User:Vaux
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Vaux is a student in the University of Maryland's PhD program in musicology. He holds the degrees of MA in music history and BA in music theory from the University of New Hampshire. Vaux is also a composer in several contemporary and retrospective idioms who has had many works performed in the vicinity of 'seacoast' New Hampshire, and has filled multiple commissions.
Vaux has long known of the wikipedia, and used it often for researching topics in geography, political history, and social history. Until quite recently, however, Vaux's computer and/or browser were unable to survive the loading of wikipedia pages for long without crashing, and so he has abstained from other than the most minor editing.
On 31 May, 2005, however, Vaux, now armed with more RAM, decided to become a contributor, and has so far, though in fits and starts, contributed significant content to several pages in the musicology area. Vaux feels that this process is good practice for comprehensive exam taking and class preparation, in both of which he will soon enough be embroiled.
Vaux notes that, at least as they discuss the matter in AMS-L, it seems to him that many musicologists are wary of the wikipedia, fearing that it is an unreliable source that perpetuates "bad knowledge." While this is no doubt true in some cases and some subject-areas, Vaux feels strongly that the way to mitigate this is not to ignore or defame a project with much nobility of intention and equal possibility ultimate success. Rather, he proposes that musicologists, along with and as an example for scholars in all fields, should take it upon ourselves to make the wikipedia a reliable resource; the wiki paradigm is our opportunity to render a general knowledge of music's history and theory accessible to more people than ever before, especially the young, who look first to the Internet for their information, and will take it from this source whether good or not.
Things to do:
The Etude (significantly expanding stub}
Recent contributions:
revised Philippe de Vitry; wrote Gebrauchsmusik article; began and wrote much of the mensural notation article; wrote Petrus de Cruce article; wrote Placido Falconio article; contributed significant material to Medieval music and Renaissance music; significantly expanded Galant stub.
more text to be added later.
e-mail: pmdcvy@umd.edu