Talk:Baritone

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[edit] Welcome to the Baritone discussion page

Constructive suggestions and discussion welcome! The contents of this page are for ongoing discussions. For past discussions please see the archives.

[edit] Reorganizing the baritone articles

The baritone articles have been anomalous - they haven't followed the format of other voice articles.

I propose to move the section called "Baritone roles in opera" from the article List of baritone roles) to here (removing roles already covered in this article) to be called "Other baritone roles in opera". Meanwhile I propose to rename List of baritone roles as "List of baritone roles in musicals", in line with other similar lists.

After moving the list I suggest we then cull those roles which are not useful as examples.

Here is the list (with duplicates removed)

[List now moved to article page]

--Kleinzach (talk) 08:35, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 212.22.3.17 vandalism?

This IP keeps inserting the name Sir Desmond Hayes-Lynge (apparently a resident of King's Lynn in England) in the list of Austrian/German lieder singers? Why? -- Kleinzach (talk) 14:28, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wakonda's Dream?

SORRY FOR THE EXTRA BLAB, BUT THE PART THAT MENTIONS "WAKONDA'S DREAM" IS NOT RELEVANT. IT IS NOT A WELL-KNOWN, IMPORTANT WORK IN THE STANDARD REPERTOIRE AND THEREFORE IS NOT A DECENT DESCRIPTION FOR THOSE LOOKING FOR COMPARISON OF ROLES. PLEASE REMOVE IT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.10.132.32 (talk) 23:03, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Non Opera Uses section

should include examples of uses of a baritone voice that is not typical of the music style it is in. Obviously examples of barbershop and bluegrass are too many, but there are some rock uses:

  • Joy Division, and it's modern clone Interpol.. post punk / prog rock
  • Beat Happening

Nnnudibranch (talk) 20:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

The article is very weak on English singers or English language singers, and on the English classical repertoire for baritones which is non-operatic, e.g. singers such as Harry Plunket Greene, Frederic Austin, in repertoire such as lieder, Sea Drift (Delius) and the oratorio and cantata in general (those are just examples, but there is a whole genre lacking from the article). It is as if the article were written by someone who is mainly interested in opera. Dr Steven Plunkett (talk) 18:15, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A different perspective

Frequently when talking about voice parts, especially baritone, tone is a factor, many basses can hit F4 in their chest voice but it frequently sound strained, likewise tenors can often push for the low bari notes but again with poor tonal results, a baritone can hit notes that are high for basses and low for tenors without straining their voice, it doesn't matter if you have a 5 octave range if 3 of those 5 octaves sound like a dying bird. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.135.86.151 (talk) 22:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Including a list of musical roles

I invite everyone to join this discussion on the voice type talk page. Past consensus has been to not include a list of such roles but perhaps this topic should be re-adressed. This topic involves all voice types as there has been a strong attempt to try and make each voice type page similar in content and format. Nrswanson (talk) 22:32, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "This article needs additional citations for verification"

Just to clarify, the reason I removed the refimprove tag (now replaced by Nrswanson) was not because I disagreed with the need for more references, but because (1) this article does actually have reputable references so a general tag message may be misunderstood, and (2) it is now a long article with seven main sections. I think it would be much more helpful for everybody to either put ref tags on individual sections and/or 'fact' tags on individual sentences. The article has a lot of good content and we should encourage its development. With a bit of work this could be GA standard. -- Kleinzach (talk) 09:26, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Be that as it may. About 90% of the information (most of which I believe is accurate), is unreferenced. That is the majority of the article. The listed references are cited sparingly so I feel the tag is quite appropraite. Especially since this particular tag's purpose is to highlight articles like this one that are good but don't have the information cited. I would be putting fact tags at the end of almost every paragraph otherwise.Nrswanson (talk) 18:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't think tagging is a good idea unless it's clear what action is required and where. In this case it's not and the refimprove casts doubt on what is actually a very good article. As we have reached an impasse on this, let's ask some other people their opinion. I think I'll ask User:Voceditenore. -- Kleinzach (talk) 23:46, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't put a 'refimprove' tag at the top of an article unless it had very few or no independent sources listed. (I especially use it for biographies, and especially for bios of living people.) Or if the article contained a lot of assertions that seem obviously wrong or controversial, i.e., too many to tag efficiently with individual {{Citation needed}} tags. This might be a better one to put at the top (or in the relevant sections: {{nofootnotes}}. Take a look at it. The problem with 'refimprove' is that it casts doubt on the article as a whole, which I don't think is justified here. Voceditenore (talk) 07:54, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
PS If some of the info in the article can be found in the 'further reading' section, then those items should be moved to the references section under a subtitle of Further references. Having said that there are some very weird items in the current 'further reading' section, e.g.
  • Boldrey, Richard; Robert Caldwell, Werner Singer, Joan Wall and Roger Pines (1992). Singer's Edition (Light Lyric Soprano): Operatic Arias - Light Lyric Soprano. Caldwell Publishing Company. ISBN 13: 9781877761027. 
  • Boldrey, Richard; Robert Caldwell, Werner Singer, Joan Wall and Roger Pines (1992). Singer's Edition (Soubrette): Operatic Arias - Soubrette. Caldwell Publishing Company. ISBN 13: 9781877761034. 
  • Coffin, Berton (1960). Coloratura, Lyric and Dramatic Soprano, Vol. 1. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.. ISBN 13: 9780810801882. 
What's all that stuff about sopranos doing in a baritone article??? Voceditenore (talk) 08:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Presumably the soprano books were copied over here by accident, anyway I've removed them. -- Kleinzach (talk) 10:26, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I just looked more closely at the History section. Frankly, I think that whole section deserves this tag {{Essay-entry}} as well as {{Refimprove}}. There's an awful lot of personal opinion and evaluative language applied to various singers such as "superb", "outstanding", "the quintessential interpreter of Poulenc's songs", "a lieder singer of penetrating intelligence", "celebrated for their beautifully sung lieder recitals as well as for their mellifluous operatic performances" etc. etc., which needs not only referencing in general but probably editing for a more neutral, objective tone unless independent sources can be found who have actually described the relevant singers in these terms. Incidentally, I don't necessarily disagree with the assessments, and it would be fine as an article in Opera News or something similar, but it's not really encyclopedic style, especially in its currently unreferenced form. Voceditenore (talk) 13:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Follow-up. I just plowed through the history of the article and see that the problems with this section were introduced in November 2007 by 59.101.25.183 who created the same problem in most of the articles he/she edited. See also User talk:59.101.25.183. In this baritone article, I see that all his/her edits to the History section were reverted once for POV [1]. But 59.101.25.183 immediately reverted back and added even more. The section remains that way today. Voceditenore (talk) 14:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I have done an edit to remove the kind of phrases that you refer to above. I must say that I agree with the writer in almost all his opinions, so IMO the problem is not accuracy but purely the old-fashioned and non-encyclopedic style. Hopefully I have now done something to remedy it.
To Nrswanson: Having discussed all this I think the right thing to do is remove the refimprove tag. Can we please do that now? -- Kleinzach (talk) 07:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Well in my opinion, if the article does not actually cite sources the fact tag should stay. Maybe I am taking too strict of a stance and I will not make a fuss if the fact tag is removed. But simply put, if the article does not say where the information is coming from than that information becomes questionable regardless of the fact that it appears to be accurate. This is one of the major problems I have with wikipedia and personally try to remedy. When information remains uncited or there are no internal citations but just a list of resources, it is very easy for inaccuracies to creep into articles and remain un-noticed. If you write a paper in college, you have to say where you are getting your information from. I think the same standards are supposed to apply within wikipedia articles.Nrswanson (talk) 07:20, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I've removed the refimprove from the top of the article. Please put 'unreferenced' or whatever tags you think appropriate on specific sections or sentences. -- Kleinzach (talk) 07:36, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the removal of the general 'refimprove' tage from the top of the article. Following that, I combined the further reading with the refs as outlined above and added {{nofootnotes}} at the top of the refs section to alert editors/readers that there's potentially more work to be done. Kleinzach, you've done a great job in editing the style of the history section! Nrswanson, I'm not sure which areas of the article you're still referring to, but note that links to other Wikipedia articles (provided they themselves are reasonably well referenced), can serve as supporting evidence, e.g. that a particular singer was notable and notable in a particular repertoire, likewise which are the prominent baritone roles. As for the need to provide an inline citation for every single assertion/fact in the article, that's not only not necessary in my view, but can also be dstracting. Have a look at the Wikipedia guidelines on this, They are stricter than required by a magazine artcle but not the same standards as would expect in an academic paper. But if you feel that there are any statements in the article that could use an inline citation because they are dubious or controversial, then just add the {{Citation needed}}. Sticking a refimprove tag on the whole article is a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Voceditenore (talk) 08:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't see what is unclear. Most of the history section is unreferenced, as is the entire opening paragraph. Also, the ranges and list of roles are uncited. I disagree that inline citations are distracting. I understand that attribution is required only for "direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged." But this is the bare minimum requirement, as in a just passing grade. Inline citations are a requirement for feature articles on wikipedia and part of the Wikipedia:Good article criteria. Furthermore, Wikipedia:Verifiability makes it clear that wikipedia can not internally reference itself. I personally think the information is good so I'm not challenging it. I just think that quality articles include in text citations of all material. I personally think that the two of you don't understand this particular kind of tag. The purpose of tags in general is to highlight weaknesses in articles so that they may be improved. If I were disputing the facts presented in a particular aarticle I would place an entirely different sort of tag than the one used in this instance (the dispute tag) that actually said that the information in the article was inaccurate. The particular tag that I added to the article is not for the purpose of challenging the credibility of the information but merely to encourage the addition of quality referenced material to support the information presented. See Wikipedia:Cleanup resources. Tags can even get so specific as to highlight articles that fail to list page numbers with listed references. A tag on an article is therefore not always meant to cast the info on the page in doubt. As for all of the referenced books listed in the baritone article, I added those to all the voice type pages ages ago under the ambition of improving all of the voice type pages. I was stupid enough to include some of the ones I was using for the soprano article when I copy pasted the references onto the baritone page so you can blame me for that. Thank you for fixing that by the way. Up to this point, I have managed to contribute to all the female voice type pages but I am just now getting to the male voice type pages. That being said, none of the information in this article comes from those listed sources unless someone else has looked at them. I will be getting around to it later in the week. So really, this article's information probably doesn't come from any of the listed sources. Which just goes to show the necessity of in text citations. Nrswanson (talk) 11:24, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I've now removed all the further reading items that you had added (since you say you haven't checked them yet to see if information in the article can actually be found in them) and replaced them with sources that I know are relevant to the article's content. I noted in a ref at the outset of the history section that that whole section is based primarily on the Grove 'baritone' article, which I have personally seen. I have also added some more basic refs for the various types of baritones. Possibly better ones can be found, but these are OK for now. And yes, I'm familiar with the various tags for improving refs and Wikipedia:Good article criteria. But note that it is suggested that both the {{Refimprove}} and the {{Nofootnotes}} templates be placed in the references section not at the top of the article. And yes, Wikipedia can't be used as a source per se. But you also have to use common sense in interpreting that in a particular context. I honestly don't think that every single blue-linked baritone, opera or composer mentioned in this article needs to have an additional inline citation to another source about them, unless what is written about them is controversial. Voceditenore (talk) 15:39, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Well I don't think I was advocating citing sources for every little thing voceditenore. That would be rediculous. And I certainly never advocated citing every blue listed baritone. But mostly everything was uncited in regards to major pertinant information. And I thank you for the references you just added. Nrswanson (talk) 16:46, 4 March 2008 (UTC)