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Topic: Tagging and Capitalization (Read 10150 times) previous topic - next topic
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Tagging and Capitalization

I do not know if this is the correct forum for this. I know this is going to sound incredibly geeky, but capitalization is something that is important to me. I guess most people automatically capitalize the first letter of every word. I found a website with information that I am looking for, but I am wondering how complete the provided examples are.

Quote
1. The first and last words are always capitalized, and all except the words listed below are capitalized.

2. These are lower-case, unless they are the first word or last word.

    * articles: a, an, the
    * conjunctions: and, but, or, nor
    * prepositions that are less than five letters long: at, by, for, from, in, into, of, off, on, onto, out, over, to, up, with
    * as (only if it is followed by a noun)

3. Prepositions are sometimes capitalized.

    * Prepositions are capitalized when they are the first or last word.
    * Prepositions that are part of two-word "phrasal verbs" (Come On, Hold On, etc....) are capitalized.
    * Prepositions that are over four letters long. (across, after, among, beyond, ...)

4. These short words are capitalized.
Some people occasionally forget to capitalize these.

    * also, be, if, than, that, thus, when
    * as (if it is followed by a verb)


Grammar was never my strength. I am really confused when the author discusses "phrasal verbs." I have a very loose understanding of what they are, but I don't understand how they would affect song capitalization. Let me use the word "on" to illustrate my confusion. If I understand these guidelines correctly, than a song from Barry Manilow's "2:00 AM Paradise Café" would be properly capitalized as I've Never Been So Low on Love while a popular song from Richard Marx would be properly capitalized as Hold On to the Nights.

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #1 –
There is no consensus regarding capitalization, only guidelines. I don't like complex guidelines so I capitalize the first letter of every word, but that is just me.

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #2 –
Quote from: beto on
There is no consensus regarding capitalization, only guidelines. I don't like complex guidelines so I capitalize the first letter of every word, but that is just me.

Agreed.

My suggestion is to develop your very own personal standard and stick with it.  Remember, you're the king of your own tagging kingdom. 

For example, with my tags I try to follow the capitalization as it appears on the original cd/packaging as much as possible.

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #3 –
Quote from: EagleScout1998 on
I do not know if this is the correct forum for this. I know this is going to sound incredibly geeky, but capitalization is something that is important to me. I guess most people automatically capitalize the first letter of every word. I found a website with information that I am looking for, but I am wondering how complete the provided examples are.
Grammar is not universal -- there are different methods and styles, and none are more correct or "the law". Capitalization is fairly consistent between styles, but MLA Style is a bit different from Chicago Style, and British standards are a bit different from American.

Quote
Grammar was never my strength.
To learn grammar in an American school you have to take a foreign language, how screwed up is that? (Preferably Latin if it's available.)

Quote
I am really confused when the author discusses "phrasal verbs." I have a very loose understanding of what they are, but I don't understand how they would affect song capitalization. Let me use the word "on" to illustrate my confusion.
A phrasal verb is a two or more word construction that represents a single action. "A verb combined with an preposition or adverb": in the example hold on, the verb is hold and on is a preposition.

Quote
If I understand these guidelines correctly, than a song from Barry Manilow's "2:00 AM Paradise Café" would be properly capitalized as I've Never Been So Low on Love while a popular song from Richard Marx would be properly capitalized as Hold On to the Nights.
That is correct.

Pick a method and go with it, but never worry about what "the law" says. There is no "law" in english. Ang song titles are often not proper grammer anyways.  Personally I uncapitalize common two and three letter words (a an the and but or for it its as at by in of on to) and cap everything else, and I ignore phrasal verbs etc as well. It isn't what MLA says to do, but it's much easier to fit in a foobar masstagger script!

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #4 –
EagleScout1998,

I also have followed those capitalization rules (as available @ http://aitech.ac.jp/~ckelly/midi/help/caps.html). I find quite graphically pleasing the result of appling this norm. You may also be interested in reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization.

Cheers

Sergio

P.S.: I apply different rules to titles in other languages. In Italian, for example, only proper nouns are capitalized. The same I do for Spanish even though I'm not sure this is the correct way of doing (any hispanic around?). French is a bit more complicated. See: http://french.about.com/library/writing/bl...ionoftitles.htm
Sergio
M-Audio Delta AP + Revox B150 + (JBL 4301B | Sennheiser Amperior | Sennheiser HD598)

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #6 –
Thanks for the input @all. I must admit that I hadn't cared too much about capitalization rules before I checked this topic. Like many others I also simply capitalized the first letter of every single word, making some names look a little... well, wrong, e.g. "Gary Moore: Over The Hills And Far Away". But meanwhile I've begun updating the whole mass of band/album names and song titles according to the guidelines quoted by EagleScout. Might sound stupid to some people that we really care about capitalization in song titles, but you'll really benefit of this - your eyes won't hurt from reading anymore, since the playlist's contents won't look as... well, wrong as they currently do. Just a few hours of your precious lives to spend for orthography - wheeeee, isn't that a nice leisure activity? 

Hm... *scratching my head* or I'm just a little weird...  ... maybe?

Edit: It's wheeeee, not weeeee.  Orthography calls, muahahahaha! Arrrrrrrrrr!

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #7 –
Quote from: beto on
I capitalize the first letter of every word


IMO, the only scheme worse than this is no capitalization whatsoever.

Now, I understand there are different methods of capitalization, and I agree with the point that you should just pick one style that makes you happy and stick with it.  However, a few simple rules (such as those listed) will go a long way in making titles more readable.  It is sad that most musicians and publishers can't even follow this for CD tracklistings.

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #8 –
"Hm... *scratching my head* or I'm just a little weird...  ... maybe?"

Oh, definitely.

Well, maybe not that much, but I like the simplicity of capitalising everything and generally don't look at the titles much anyway.

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #9 –
For better, or worse, I go by Musicbrainz capitalization. I run all new/ripped tracks thru their picard tagger to maintain consistency, I'm still working on most of my pre-existing music tho.

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #10 –
Quote from: Teknojnky on
For better, or worse, I go by Musicbrainz capitalization. I run all new/ripped tracks thru their picard tagger to maintain consistency, I'm still working on most of my pre-existing music tho.


Interesting application. It's a little tricky to use at first.  I am so familiar with Tag & Rename, having used it for so long. I know it is possible to configure Tag &  Rename to specify that the case of words be consistent. I do this for song titles that begin with a contraction (ie. 'S Wonderful) and artists whose name begins with "Mc" (ie. Michael McDonald, Martina McBride). I can also choose to keep those minor words like "the" or "a" or "but" in lower case. The only problem is when I run across song titles that begin with any of those words.

Song titles in a foreign language are a nuisance. For those I usually capitalize only the first and any proper nouns (as if I could identify a proper noun in Italian). What really grinds my gears is that sometimes I have to scour the Internet for a website that will provide the proper accent marks for the song titles.

Addendum: But I will add that the MusicBrainz site is very helpful . . . even if I opt not to use the Picard tagger.

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #11 –
I use whatever case distinction there is on the CD's list of tracks. I do that even if it's inconsistent with other CDs.

If it's all-caps or no-caps on the CDs, I convert them to title case according to the usual rules.

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #12 –
MP3/Tag Studio has sophisticated capitalzation features.

Look at this:
Sergio
M-Audio Delta AP + Revox B150 + (JBL 4301B | Sennheiser Amperior | Sennheiser HD598)

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #13 –
Quote from: Teknojnky on
For better, or worse, I go by Musicbrainz capitalization. I run all new/ripped tracks thru their picard tagger to maintain consistency, I'm still working on most of my pre-existing music tho.


Me too.  Musicbrainz has a huge database and is really particular about stuff like capitalization.  You can be almost 100% sure what you run through Picard will have the correct capitalization.  It'll do your filename and tags for you too.

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #14 –
Quote from: smz on
Edit: if foobar2000 had those advanced caps features...

+ an exception list, then fb2k is definately my primary tagger!!!
Can't wait for a HD-AAC encoder :P

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #15 –
Thanks for all the replies on this issue. For better or worse, I am going to use the MusicBrainz guideline and keep those fifteen words in lower case (those fifteen words, of course, being: a, an, the, and, but, or, nor, as, at, by, for, in, of, on, and to). I am actually taken aback by how much more readable the tags are using these guidelines.

But anyway.... this may be old news. But I thought I'd post it anyway because it's news to me. There is a way to direct EAC (or any other freedb enabled device, I gather) to retrieve track information from the MusicBrainz database. If the future of freedb is still in question (I've read that two big wigs involved in the project departed), it is nice to have an alternative.

Here's the information:


host www.mb.inhouse.co.uk
via http
port 80
path ~cddb/cddb.cgi

-- which I believe would be entered in EAC as follows --

http://www.mb.inhouse.co.uk:80/~cddb/cddb.cgi

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #16 –
Quote from: EagleScout1998 on
If the future of freedb is still in question (I've read that two big wigs involved in the project departed), it is nice to have an alternative.


It isn't in question anymore: From the freedb.org website:
Quote
MAGIX acquires www.freedb.org
 
Continuation of the free database guaranteed
  With the acquisition of the www.freedb.org domain MAGIX also takes on all duties regarding the worldwide freedb community:

 
  • the entire freedb service has been running since the middle of September on the MAGIX servers
    (including the FTP download function of the open source database and archive)
  • this service will remain license-free and will be available for unrestricted use by any commercial
    or non-commercial user or developer
  • all updates to the database will also continue to be regularly and freely available
  • the licence for the data and the corresponding server or service software will remain under GPL
  Furthermore, MAGIX runs the mirror server and hosts the website as well as the new forum. This secures a basis for the
prosperity of freedb and its main aim: the data collected by the users for the users will be kept freely available in the
future – guaranteed. MAGIX will add its know-how to help with the continued development of the service according to the GPL.
Every developer from the present community is invited to continue to actively contribute to the successful continuity of freedb.

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #17 –
Every single word should be capitalized, unless the artist's name is in lower case, such as k.d. lang or t.A.T.u.  Exceptions include words that begin with apostrophes, or "de" in an artist's name, such as Chris de Burgh.

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #18 –
Quote from: EagleScout1998 on
If I understand these guidelines correctly, than a song from Barry Manilow's "2:00 AM Paradise Café" would be properly capitalized as I've Never Been So Low on Love while a popular song from Richard Marx would be properly capitalized as Hold On to the Nights.

I found and use the same rules for capitalization. I think they're based off of AP style.

You want geeky? When I picked up the new Sparklehorse CD the title was written on the cover as "Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain." All I could see were the 5 incorrect capitalizations and it drove me crazy! 

Tagging and Capitalization

Reply #19 –
Quote from: Cyaneyes on
You want geeky? When I picked up the new Sparklehorse CD the title was written on the cover as "Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain." All I could see were the 5 incorrect capitalizations and it drove me crazy! 

I second that.

What to capitalise:

First and last words (regardless of other rules)
Verbs
Adverbs
Nouns
Pronouns
Adjectives
Subordinating conjunctions (if, because, as, that, etc.)

What not to capitalise:

Articles (the, a, an)
Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor)
Prepositions

...And use Answers.com to find out what a word is and when. (Some words can be different things depending on their function in the phrase. "In" can be a preposition, an adverb, a noun or an adjective.)