Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (music)

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Contents 1 Discography of Korean, Japanese, Chinese and so on 2 Musical Excerpts 3 Initial comments 4 Improved 5 Flats and sharps 6 More sharps and flats, et al 7 Font problems?? 8 Use of Unicode sharps and flats is an access barrier 9 Why are b and # deprecated for flat and sharp?

[edit] Discography of Korean, Japanese, Chinese and so on

It's not easy to express CJK musician name. So I tried to make a Template:Non-english discography. But the result is not so good because I'm poor at template, style or class. I need some music lover's help.

I think CJK discography need these components.

• Musician, Album Title, Released Year, Reissued Year, Cover, Original Title(in CJK or other), Romanization Title

Here is examples Shin Jung-hyeon(after templating), Hahn Daesoo(before templating) --Zepelin 09:12, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Musical Excerpts

How do people think musical examples (graphics) should be handled? Should tempo and dynamics be shown? These are all questions that need to be answered, as there is no standard. My idead of how they should look is at the page Porgy and Bess

I think it depends on the size of the sample, and also the context in which you are using it. For an example which is just a few notes, for example a leitmotif, you can get a musical point across without tempo and dynamics. If you have at least several bars, however, dynamics and tempo are utterly essential to a complete representation of the music. Of course there are cases (for example, 17th century and before) for which there are no tempo or dynamics in the original: in those cases leave them that way. Antandrus (talk) 20:47, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

One may create two images, one with text such as tempo and dynamics in English, and one without text so that other languages may be added and the image used in non-English versions. This is suggested by Wikipedia:Preparing images for upload#Replace captions in the image with text. Hyacinth 11:08, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Initial comments

On a quick glance, this looks good overall. But: Do you mean "major" and "minor" should always be lowercase? It's not clear. Also, maybe the "Titles" section could start with a concise explanation of "generic" "form" and "true title." Maurreen 06:44, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, they should be lowercase unless they start a sentence, which now that I think about it, would be very infrequent. I don't know how I can give a more concise explanation of true titles. It's a difficult concept to explain. Maybe a better explanation of generic titles will help clarify things. – flamurai (t) 14:34, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

I tried to explain things a bit better. Sometimes I forget that some of the audience may not be musically savvy. – flamurai (t) 15:09, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

1. We need guidelines as to where to put opus numbers like BWV and KV and so on. Brackets, commas, etc. 2. A big problem is really with international titles, especially German, French, and Italian, and searching for types of works that are given with a title in another language. Can we mis-use the Wikipedia link style to write something like [[Symphony|Symphonie]] FantastiqueThore 08:51, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The first question, I had something in there originally, but I removed it. I'll replace some of it. As for your second question, I don't know. That's really not something so clear-cut. – flamurai (t) 12:06, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Improved

I like your changes. The page is more clear now. Maurreen 02:41, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Flats and sharps

I have a problem with using Unicode for flats and sharps. The spaces before and after these symbols is much too large and it disrupts the flow of text. I hate the # and b too, but the Unicode isn't the best answer. We could suggest italicizing the b for flat even if the letter name isn't italicized (Bb major), and encourage the Unicode when it's not part of a sentence (graphic captions, formulas, and the like). —Wahoofive | Talk 05:17, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The spacing is an issue with the fonts installed on your particular system. On my system (GNOME with DejaVu fonts) it looks great. I say Unicode is the best answer. —Keenan Pepper 23:10, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

What I see on my computer when I see the signs is simply boxes. Georgia guy 23:53, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

That's probably because none of your fonts contains sharp and flat characters. Do they appear in your character map? —Keenan Pepper 23:58, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

My character map has a number of different fonts. Georgia guy 01:11, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Right, but do sharp and flat appear for any of them (or the one you normally use)? —Keenan Pepper 02:10, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More sharps and flats, et al

Just want to clarify: When referring to a key with acciental, I always use a hyphen; i.e., B-flat, C-sharp. Perhaps, if this is correct, it should be added. Also, on another matter, I've italicized generic titles (i.e., List of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)).... Is this incorrect? --bleh fu talk fu June 29, 2005 19:21 (UTC)

Only use the hyphen when it's acting as an adjective: B-flat major. If referring to the note, omit the hyphen: the first note is B flat. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:22, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Font problems??

On the standard font, when I see the Unicode sharp sign, it is a box. However, when I copy-paste the sign into the address box, what I see is a real sharp sign! However, it doesn't work for the flat sign. How come it works for the sharp but not the flat?? Georgia guy 01:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I found out that that is in a font called MS Sans Serif. My computer also has a font called MS Reference Sans Serif where I see both a real flat sign and a real sharp sign! Georgia guy 01:29, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of Unicode sharps and flats is an access barrier

I've looked though the character maps, and not too many fonts include both of these two Unicode symbols. Neither Windows IE, Opera, nor Firefox will render these symbols by default unless Arial Unicode MS is installed. Currently that font is only offered with the installation of Microsoft Word. Firefox for the debian Linux doesn't render it either, so this isn't just a "Microsoft problem". Not all potential readers of wikipedia articles are willing or knowlegable enough to exhaustively search for the unicode fonts that happen to support these two infrequently implemented symbols. Without these symbols rendering correctly, the articles using them can be quite confusing and not very useful to the reader. The choice of unicode sharps and flats seems more of an esthetics issue because the standard ASCII characters "b" and "#" have been sufficient and compatible workarounds for a very long time. There are alternate ways of formatting ASCII sharps and flats to look more professionally typeset that won't present compatibility issues such as the use of italics eg (G# and Bb), smaller Font size eg (G# and Bb)), superscripts eg (G^# or B^b) or subscripts (G_# or B_b). BigE1977 00:04, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Just FYI, my own experience is that Firefox on Debian and on MacOS X both render them fine. Maybe I installed a package earlier that pulled down the right fonts, I don't know.

Aside, note that either Unicode flat and sharp or the words flat and sharp are acceptable. If we're going to avoid the Unicode, we should standardise on the words only instead of sacrificing semantic value by using substitutions with muddy meanings. — Saxifrage ✎ 05:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

My understanding: Firefox, Safari, and Opera work fine as long as some font has the necessary Unicode characters, even if it is a different font from the one specified by the web site. MS Internet Explorer "is capable of displaying the full range of Unicode characters, but characters which are not present in the first available font specified in the web page will only display if they are present in the designated fallback font for the current international script (for example, only Arial font will be considered for Latin text, or Arial Unicode MS if it is also installed; subsequent fonts specified in a list are ignored)" (See: Unicode and HTML#Web browser support).

I propose some mention of the display issues of Unicode sharp and flat sign in the article. There is plenty of discussion about it on this page.--Dbolton 22:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why are b and # deprecated for flat and sharp?

Exactly why are b and # deprecated? Sure, they are not quite the correct symbols, but they are pretty close and probably comprehensible to a very high proportion of readers. Until the Unicode symbols are available universally, why limit access by insisting on them when the slightly inelegant alternative actually works? 138.37.199.206 10:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

# may be close, but b is not. "Bb" looks silly and/or confusing. Best to write out "-flat" if you really don't want to use the symbol. Powers ^T 13:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see this. Bb is an incredibly commonly used alternative for people who can't or won't use the real symbol. You look at it and you think, ah yes, they mean B flat even though it might appear at first sight - to someone who has never seen it done ever before - to say "BB". It may look silly or confusing to you but I think you are taking a particularly purist standpoint about the use of musical symbols, and I do not think it is necessarily a practical stance for this particular place. If it was, articles would not keep being subject to sequences of reversion between people who want the right symbols and people who say "er but I can only see blobs, boxes or whatever". If I say "Trumpet in Eb" I really think that in the context of a music article which has already referred to trumpets in A, D, G and C, that it's quite unlikely anyone will be stuck for very long going "blimey, what on earth is a TRUMPET IN EB?" And if they are, they are probably so far adrift that I am not sure the real symbol is going to help them much either! :) 138.37.199.206 11:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, in context it might not be confusing. It still looks silly to my eyes, more so in certain fonts than others. If you don't want to use the real symbol, use "-flat" or "-sharp". The MOS allows for that. Powers ^T 14:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that but it looking silly in your eyes isn't sufficient reason to never use it. I can counter that by simply saying "yes but it looks useful in mine". As for what the MOS allows for, well what are we discussing here? My contention, with respect, is that the MOS is too restrictive and should be broadened to allow for Bb and A#. I Note that at the top of the MOS it makes the quite bold claim "The consensus of many editors formed the conventions described here." I don't see this consensus, but rather a couple of people deciding, in perfectly good faith, what they liked. I do not, with the greatest of respect, see a consensus being reached after many editors discussing it - or is that in an archive somewhere? - in which case I will apologize most prettily! :) 138.37.199.206 18:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how or when the consensus was formed, but I think you'll discover that such consensus exists if you start changing high-profile articles from the Unicode symbols to "b" and "#". =) Powers ^T 21:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)