MusicMaster Blog

By Jerry Butler

I get calls from time-to-time from programmers saying that their artist, title or composer separation isn’t working correctly.  Call numbers increase on this issue in the weeks leading up to Christmas with title separation.  Keep in mind separation rules look at your artist keywords, title keyword and composer keywords.  After analyzing the data, we often find that some of the entries are spelled just a bit different.  In order for the keyword separation to work correctly, all spellings in the specific  keyword have to be exactly the same.  How can you check this quickly?  Many programmers including myself would go through the library, sort and compare the artists or titles on each song card.

Here is an easier, faster, more thorough way to correct your keywords:  make those changes in your keyword maintenance window.

Click on Dataset, Library and Keywords.   Use the dropdown menu to select the keyword that you need to check.  For demonstration purposes, we will check the Title keyword.

I’ve highlighted entries for “O Holy Night” and “Oh Holy Night”.  In order for the title separation rules to work correctly, these need to be exactly the same.  Rather than changing every single song card, you can make the change for all songs right here.  I’m going to change “Oh Holy Night” to “O Holy Night”.  To do this, just click on the line and type the change. When I press [enter], I receive a prompt letting me know the keyword already exists and asking me if I would like to combine the two.  Click yes and any songs with ”Oh Holy Night” will be updated to “O Holy Night” and your rule will separate the titles correctly.

Check your keywords today and make sure your station’s artist, title and composer or any other keyword separation is running the way you want it to.