Work

In MusicBrainz terminology, a work is a distinct intellectual or artistic creation, which can be expressed in the form of one or more audio recordings. While a work in MusicBrainz is usually musical in nature, it is not necessarily so. For example, a work could be a novel, play, poem or essay, later recorded as an oratory or audiobook.

Distinctiveness

A work’s distinctiveness is based on the artists who contributed to its final output, and whether a work is derived from another original work. Examples of works that are distinct:

• a work that is written by an individual songwriter
• a work that is the result of a collaboration between composer and lyricist
• an instrumental work where an artist later adds lyrics
• translation of an original work into a different language
• a parody of an original work with differing lyrics
• a medley of multiple original works
• a mashup of multiple original works

Types of works

Works are represented predominantly at two levels:

Discrete works
An individual song, musical number or movement. This includes recitatives, arias, choruses, duos, trios, etc. In many cases, discrete works are a part of larger, aggregate works.

Aggregate works
An ordered sequence of one or more songs, numbers or movements, such as: symphony, opera, theatre work, concerto, and concept album. A popular music album is not considered a distinct aggregate work unless it is evident that such an album was written with intent to have a specifically ordered sequence of related songs (i.e. a “concept album”).

Style guidelines

Please see the guidelines for works

Properties

Name

The canonical title of the work, expressed in the language it was originally written.

Type

The type of work.

Aliases

If a discrete work is known by name(s) or in language(s) other than its canonical name, these are specified in the work’s aliases.

Lyrics languages

The language(s) used in the lyrics for this work.

ISWC

The International Standard Musical Work Code assigned to the work by copyright collecting agencies.

MBID

See the page about MBIDs for more information.

Disambiguation comment

See the page about comments for more information.

Annotation

See the page about annotations for more information.

Relationships

A work is associated with artists, recordings and other works through advanced relationships.

Work-to-Artist relationship

A work can be associated with one or more composer, arranger, instrumentator, orchestrator, lyricist, librettist, translator and publisher.

Work-to-Recording relationship

A work can be associated with one or more recordings. This provides the indirect association between a work and its performance and production artists.

Work-to-Work relationships

A work can be associated with one or more other works. There are two types of work-work relationships:

Part-of-work relationship
A work can be expressed as a part of another work.

Derivative work relationship
A work can be expressed as being derived from one or more other works. Examples: instrumental work with lyrics added later, translation of a work into a different language, mashup.

Artists

Works do not have an artist of their own, all artists are derived from the work's relationships. A work will show up under the works tab for any artist directly linked to a work (e.g. composers, lyricists). Any works linked to the artist's recordings will also be shown there.

See also

• Musical composition at Wikipedia.

External databases