[theList] Music Database

[Stephen Rider]

On Monday, June 16, 2003, at 03:20  PM, fstorr wrote:
> I'm not particularly strong on either, hench my original question :)
> Can I just further enhance my ignorance here before I go back to my
> hefty MySQL tome and ask what MB and AR joins are?
>
> Francis

Those are the "Join" tables between two other tables that allow you to 
create a "many to many" relationship.  Specifically those two are the 
Musician/Band and Album/Record Label joins.

You know what a one-to-many relationship is, yes?  To make the one to 
many relationship go both ways ("many to many") you need to put an 
intermediary table in between that holds the "key" field for each of 
the other two tables.  I've been referring to those as "join" tables, 
though it's actually just a regular table being put to a specific use.

Good luck,
Steve


P.S. -- I was sent this off-list, but I believe the author thought I 
was the one doing the music database.:

<quote>
Take a look at allmusic.com for an example of  dealing with this 
problem..

A recorded music database has different levels of complexity, as you 
correctly pointed out. First, what is the basic particle: a single 
song, or composition? Certainly it can't be an album because of how 
often material is recombined into different albums. And it isn't the 
band or the musicians, because they recombine on a regular basis. And, 
as you mentioned, there are albums made by many musicians - a good 
example is a compilation of Kurt Weill songs called September Song.

Good luck.

Art
</quote>