[Data-modeling] Why is "Musical performance role" an included type of "Musical instrument"?

[Ed Laurent]

Thanks for the clarification Chris.

I took "musical performance role" as an implication that the instrument is a
musician is because "Musical instrument" doesn't make sense as the "Musical
performance role" of "Musical group membership". For example, Jimbo
Wallace<http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000003bea607>is
the bassist (general) or double bassist (specific) of the group
Reverend
Horton Heat. He is an instrumentalist who plays the double bass as part of
the group. The current schema jumps over the role (profession/hobby) to link
straight to the instrument but calls the instrument the role. That means
that the role needs to be inferred from the instrument. As I'm drilling
deeper into the reasoning for this modeling approach it's starting to make
sense (e.g., specificity of double bass instrument is preferred over the
generality of bassist role). However, it was not intuitive and 77 instances
of "Bassist" as a musical performance role added by a handful of users
and mw_template_bot
is supporting evidence. Perhaps changing the name of "Musical performance
role" would be all that is needed but the new name should imply an
instrument/activity topic rather than a role/profession/hobby. Besides
changing the name of "Musical performance role", it might be useful to add
"Musician" as an incompatible type of whatever name "Musical performance
role" is given. An "Instrumentalist" type that links the instrument to the
profession might also be helpful for finding the professions currently
linked as "Musical performance roles" and correcting the data given the
current schema.

-Ed


On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 1:21 PM, Christopher R. Maden <crism at metaweb.com>wrote:

>
> Disagree.  I am not sure why you took "musical performance role" as an
> implication that the instrument is a musician.
>
> The performance role (which could perhaps have a better name) is used
> for connecting musicians to groups or recordings.
>
> John Bohnam ---drums--> Led Zeppelin
> Robert Plant --lead vocals--> Led Zeppelin
>
> The thing in the middle of the arrow is a performance role.  Performance
> roles can be musical instruments, vocal ranges, ensemble roles like
> orchestra, chorus, or string quintet, conducting, etc.
>
> Suggestions for a better name for that role are welcome.
>
> Is that clearer?
>
> ~Chris
> --
> Christopher R. Maden
> Data Architect
> Freebase.com: <URL: http://www.freebase.com/ >
> Metaweb Technologes, Inc. <URL: http://www.metaweb.com/ >
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