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I know that you can tag mp3 files with various attributes. id3v2 allows an infinite number of tags, including custom tags. This is particularly useful when you are listening to western classical music or music from different parts of the world, as I do. Then the standard tags that are provided in id3v1 and even id3v2 are insufficient. But I can create custom tags.

But the question is, how do you use this information? For example, let's say that I am listening to Indian classical music. Any piece may have as metadata that I embed in the mp3 files as tags, using a software such as kid3:

Raga (a melody-based structure) Tala (rhythmic cycle) SubGenre (Dhrupad, Khyal, Krithi, etc.) StartingWords (of the composition being played) MainInstrument (Voice, Sitar, Sarod, Violin, etc.)

Now, I can take my Indian classical mp3s and tag them all with these fields. Now I have a big collection on my Android player. I want a music player in which I can create a playlist that contains all songs in the raga Kalyani. So it should search my music collection for the tag called Raga and see how many songs have the Raga tag match with the string "Kalyani."

Similarly, in Western classical music, there are many fields of interest beyond the standard album/artist/song options. For example, conductor, composer, orchestra, soloist, etc. I would like custom tags for these embedded in the mp3 file and have the music player search, sort, and create playlists based on these. For example, Soloist: Horowitz.

Is there any such music player which can read id3v2 tags and then sort and search based on them?

All the music players I have been able to see only have the standard song/artist/album/genre categories.

Thanks for any help. Note that the question is specific to Android because I want something on my phone, but any recommendations for Linux are also appreciated.

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On Linux you can try: Quod Libet

  • It has the ability to run on multiple platforms (MacOS, Linux, Windows,etc)
  • It is free and open source
  • Music can be organised by playlists, and drag and drop tracks easily. You can also import/export playlists. You can add various tags to a track
  • It also has a powerful search facility, and can sort/filter by title, album, artist, year , tags etc. You can see more details on Search here.
  • To Add custom / unusual tags to the columns in the song list
  • See here for a full list of features

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