Songs

Use the Songs window to enter, edit, or delete songs and/or composers. Access this window via the Views->Songs menu.

Fields:

Song	Enter the full song title. The indexing for songs does not include the articles “A” or “The” when they are at the beginning of the title. Also, parentheses are not included for indexing purposes. Therefore, it is not necessary to strip them off when entering the title. Song titles may be duplicated. When trying to save a duplicate title, a warning window will appear that will allow canceling of the update in case duplication was unintentional. When entering the song title uses the 3 step edit mode. First press the NEW or EDIT button, then add or change the title. Press the SAVE button to save the changes or CANCEL to cancel them. Adding or editing the song title has no effect on the composers.
Notes	This field is to store any notes regarding the song. It is not used in any reports, but is strictly for the use of the archiver to keep notes.
First Name	The first name of the composer entry. This field is only active during adding or editing a composer name. When the window is in edit mode, this field will be used to add a composer to the composer table.
Last Name	When the window is not in edit mode, this field is used as a lookup field for composers. In edit mode, this field is used to add a composer to the composer table.

Buttons:

New Song	Use this button to put the window into a mode that will allow adding a new song title. When this button is pressed the Edit Song and Delete Song buttons will be changed to Save Song and Cancel respectively. Once the song data is entered, pressing the Save Song button will commit the new song title to the database. Pressing Cancel will revert the window back to the state it had before New Song was pressed. No changes will be saved.
Edit Song	Use this button to put the window into a mode that will allow modifying a song title. When this button is pressed the Edit Song and Delete Song buttons will be changed to Save Song and Cancel respectively. Once the song data is modified, pressing the Save Song button will commit the changes to the database. Pressing Cancel will revert the window back to the state it had before Edit Song was pressed. No changes will be saved.
Delete Song	Pressing this button will remove the song from the database. This action is unrecoverable. Songs assigned to albums cannot be deleted.
Add Composer To Song	Use this button to add a composer to the song being displayed. A valid composer must be entered in the composer field for the add to be successful. On adding, the composer name will appear in the composer list below the composer field.
Remove Composer From Song	Use this button to remove a composer that has been added to a song. The composer name must be selected in the composer list.
New Composer	This button will put the window into edit mode for the purpose of adding a composer name to the composer table. Pressing this button will change the Edit Composer and Delete Composer buttons to Save Composer and Cancel respectively.
Edit Composer	This button will put the window into edit mode for the purpose of changing a composer name in the composer table. Pressing this button will change the Edit Composer and Delete Composer buttons to Save Composer and Cancel respectively.
Delete Composer	Pressing this button will delete the composer name from the composer table. Composers linked to songs cannot be deleted. Composers assigned to songs cannot be deleted
Add Related	Pressing this button will popup a new window for the purpose of relating another song in the table to the one already displayed in the window. This is further explained in the section about related songs.

We have a need to distinguish different versions of the same song. In some cases, a lyric is applied to an instrumental version. In some cases, there are two (or more) versions of a lyric by a different lyricist. The Related Songs feature will accommodate this.

The screen shot above shows the display of Duke Ellington’s song “Cotton Tail”. It also shows that there is a lyric version of this tune with a lyric by Jon Hendricks. These two versions are separate song records on the Beyond Category database. Below is the screen shot with the Hendricks version in the song field.

Notice that to the right of each song title field, the status of the relation is displayed. Ellington’s original version is shown as the “Root” because it is the original version. The Hendricks version is shown as the type of variation that it is: a lyric version.

Adding a Related Song

Relate songs can only be added to the original version of a song. A song related to another song cannot be a root for another relation. To add a related song, press the Add Related button while the Root version is displayed to get the window shown below.

The Song field and Rel. Type popup will be blank when the window is first displayed. This screen shot shows the Cotton Tail version with Hendricks as the lyricist after it is selected in the Song lookup field and the Lyric Version type selected from the popup menu. At this point, if the button with + sign is pressed, the Hendricks version of the song will be added as a related song to Ellington’s version.