TO TRACEABILITY AND THE REVENUES OWED
TO YOU. IN AN AGE WHEN ITS STILL EASY TO SHARE MUSIC
WITHOUT COMPENSATING CREATORS, WHEN SERVICES PAY SO
LITTLE FOR THEIR MUSIC CONTENT, IT IS CRUCIAL TO OFFER USERS
A SUPERIOR EXPERIENCE WHEN THEY GO THE LEGAL ROUTE.
B U S I N E S S

CRAFT
FOUND A SILVER PUNCH
BOWL in my cellar. I vaguely
remembered it being a gift
(from one of my weddings). It was
completely covered with tarnish
(an interesting symbol), and,
since I was Feng Shui-ing, the
required move was to toss it.
As I was about to, I was interrupted by the
little Midwestern voice inside my head:
ITS SILVER!! You cant throw it away!
Ive gotten pretty good at ignoring that
Midwestern voice, or at least sidestepping it.
I tried, but as I was about to slip the bowl into
the trash bag, it got louder, sounding a lot like
my mom: Nooooo! Its SILVER! OK, I
bargained, If I have any silver polish under
the kitchen sink Ill shine up the bowl to see
if its worth keeping. Why would I have
silver polish? I figured it was an easy
escape from the voice inside
my head.
Who knew? To my
surprise, I did have a
jar of silver polish
under the sink. Let
the cleaning begin.
I covered the bowl
with the grey goop
and, as per instruction,
allowed it to dry. Wiping
it off with a clean cloth I
discovered once the tarnish was
rubbed away, the bowl was pretty
snazzy. Im gonna keep this, I said, as
the voice basked in the warm glow of its
little victory.
Once Id made the decision to keep it, I
looked at the bowl more carefully, noticing
the spots Id missed. I applied more grey
goop on the offending areas, waited, then
rubbed it off a bit harder this time. Nice
and shiny, inside and out.
Um, except for the silver leafing all around
the rim and on the four curved, leafed legs,
still tarnished, with excess polish sticking in
all those little crevasses. I tried rubbing with
the cloth, but there was no way to get into all
those places. I thought, Ill use my toothbrush.
I can always rinse it off afterward.
More polish, and the scrubbing took
longer. The work was more localized and
focused, taking longer to cover smaller areas.
Finally, after rinsing with warm water, the
rim and the legs were sparkling. Good
work, I cooed to myself.
Oops. For the first time I noticed the thin
etched lines swirling both on the interior and
the exterior of the bowl. They were still
tarnished, not an eyesore, but still not shining
like they could. My impulse was to ignore
them, but now the voice reared up again.
Finish what you started. Quit being lazy.
Urrgh!
Q-tips. Again, the work was
much more localized and
painstaking. Following
those swirls wasnt easy,
but after some close
attention and a sore
wrist, the silver bowl
was finished. It
glistened. Everything
Midwestern in me shone
with the glow of a job well
done. I filled my gleaming
silver bowl with apples and set it in
the center of the coffee-table. Voil!
THE MORAL OF THIS LITTLE TALE?
Its not like, when I found the bowl, I
immediately saw that the leafing or the
etchings were tarnished and needed work.
I had plenty to do before I was able to notice
those smaller details.
Move from bigger to smaller. Dont sweat
the small stuff until the big stuff is cleaned up.
Intent is the biggest: Whats your song
about? Try to say it in one phrase.
Prosody is huge: Is this idea stable or
unstable? All your decisions about structure
will depend on how you answer this question.
Very, very big: The three questions every
song must answer:
1. WHO IS TALKING?
2. TO WHOM?
3. WHY?
These three questions establish the point of
view of your song: third person narrative (he,
she, they), first person narrative (I, we, he,
she, they), second person narrative (you, he,
she, it, they), or direct address (I, you). They
also ask why youre saying what youre saying.
WHATS THE POINT OF THE SONG?
Verse development is big: how can you
develop your verse ideas so your chorus
(or refrain, in an AABA form) gains more
meaning, more emotional weight, each time
we hear it.
Song form is middle-sized: verse/chorus or
verse/refrain?
Deciding on things like rhyme scheme, line
lengths, number of lines, is small.
Changing a line or a word is really small.
Dont spend too much time up front searching
for the perfect word when youre still working
on the bigger decisions. Everything could
change.
Dont sweat the small stuff until the big stuff
is cleaned up.
Gather tools. Obsessively. Youll need them
for all the different jobs you have to do. Keep
them under your kitchen sink.
Happy polishing.
i
Pat Patti son i s a Professor at Berklee College of
Musi c, where he teaches Lyri c Wri ti ng and Poetry. I n
addi ti on to several best selli ng books about songwri ti ng,
Pat also teaches a free si x-week onli ne songwri ti ng
course for coursera.org. Several of hi s students have
won Grammys, i ncludi ng John Mayer and Gi lli an Welch.
BY PAT PATTI SON

Dont spend
too much time up
front searching for
the perfect word when
youre still working
on the bigger
decisions
Polishing the Polishing the
SILVER BOWL SILVER BOWL
busi ness
30 SONGWRI TERS MAGAZI NE
Your metadata is as valuable as
your digital master! We believe
indexing metadata on a work or
original sound recording should
be done first by the first rights
holders (yourself) and not
some remote partner on the
other side of the world. Keep a
simple spreadsheet, making
sure you write down everything
you know about the song or
recording, updating as you
create more data around it.
There are some services that
can store, catalogue and transmit
your information into industry
standard formats. However,
because this is new technology,
most of these services are not yet
fully developed and may not suit
all your needs. Most aggregators
used by labels to fulfil the needs
of digital platforms will transmit
metadata that you have provided.
Unfortunately, they dont always
allow easy access to your own
data. Its best to avoid services
that retain your data. Some
metadata aggregation specialists
and delivery services have started
to appear such as: Metable (U.K.),
Fuga (Holland), AudioSalad
(U.S.). Browse around, but
choose carefully!
A recently launched Canadian
service called TGiT offers a free
MP3 music tagging environment
and exports to spreadsheet
formats. It is working closely
with some Canadian copyright
collectives along with the S.A.C.
Our reliance on data is only
going to increase as we move into
the future. Take some time to get
to know what its all about!
Tom Allen i s founder of Metable and The Metadata Academy.
Jean-Robert Bi sai llon i s founder of TGi T and co-vi ce presi dent of the S. A.C.
(1) check out a draft list of more than 200
metadata fields at http://bit.ly/
metadataframes
(2) check out this list of international
databases and services http://bit.ly/
musicalmetadata
WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT METADATA? CHECK OUT THESE LINKS
Metadata Academy - www.metadataacademy.com
Metable - www.metable.co
TGiT - Tag Your Music - http://tagtamusique.com/english/
Musicbiz Style Guide V2.0 - http://musicbiz.org/wp-content/
uploads/2014/08/MusicMetadataStyleGuide-MusicBiz-FINAL.pdf
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TRACK
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