MAESTRO MANAGER'S FOCUS IS CLASSICAL MUSIC

Entering Album Descriptions

In order to manage the albums in your collection, any music cataloging software that you use requires that you enter a description of each album in your collection. If this is a time-consuming tedious process, if you must type in many details, it is unlikely that you will finish your task. There are two forms in Maestro Manager used to enter all details that describe an album collection. Use the form shown in Figure 5 to enter Album Cover Views and use the form in Figure 6 to describe the physical attributes of each album that you own.

Fig 5. Use this form to enter Album Cover Views. The Critics area can be turned on/off as needed.

Three Methods Accelerate Album Entry Maestro Manager provides three methods that accelerate the entry of Album Cover Views. The Archive and Copy Functions provide the fastest means. Use the Manual Method when Archive and Copy are not appropriate, or to add additional details to the descriptions created by those functions. Manual Album Entry Is Fast While Archive and Copy provide the quickest means to create album descriptions, use of the Manual Method is exceptionally fast. This is due to the abundant use of intelligent, pre-programmed scrollable lists and check boxes each devoted to classical music collecting, and because of the automation built into Maestro. Note the numerous scrollable lists in Figures 5 and 6. These are the fields with the downward pointing arrow on right side of a field. Each scrollable list focuses on a specific topic applicable to the classical repertoire or to collecting. Unlike other programs, Maestro's scrollable lists are useable immediately. They contain the names–correctly spelled–of thousands of composers, compositions, conductors, orchestras, solo artists, album labels, album manufacturers, instruments, musical categories, and other related items. When using the Manual Method, use these scrollable lists and the check boxes to quickly create most of an album description. Use typing only to enter notes, album titles, or to make an infrequent addition to a list. Maestro Does The Work For You When using the Manual Method, automated functions built into Maestro reduce your data entry tasks. In the example in Figure 5, Maestro: • Automatically inserted "Maag" and "London Symphony Orchestra" in the Conductor and Orchestra fields that describe the album's 2nd and 3rd compositions. • Automatically inserted "Mozart" as the Composer associated with the Clarinet Concerto after the user selected "Mozart" as the Main Composer. • Automatically inserted the check mark associated with Moon after the user entered "10/9" to right of the Moon label in the Critic's section. • Simplifies the selection of each composition. See picture of this functionality. • And If this user had clicked on TAS Top 12, Maestro would have automatically inserted a check mark next to TAS. Other Cataloging Programs Scrollable lists in other cataloging programs differ from Maestros. As these other programs lack numerous lists applicable to classical-related topics, users of these programs must type in a significant portion of each album description and that's only if other programs have sufficient locations or fields that can utilize classical-related details. Finding a logical location to enter/display a composition's composer, conductor, and orchestra can be difficult. With other programs, the few scrollable lists available are not pre-programmed. Thus, their lists are not useable until the user/collector enters each name used in each list via typing in those names! Furthermore, lacking the intelligent automation found in Maestro, users of these other programs work considerably harder to create an album description. Fig 6. Form used to enter physical attributes   Physical Attributes Use the form shown in Figure 6 to enter the physical attributes that describe the copies of the albums that you own. To access the fields used to enter Label/Pressing details, click the button labeled "To Label/Pressing Details". See Description Of These Physical Attributes for in-depth details about this form. Maestro Does The Work For You Automated functions reduce the amount of data entry that a user/collector performs. In the example in Figure 6, Maestro: • Automatically inserted "RCA LSC 1893".   • Automatically inserted Purchase Date of "10/25/1998" which is the date the user entered information that described this album.     • Automatically inserted "LP" as the Media Format.     • Automatically inserted "Main Cabinet" as the Where Stored location.       Note: This user took advantage of a Maestro feature of presetting the Media Format and filing location used most frequently. Although users can edit any details that were entered, inserting these details automatically typically saves keystrokes.   Gain Control Of Your Collection The majority of the information entered when creating an Album Cover View and an album’s physical attributes become part of the searchable knowledgebase that empowers Maestro Manager's librarian-like ability to answer questions. Because of the variety and ability to search on any item or combination of items, the more information that you enter, the more control you have of what you own! Instead of being limited to answering which albums contain compositions by Brahms, Maestro can answer questions such as which albums contain violin concertos or which albums contain piano concertos where the solo artist is Gilels, Reiner is the conductor, and the performance is judged exceptional by several critics.