Indexed Search Syntax
This page describes the syntax for MusicBrainz indexed searches which use the Lucene text search engine. The search indexes for these types of searches are updated every 3 hours, and thus may not reflect up to the minute changes. The direct search searches the database directly: it can only carry out simple keyword searches with no boolean logic, but it is always up-to-date.
Overview
Lucene offers much flexibility in defining search queries for all needs imaginable. To make it easier to understand, this page was divided into subpages. While this one offers an introduction to the most commonly used features, the others explain more advanced search operators and constructs.
First some words on the the terminology used in these pages:
- Query
- A query is the complete expression you put in one of the search fields.
- Term
- A term is the smallest unit inside a query. In the default case each single word inside a query is a term of its own, except for ...
- Phrases
- A phrase is a groups of words surrounded by quotation marks. Even though it's containing more than one word, a phrase is handled like a term.
- Operators
- or search operators are special characters and words that define either how single terms are processed by the search system (e.g. in -house the - tells the search system, not to return anything with the word house) or how to terms are to be combined in the search (e.g. one AND love means search for anything that has both words one and love).
The sections below Query Syntax describe simple and commonly used operators, more advanced features can be found in the Lucene Search Syntax
But first take a look at a few simple examples which might show everything necessary for the majority of your searches.
Notes
- It is not possible to search for an album based on its track length, however, it is possible to search via total number of tracks.
- Any search for a specific date will currently also return any results that match the year or year and month alone. For example, a search for "1980-01-22" will also return all matches for "1980-01" and "1980". This is a known issue reported as SEARCH-634.
Example searches
Artists
- "tori amos"
- search artist, sortname and alias fields
- comment:electronic
- search for the word electronic in artist disambiguation (comment) fields
- begin:1984 AND type:group
- search for all groups formed in 1984
Releases
- café del mar
- search for all Café del Mar albums
- "the understanding" AND artist:royksopp
- search for the album The Understanding by the artist Röyksopp
- date:1999 AND country:de AND rock
- search for releases from Germany in 1999 with the word rock in them
Recordings
- type:album AND amadeus
- search for recordings with the title amadeus from albums
- day life
- will retrieve A Day In The Life
- will retrieve Life In A Day
- will retrieve This Day
- will retrieve That's Life
- day AND life
- will retrieve A Day In The Life
- will retrieve Life In A Day
- will not retrieve This Day
- will not retrieve That's Life
- "day in the life"
- will retrieve A Day In The Life
- will not retrieve Life In A Day
- will not retrieve This Day
- will not retrieve That's Life
- "voodoo people" AND artist:"the prodigy"
- search for all recordings with the title Voodoo People by the artist The Prodigy
Query syntax
Wildcards
To perform a single character wildcard search use the "?" symbol. To perform a multiple character wildcard search use the "*" symbol. For example, to search for "text" or "test" you can use the search te?t, to search for "test", "tests" or "tester", you can use the search test*.
Note: You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search.
Fuzzy searches
To do a fuzzy search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a single word term. Optionally can specify the required similarity, a value is between 0 and 1. For example to search for a term similar in spelling to "roam" use the fuzzy search roam~ or roam~0.8
Regular expressions
You can use regular expressions in your searches. For that you should put the expression between forward slashes (/regex/). Regular expression search generally searches only inside each token (word), so you cannot search for combinations of words as a regular expression. For an example, to find releases credited to either of the two common transliterations of Сергей Рахманинов, "Rachmaninov" and "Rachmaninoff", you can pass artist:/Rachmanino(ff|v)/ to the release search.
MusicBrainz-specific search fields
Area
Search Fields
The Area index contains the following fields you can search
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| aid | the area's MBID |
| alias | (part of) any alias attached to the artist (diacritics are ignored) |
| area | (part of) the area's name (diacritics are ignored) |
| areaaccent | (part of) the area's name (with the specified diacritics) |
| begin | the area's begin date (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| comment | (part of) the area's disambiguation comment |
| end | the area's end date (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| ended | a boolean flag (true/false) indicating whether or not the area has ended (is no longer current) |
| iso | an ISO 3166-1, 3166-2 or 3166-3 code attached to the area |
| iso1 | an ISO 3166-1 code attached to the area |
| iso2 | an ISO 3166-2 code attached to the area |
| iso3 | an ISO 3166-3 code attached to the area |
| sortname | equivalent to name (areas no longer have separate sort names) |
| tag | (part of) a tag attached to the area |
| type | the area's type |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the area field.
Artist
Search Fields
The Artist index contains the following fields you can search
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| alias | (part of) any alias attached to the artist (diacritics are ignored) |
| primary_alias | (part of) any primary alias attached to the artist (diacritics are ignored) |
| area | (part of) the name of the artist's main associated area |
| arid | the artist's MBID |
| artist | (part of) the artist's name (diacritics are ignored) |
| artistaccent | (part of) the artist's name (with the specified diacritics) |
| begin | the artist's begin date (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| beginarea | (part of) the name of the artist's begin area |
| comment | (part of) the artist's disambiguation comment |
| country | the 2-letter code (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) for the artist's main associated country |
| end | the artist's end date (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| endarea | (part of) the name of the artist's end area |
| ended | a boolean flag (true/false) indicating whether or not the artist has ended (is dissolved/deceased) |
| gender | the artist's gender (“male”, “female”, “other” or “not applicable”) |
| ipi | an IPI code associated with the artist |
| isni | an ISNI code associated with the artist |
| sortname | (part of) the artist's sort name |
| tag | (part of) a tag attached to the artist |
| type | the artist's type (“person”, “group”, etc.) |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the alias, artist and sortname fields.
Event
Search Fields
The Event index contains the following fields you can search
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| alias | (part of) any alias attached to the artist (diacritics are ignored) |
| aid | the MBID of an area related to the event |
| area | (part of) the name of an area related to the event |
| arid | the MBID of an artist related to the event |
| artist | (part of) the name of an artist related to the event |
| begin | the event's begin date (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| comment | (part of) the artist's disambiguation comment |
| end | the event's end date (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| ended | a boolean flag (true/false) indicating whether or not the event has an end date set |
| eid | the MBID of the event |
| event | (part of) the event's name (diacritics are ignored) |
| eventaccent | (part of) the event's name (with the specified diacritics) |
| pid | the MBID of a place related to the event |
| place | (part of) the name of a place related to the event |
| tag | (part of) a tag attached to the event |
| type | the event's type |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the alias, artist and event fields.
Instrument
Search Fields
The instrument index contains these fields you can search:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| alias | (part of) any alias attached to the instrument (diacritics are ignored) |
| comment | (part of) the instrument's disambiguation comment |
| description | (part of) the description of the instrument (in English) |
| iid | the MBID of the instrument |
| instrument | (part of) the instrument's name (diacritics are ignored) |
| instrumentaccent | (part of) the instrument's name (with the specified diacritics) |
| tag | (part of) a tag attached to the instrument |
| type | the instrument's type |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the alias, description and instrument fields.
Label
Search Fields
The Label index contains the following fields you can search
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| alias | (part of) any alias attached to the label (diacritics are ignored) |
| area | (part of) the name of the label's main associated area |
| begin | the label's begin date (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| code | the label code for the label (only the numbers, without "LC") |
| comment | (part of) the label's disambiguation comment |
| country | the 2-letter code (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) for the label's associated country |
| end | the label's end date (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| ended | a boolean flag (true/false) indicating whether or not the label has ended (is dissolved) |
| ipi | an IPI code associated with the label |
| isni | an ISNI code associated with the label |
| label | (part of) the label's name (diacritics are ignored) |
| labelaccent | (part of) the label's name (with the specified diacritics) |
| laid | the label's MBID |
| release_count | the amount of releases related to the label |
| sortname | equivalent to name (labels no longer have separate sort names) |
| tag | (part of) a tag attached to the label |
| type | the label's type |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the alias and label fields.
Place
Search Fields
The Place index contains the following fields you can search
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| address | (part of) the physical address for this place |
| alias | (part of) any alias attached to the place (diacritics are ignored) |
| area | (part of) the name of the place's main associated area |
| begin | the place's begin date (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| comment | (part of) the place's disambiguation comment |
| end | the place's end date (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| ended | a boolean flag (true/false) indicating whether or not the place has ended (is closed) |
| lat | the (WGS 84) latitude of the place's coordinates (e.g. "58.388226") |
| long | the (WGS 84) longitude of the place's coordinates (e.g. "26.702817") |
| place | (part of) the place's name (diacritics are ignored) |
| placeaccent | (part of) the place's name (with the specified diacritics) |
| pid | the place's MBID |
| type | the place's type |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the address, alias, area and place fields.
Recording
Search Fields
The Recording index contains the following fields you can search
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| alias | (part of) any alias attached to the recording (diacritics are ignored) |
| arid | the MBID of any of the recording artists |
| artist | (part of) the combined credited artist name for the recording, including join phrases (e.g. "Artist X feat.") |
| artistname | (part of) the name of any of the recording artists |
| comment | (part of) the recording's disambiguation comment |
| country | the 2-letter code (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) for the country any release of this recording was released in |
| creditname | (part of) the credited name of any of the recording artists on this particular recording |
| date | the release date of any release including this recording (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| dur | the recording duration in milliseconds |
| firstreleasedate | the release date of the earliest release including this recording (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| format | the format of any medium including this recording (insensitive to case, spaces, and separators) |
| isrc | any ISRC associated to the recording |
| number | the free-text number of the track on any medium including this recording (e.g. "A4") |
| position | the position inside its release of any medium including this recording (starts at 1) |
| primarytype | the primary type of any release group including this recording |
| qdur | the recording duration, quantized (duration in milliseconds / 2000) |
| recording | (part of) the recording's name, or the name of a track connected to this recording (diacritics are ignored) |
| recordingaccent | (part of) the recordings's name, or the name of a track connected to this recording (with the specified diacritics) |
| reid | the MBID of any release including this recording |
| release | (part of) the name of any release including this recording |
| rgid | the MBID of any release group including this recording |
| rid | the recording's MBID |
| secondarytype | any of the secondary types of any release group including this recording |
| status | the status of any release including this recording |
| tag | (part of) a tag attached to the recording |
| tid | the MBID of a track connected to this recording |
| tnum | the position of the track on any medium including this recording (starts at 1, pre-gaps at 0) |
| tracks | the number of tracks on any medium including this recording |
| tracksrelease | the number of tracks on any release (as a whole) including this recording |
| type | legacy release group type field that predates the ability to set multiple types (see calculation code) |
| video | a boolean flag (true/false) indicating whether or not the recording is a video recording |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the recording field.
Release
Search Fields
The Release index contains the following fields you can search
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| alias | (part of) any alias attached to the release (diacritics are ignored) |
| arid | the MBID of any of the release artists |
| artist | (part of) the combined credited artist name for the release, including join phrases (e.g. "Artist X feat.") |
| artistname | (part of) the name of any of the release artists |
| asin | an Amazon ASIN for the release |
| barcode | the barcode for the release |
| catno | any catalog number for this release (insensitive to case, spaces, and separators) |
| comment | (part of) the release's disambiguation comment |
| country | the 2-letter code (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) for any country the release was released in |
| creditname | (part of) the credited name of any of the release artists on this particular release |
| date | a release date for the release (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| discids | the total number of disc IDs attached to all mediums on the release |
| discidsmedium | the number of disc IDs attached to any one medium on the release |
| format | the format of any medium in the release (insensitive to case, spaces, and separators) |
| laid | the MBID of any of the release labels |
| label | (part of) the name of any of the release labels |
| lang | the ISO 639-3 code for the release language |
| mediums | the number of mediums on the release |
| packaging | the format of the release (insensitive to case, spaces, and separators) |
| primarytype | the primary type of the release group for this release |
| quality | the listed quality of the data for the release (2 for “high”, 1 for “normal”; cannot search for “low” at the moment; see the related bug report) |
| reid | the release's MBID |
| release | (part of) the release's title (diacritics are ignored) |
| releaseaccent | (part of) the release's title (with the specified diacritics) |
| rgid | the MBID of the release group for this release |
| script | the ISO 15924 code for the release script |
| secondarytype | any of the secondary types of the release group for this release |
| status | the status of the release |
| tag | (part of) a tag attached to the release |
| tracks | the total number of tracks on the release |
| tracksmedium | the number of tracks on any one medium on the release |
| type | legacy release group type field that predates the ability to set multiple types (see calculation code) |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the release field.
Release Group
Search Fields
The release group index contains the following fields you can search:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| alias | (part of) any alias attached to the release group (diacritics are ignored) |
| arid | the MBID of any of the release group artists |
| artist | (part of) the combined credited artist name for the release group, including join phrases (e.g. "Artist X feat.") |
| artistname | (part of) the name of any of the release group artists |
| comment | (part of) the release group's disambiguation comment |
| creditname | (part of) the credited name of any of the release group artists on this particular release group |
| firstreleasedate | the release date of the earliest release in this release group (e.g. "1980-01-22") |
| primarytype | the primary type of the release group |
| reid | the MBID of any of the releases in the release group |
| release | (part of) the title of any of the releases in the release group |
| releasegroup | (part of) the release group's title (diacritics are ignored) |
| releasegroupaccent | (part of) the release group's title (with the specified diacritics) |
| releases | the number of releases in the release group |
| rgid | the release group's MBID |
| secondarytype | any of the secondary types of the release group |
| status | the status of any of the releases in the release group |
| tag | (part of) a tag attached to the release group |
| type | legacy release group type field that predates the ability to set multiple types (see calculation code) |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the releasegroup field.
Series
Search Fields
The Series index contains the following fields you can search
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| alias | (part of) any alias attached to the series (diacritics are ignored) |
| comment | (part of) the series' disambiguation comment |
| series | (part of) the series' name (diacritics are ignored) |
| seriesaccent | (part of) the series' name (with the specified diacritics) |
| sid | the series' MBID |
| tag | (part of) a tag attached to the series |
| type | the series' type |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the alias and series fields.
Work
Search Fields
The Work index contains the following fields you can search
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| alias | (part of) any alias attached to the work (diacritics are ignored) |
| arid | the MBID of an artist related to the event (e.g. a composer or lyricist) |
| artist | (part of) the name of an artist related to the work (e.g. a composer or lyricist) |
| comment | (part of) the work's disambiguation comment |
| iswc | any ISWC associated to the work |
| lang | the ISO 639-3 code for any of the languages of the work's lyrics |
| recording | (part of) the title of a recording related to the work |
| recording_count | the number of recordings related to the work |
| rid | the MBID of a recording related to the work |
| tag | (part of) a tag attached to the work |
| type | the work's type (e.g. "opera", "song", "symphony") |
| wid | the work's MBID |
| work | (part of) the work's title (diacritics are ignored) |
| workaccent | (part of) the work's title (with the specified diacritics) |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the alias and work fields.
Annotation
Search Fields
The Annotation index contains the following fields you can search
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| entity | the annotated entity's MBID |
| id | the numeric ID of the annotation (e.g. 703027) |
| name | the annotated entity's name or title (diacritics are ignored) |
| text | the annotation's content (includes wiki formatting) |
| type | the annotated entity's entity type |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the name, text and type fields.
Tag
Search Fields
The tag index contains these fields you can search:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| tag | (part of) the tag's name |
CD Stub
Search Fields
The CD stub index contains the following fields you can search:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| added | the date the CD stub was added (e.g. "2020-01-22") |
| artist | (part of) the artist name set on the CD stub |
| barcode | the barcode set on the CD stub |
| comment | (part of) the comment set on the CD stub |
| discid | the CD stub's Disc ID |
| title | (part of) the release title set on the CD stub |
| tracks | the number of tracks on the CD stub |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the artist and title fields.
Editor
Search Fields
The Editor index contains the following fields you can search
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| editor | (part of) the editor's name |
| bio | (part of) the editor's bio |
If you don't specify a field, the terms will be searched for in the editor and bio fields.