Tune fields¶
In defining the fields I’ve tried to balance between making the app useful and giving freedom to the user. Here I describe my thinking behind each. In some cases my descriptions only apply to the Public repertoire, as the user can do what they want with their own tunes.
In general I’m open to revising the prescriptive aspects of any of these in dialogue with users, so reach out if you’d like to see any changes or additions.
Title¶
A tune’s unique identifier, Title is the only required field.
Composer¶
I index all composers by last name as a way of showing equal respect to jazz and popular tune composers. At the same time, jazz first names and nicknames (Bird, Miles, etc.) are recognized “behind the scenes” when searching and will be appropriately converted and retrieved.
Key¶
There can only be one Key; in tonal tunes without an obvious “main” key I leave this blank and put all the keys in Other Keys. A ‘-’ after the letter denotes minor; unadorned is major. Key can be left blank, or you can fill it with ‘none’ or ‘atonal’.
Other Keys¶
Any keys a tune modulates to besides the main key go here.
Form¶
I’ve opted not to include primes etc. to make the form categories as broadly applicable as possible. For example, “I Remember You” is classified as AABA, not AABA’.
Style¶
‘Standard’ is for pop or Broadway tunes played by jazz musicians, while ‘jazz’ is for tunes written by jazz musicians. Other stylistic descriptors can be added as tags.
Meter¶
This has a default value of 4 for convenience since almost every standard is in 4.
Year¶
For a lot of the jazz tunes the year is when the first album featuring the tune came out. Let me know if you have more accurate knowledge!
Last Played¶
The date you last played a tune. I try to keep as many out of the “haven’t played in 3 months” category as I can.
Knowledge¶
The broad delineation between “know”, “learning”, and “don’t know” seems most useful to me. As I use it, “know” means you can play the tune at the drop of a hat with no hesitation and no chart. Otherwise it’s “learning”. “Don’t know” is a placeholder for tunes you want to learn.