[Suggestion] YAML for lyrics documents and database structure

[hacketiwack]

I really like the idea of an open database for lyrics.

There are a few things that could make the contribution a bit easier:

• Define a MD (Markdown) document with a YAML front matter (here and discussed here) for the lyrics documents. There is already a format for Christian songs here. However, the format is XML and the structure oriented towards specific types of songs. Some of the structural elements could be interesting anyway.

  • Rationale for such a format is that it can have the output of the database easily generated and also ensure that some other tools could index and search the songs more easily.

• Define a structure for the database independent from the albums. Having the MusicBrainz identifier is in my opinion the way to go with the structure.

  • Rationale: A song can be seen on multiple albums.

Happy to discuss the topic.

[snshn]

Hello Alain,

thank you very much for the suggestion and letting me know about the openlyrics project!

YAML and MD isn't something that everyone is familiar with, ergo currently the direction that this project is taking is to keep everything as plaintext and as easy to read and edit as possible, keep the learning curve to a minimum.

Duplicate albums and compilations (e.g. Music From Motion Picture) make things hard to wrap head around, it's for sure an issue I'd like to resolve at some point. MusicBrainz ID meta-data field helps a lot when it comes to parsing, as it's a database of lyrics before database of albums or artists, hence sacrificing usability and simplicity for providing data that can be obtained from MusicBrainz or other sources would be counter-productive and stall the project's development.

[hacketiwack]

Thanks for your thorough answer. When I wrote my message, I overlooked a very important de facto standard which is the LRC format. This format is used by some music players (e.g. OwnTone). Data in this format can be embedded into audio files. They can have the timing information. It might be of some interest.

[snshn]

Thank you for letting me know about that format. There may be some tool that could automatically generate LRC out of texts in this database, perhaps even do it on-the-fly as a plugin or enhancement for some players. There's lyrics-api.git repository in this organization that has been used by some, it makes it possible to pull lyrics out of the database and into the player via web API.