User talk:Justin Tokke
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[edit] If you have a message for me, please put it at the bottom and I will get back to you.
[edit] Symphony No. 3 (Mahler) and orchestration format
Before I should again edit the orchestration section against your format, I should complement you on your contributions to Wikipedia thus far. With your format to the Mahler third, I understand that you also used a similar format for the orchestration to The Planets by Holst. It is unnecessary to capitalize the first letter of instruments. Most articles do not. They are not proper nouns.
Also, your grammar on timpani bothers me. I have made similar mistakes on "timpani"; I should not critisize you much; however, timpani refers to the number of individual kettledrums. When you state "2 timpani, 3 drums each" on the Mahler third symphony, you actually mean two timpanists handling 3 timpani. (There are six timpani, two players.) I admire that you are using a reference to make edits, though.
I am not sure about "in a high gallery", but conventionally, "in the distance", when performed, is "offstage". What is stated in a score can, but not necessarily, be copied exactly, but keep in mind of plagiarism. A Wang (talk/contrb.) 23:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I shall go ahead and just change the number of timpani. Please take a look at your own edit to The Planets. A Wang (talk/contrb.) 23:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Orchestration
Hello Justin,
Please stop reformatting the orchestration sections of music articles. Your format is very space consuming, giving the orchestration much more importance on the page than it deserves. It also goes against the standard presentation, which you can find by web-browsing symphony concert programs. Thank you for your cooperation. Opus33 19:00, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
- I'm inclined to agree with Opus33. Your formatting is non-standard and space consuming, with no real benefits that I can see; it's not easier to find, if you're looking for it, and not easier to understand, if you're willing to read. Actually, I would say it is if anything harder to read. You are of course right in saying that orchestration deserves some attention in the articles, but making the list of instruments larger, physically, doesn't add anything. If you want to propagate the importance of orchestration, why don't you instead make some actual additions about how the works are written and how the instruments are used? In fact, that is the primary definition of the word "orchestration" as I see it. EldKatt (Talk) 20:59, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
EldKatt, Please see my response to Opus33's message on his/her talk page. Maybe this will shed some light on the matter Justin Tokke 03:35, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
- I had read it prior to my message here, and my opinion hasn't changed. EldKatt (Talk) 16:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps a compromise may be in order. I do find Justin's format more readable, but it does take up a lot of space. What if the list was arranged in two or three columns instead of one? Would that still be too long for pieces with a large number of parts? Or perhaps showing a one-line list of instruments under each of the four sections (Woodwinds, brass, percussion, strings)? Powers T 15:26, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
- I guess columns would work. I am not an advanced wiki editor, so I don't know how to format this. If someone would like to do this, I think it would make it really great for pieces like the Beethoven Symphonies. However, pieces like Mahler's Symphony No. 3 has so many instruments and additions, it would be impractical.
- Also, I would like to add that the originals did not have the transpositions/instrument doublings that I have added. Justin Tokke 23:24, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Nice work on the Mahler second. I am not sure if you would like the second word of certain instruments (like English horn) in lower case. What are your feelings if it would be used on all pages? -- A Wang (talk/contrb.) 16:34, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
- Now that I looked at the score itself. All words of all instrument names are capitalizes. E.g. "English Horn" vs. "English horn". The former is written. I am editing Symphonies 7,8,10 of Mahler as I type. (10 may be problamatic though.) Justin Tokke 16:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
I've already expressed my concerns regarding your format, and I see no need to repeat them, but I have a few additional comments that you might want to consider in any case.
First, you've capitalized all instruments. I can see no good reason to do so. They're not proper names. If your justification is that they look that way in the original score (which is what I infer from your comment above), I would like to remind you, firstly, that a score is not the same as an encyclopedia, and secondly (and perhaps more importantly) that the scores you're looking at are editions. Another edition might have different capitalization, and no edition is for our purposes more correct than another, unless it is an original or urtext edition. In this case, if we were to follow the original edition in this respect, we should, in the case of Mahler, have all instrument names in German. Obviously we can't do this, so we should instead follow standard English capitalization rules, and thus not capitalize any of the instruments.
My second comment regards your sometimes arbitrary grouping of instruments. On Symphony No. 2 (Mahler), you've listed "3 Clarinets in B-flat, A, C" as separate from the two clarinets in E-flat, which is nothing but confusing. You might want to be aware of such issues, considering the large number of edits you are making, and considering that you're intending to make some sort of standard.
I could of course go after these issues myself in the vast number of articles that are affected, but I would rather talk to you about it first to avoid misunderstandings and pointless labour. EldKatt (Talk) 10:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Too many capitals
Hello. Your edit to Frank Sinatra School of the Arts prompts this tip: The "External links" section heading should have a lower-case initial "L". Generally you shouldn't capitalize an initial letter merely because it's in a section heading. As with article titles, the first word should start with a capital and subsequent words should be capitalized only if there's a particular reason for it. Michael Hardy 04:58, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
