Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (music)/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

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)

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)

As far as I know, all music using the standard notation uses the Italian terms, even music published in China or wherever. I don't think a language-neutral version is necessary. ALTON .ıl 00:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

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)

Improved

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

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)

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)

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)

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 Bb) or subscripts (G# or Bb). 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)

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)
Well, notes like "F[]" and "E[]" look far worse than F# & Eb, so the unicode sharps/flats lose the battle for looks. Bottom line is what the world does. I have been fighting unicode problems for over 10 years, so don't expect unicode-nirvana in January 2010. The world uses F# or "Eb" so that should not be forbidden. Banning C#/Gb is like thinking "z" is silly this year, so the guideline becomes "Twilight Sone" and striped "sebra" etc. -Wikid77 12:30, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Still more sharps and flats

Sorry to bring this up again, but this is often the cause of minor 'edit wars' and clean-up issues. Hyphen or no hyphen? The consensus above is to say "C-sharp minor" and "B-flat major" but the actual wikipedia pages are C sharp minor and B flat major. Should we go without the hyphens or change the key pages to have hyphens? DavidRF 21:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

01-June-2007: The past few days, I have been restoring hyphens to "C-sharp minor" (etc.) within that article's text and ensuring redirection to each article for each music-key. I have read hours of talk/discussion pages and noticed horror about all the articles which had used hyphens before the music-key articles were moved/renamed without hyphens. There is a 90% danger that Wikipedia concensus will run counter to world-usage (such as article "titles" with only the first letter capitalized: "History of world wars"), so beware making guidelines which lack a world-view. Ask first WWWD? What would the World do? How many publish articles with one capital letter? The world writes "C-sharp minor" hyphenated and expects articles for that. Also, ask "Would it make Wikipedia look like a joke?" -Wikid77 12:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Instrumentation on wikiproject classical music

This discussion is on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music.' Classical music articles for pieces scored for a complex orchestra usually feature a section called "Instrumentation" or "Orchestration". First, they should all be unified. This topic is a controversial one currently. There is the format issue. Somehow, this issue must be resolved and put on the Wikiproject classical page as a guideline. — Andy W. (talk/contrb.) 02:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

"Seh' " not a stray quote

That is an abbreviation apostrophe. The original word is "sehe" and the convention is that when ending vowels in German are omitted they are replaced with an apostrophe. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DChapii (talk • contribs) 17:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC).

Y Done fixed —Turangalila talk 14:27, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Can we formally adopt the hyphenated "-sharp" and "-flat"?

This has been mentioned above; I really think it's time something happened. Wikipedia really should have a clear standardized style with regard to how to write A-flat or G-sharp. Currently usage is all over the place, and the MoS itself is contradictory. I strongly believe the hyphen is much clearer and better:

  1. It's one note (pitch class), it should have a one-word name if possible.
  2. There's a difference between an F-sharp and a "sharp F".

If we can get a consensus on this, I'll happily take on at least some of the necessary cleanup, particularly to article titles (e.g. making C sharp minor a redirect to C-sharp minor and not the other way round.

PS: also, on this page, for clarity the sections "Flats and sharps" and "Major and minor" should be folded together under a single header, like "Note-names and keys" or some such. —Turangalila talk 14:57, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

01-June-2007: I have been converting articles to use "F-sharp" or "B-flat" in avoiding those dreadful unicodes which people have reverted for over 18 months. However, I noticed when searching with Google that the world still uses "F#" and "Eb" (especially in guitar notation). You remember the guitar chords: D#maj, Am, C#sus, Ebmaj, Ebm, F#dim, D#maj7. The only guideline should be to avoid unicodes but use "F<sup>#</sup>" for typesetting superscripted F# to illustrate an optional appearance. Banning #/b from F#/Eb is like spitting in the world's face or calling guitar players morons. -Wikid77 13:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion copied over from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music:

I wanted to call attention here to my attempt at the music-MoS talkpage to generate a better consensus standard for writing the names of "black key" notes or keys on WP. Majority usage right now seems to favor writing out "sharp" or "flat," since those Unicode #'s and b's are a browser access problem...but there's alot of variation in using the hyphenated form ("C-sharp") versus the non-hyphenated ("C sharp"). I strongly favor the hyphenated form. It's one note and should be one word; I think most browsers won't put a linebreak in the middle of the hyphenated form; there's a difference between a B-flat and a "flat B"; and, well, I just like it better. To me "A-flat major" just looks right, while "A flat major" could be a two-dimensional commander. My books and scores mostly use the symbols, but seem to favor the hyphen when they don't. Anyway, I think the style should be consistent if possible, and I'd appreciate folks chiming in on either side -- probably better over at the MoS page. Thanks, —Turangalila talk 20:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Until the actual Wikipages for B flat major etc. get hyphenated, I would be wary of going on a hyphenating spree just yet. Centy 17:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Actually I'm hoping to achieve a consensus for the MoS first, then change/move the article titles as necessary. Redirects should be available in either case, but my object is a standardized style, which doesn't yet exist. —Turangalila talk 19:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Key names shouldn't be hyphenated: I believe that if you look at the literature, "naked" keys are the norm. (Points for humor by Turangalila, though, as in the answer to the riddle: "What do you get if you drop a piano down a mineshaft?"). +ILike2BeAnonymous 17:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the points, but I'm not sure there even is a "norm". Most books on my shelves use the symbols; among those that don't, my Baker's, my Maynard Solomon Beethoven, and the translations in all my Dover scores use hyphens, while my Paul Henry Lang and Kobbe's use the "naked" style. I just think within WP it should be one or the other, & personally I feel the hyphenated style is clearer. —Turangalila talk 19:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

New discussion:

Support, I had thought it recommended this style for a long time. ALTON .ıl 00:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Oppose as stated. When used as a noun (such as a note name C sharp) it should be unhyphenated. When used as an adjective (e.g. C-sharp major) it should be hyphenated. This is consistent with other hyphenation usages in English. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
That explains what's currently on the project page. If that's the proper standard it should be explained explicitly (and even with that standard some articles would need renaming). If that's consnensus, cool.
However: Again here, I don't think wider English usage is anywhere near as consistent you imply. To use an analogous nonmusical example, one sees both "President-elect" and "President elect" in different forums. Is there a particular style-manual or dictionary you're relying on? The nearest thing to on-point guidance I've found so far is from Dictionary.com's FAQ page : "[The hyphen] is used... 8) for compounds which begin with a single capital letter, e.g., H-bomb, U-turn."
Either way the grammar-dependent guideline strikes me as frankly a bit fussy and needlessly confusing, leading to the possibility of passages like "...after the cadence in B-flat minor, a sustained D flat leads to a sudden modulation to D-flat major...". —Turangalila talk 21:23, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
I open my garage door with my garage-door opener. Don't you? —Wahoofive (talk) 02:54, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't have a garage, but a quick Google search shows that not everyone follows your rules. I'm trying to be serious here. FWIW I'm not sure the "A-flat" in "A-flat major" even is an "adjective"; and I don't much care. The MoS is here to try and make WP consistent and readable, not to reform or standardize the English language. —Turangalila talk 15:44, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Major keys

Hopefully this will be less contentious than the whole hyphen discussion. When a piece a music is written in a major key, can we make it a policy to actually write in major instead of just leaving it out. Eg. it will be Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, instead of just Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D.

There are many pages where anything in a major key loses the word major. Although we may know what we mean, this is highly ambiguous and confusing for new people. (Someone once asked me how Mozart wrote an entire symphony using just one note).

Centy 11:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. —Wahoofive (talk) 15:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I think that's actually the current standard, but perhaps some clarification is in order...I think I might write a draft guideline in my userspace for naming all notes, chords and modes & link to it here, to see if we can make clearer whatever consensus settles on. (of course there are cases where mode-mixture is so prevalent it's best to leave it just as D or whatnot, but that can be acknowledged in the guideline) —Turangalila talk 16:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
There are of course exceptions where the single-letter is most commonly used (Gershwin's Concerto in F and Bizet's Symphony in C). In instrumentation, they'll often mention that the clarinets are "in B flat" or the Horns are "in F". Should those stay? For your case above (Beethoven's Violin Concerto), I would just leave out the key as Beethoven only wrote one Violin Concerto. In other cases, often the opus or catalogue number is a much better disambiguator. But as for the typical description of a movement's traversal through various keys and chords I prefer to see the key-note used as an adjective and not a noun ("F major", "G7 chord", etc.) DavidRF 01:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
David, I was more thinking when we refer more formally to a piece of music in a list etc. , we should probably keep a standard. Even though Gershwin's Piano Concerto is commonly known as Concerto in F, I would much prefer consistency and call is Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F major when used more formally in a list or navigation box. You can still refer to the Concerto in F in passing during a prose section in the same way you could refer to the Appassionata or Paganini Rhapsody. Also when there's a lot of mode mixture, maybe we should drop the key altogether. Even saying the piece is in D implies to readers its in D major rather than it has more flexible tonality. Centy 12:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, I do agree with you on keeping lists formal. I was just straining to find "exceptions". Gershwin and Bizet seemed like works that were almost exclusively described by "in F" or "in C". (Terry Riley's work would be the ultimate extreme in that regard). An example of works that need to be changed are Liszt's Transcendental Etudes. Those pages even have the bad form in their titles. For that case, I'd just name the pages simply "Trascendental Etude No. 1 (Liszt)" and let the navbox have the key label (with the major/minor in the navbox and not just the single letter).
I'm actually against omitting the major/minor in the prose as well (with the extreme cases like the Gershwin & Bizet titles excepted). There's really no reason for the prose to attempt to be clever or extra terse on wikipedia. These articles are often just skimmed for facts, so why not just spell things out all the time. (On yet another aside, referring to the Paganini Rhapsody a "Concerto in F" or the Appassionata as a "Sonata in F" just seems unnecessarily cryptic with or without the major/minor tag. That almost makes the user click on the wikilink to figure out what the author intended.) DavidRF 15:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

(reset margin) For article titles, check the WP:Classical music page. Generally keys are avoided unless they're the common title, or for redirects. In the case of the Gershwin I think using "F major" would be sacrificing accuracy for consistency, which is not a good idea. Similarly for the Riley In C or the Stravinsky Symphony in C or Concerto in D. Also in descriptive passages of, say, Strauss or Wagner, the major/minor label may cloud the issue. But where a piece is clearly in C major, the article should say so clearly. On David's question, major and minor should be applied only to keys and chords, definitely not to transpositions or instruments — there's no such thing as an "A minor clarinet".

What should definitely be discouraged is the use of shorthand, like "C" or "Cmaj" for C major, and "c" or "Cmin" or "Cm" for C minor. I also think chord quality should be written out, i.e. "G dominant-seventh chord" — "G7" is ambiguous for non-musicians, or even just non-jazzers. —Turangalila talk 20:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

A call for coordinated action

I have posted the text below at Talk:Augmented sixth chord. I reproduce it here because I think it's time we set up something more systematic and coordinated for the music theory articles, and this seems to be a proper place to discuss such a thing. – Noetica♬♩ Talk 02:44, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

A consensus seems to have emerged that this article [Augmented sixth chord; but the same applies to very many] now needs coordinated and systematic work to raise it to the next level of quality. Like many or most of the music theory articles, it has evolved rather chaotically. It is not surprising, to students of the Way of Wikipedia, that such articles should need rethinking after their first couple of years. What is remarkable is that there is so much good information in them! We should respect the work of those who brought them to their present state, for at least assembling the material, and marshalling and maintaining it as well as they have.
Looking at the discussion above, we see evidence of dissatisfaction with specific content. But we also see some broader and some more basic issues raised, and it is not reasonable to deal with those here. That would be extremely inefficient; and it is not necessary, because there are other substantive articles with talk pages at which these issues are more usefully and effectively discussed (like spellings of the tritone, and precise regimented meanings for that term); and where there are not such articles, they can be made and perhaps should be made (like the article proposed above for six-four chords, whether cadential or not, and their proper naming and indications); and where issues are very broad and affect several articles, there are suitable places for principles to be laid out also (like how to indicate chords generally, with their various modifications and inversions, which is appropriate for Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(music): a neglected resource).
I think these issues have priority, and that we should focus on them before attempting to fix relatively complex problems specific to augmented sixth chords. So I suggest we all adjourn to Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(music), call in a few other music active editors (by putting notices in the talk pages of relevant articles), and set an agenda for discussion there, and for discussion and action elsewhere as well.
What do people think about that? For myself, I am reluctant to take on much else until we have more orderly ways of operating worked out. Perhaps if we set up some sort of an overall program for the music theory articles, we can respect each other more and waste less time promoting our own prejudices and preferences, and more on making real progress that will be useful and satisfying for everyone concerned. We could then each use the skills we have – writing and improving text; the technicalities of tables, musical examples, etc.; or particular expertise with content – to produce articles that are deficient in none of these departments.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 02:44, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm good with this, although I wonder if this particular page is the right place. Maybe Music theory? That's an article which needs a good deal of work, and if we could reach some consensus there about terminology and the like, we could then apply it to other pages. This page is pretty moribund. —Wahoofive (talk) 04:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Wahoofive raises an important question, which had exercised me too. It seemed to me that this would be a good place to initiate discussion, at least. It may be moribund, but it won't be if we revive it. So anyway, my proposal is that we consider this question first:

Q1: What is the best location for a wide-ranging discussion of the music theory articles, to develop a plan for more coordinated action than we've had so far, and to settle on some rational, consensual guidelines?

Any ideas, folks?
The next question might be this:

Q2: What issues need attention?

And a natural continuation might then be this:

Q3: What are the priorities among these issues? Which are more consequential, and which are less? What is the most effective order in which in which these issues might be addressed?

All subject to revision, of course. There are many ways to continue from there. I just think we need to do some rather free brainstorming first, and only then sort through the issues we identify in a more structured way. Given Q1 above, I'll now open a new section with it.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 05:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Action plan for music theory articles: Question 1

Arising out of discussion above, I put forward the following question for focused discussion:

Q1: What is the best location for a wide-ranging discussion of the music theory articles, to develop a plan for more coordinated action than we've had so far, and to settle on some rational, consensual guidelines?

– Noetica♬♩ Talk 05:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a WikiProject. There's a WikiProject Music and a WikiProject Music terminology. The latter of these might be a place to start on some of the topics you're concerned about. That would be the place, for example, to establish a usage guideline for the terms diatonic and chromatic. —Wahoofive (talk) 15:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

More flats and sharps: doubling

Hi -- I was generally in favor of the MoS's insistence on real unicode flats and sharps instead of graphics or "#" and "b", but I was writing the other day and needed a double sharp, and realized that no standard browser font supports the Unicode musical symbol for double sharp (U+1D12B). I know in some contexts, "F-double-sharp" would be acceptable to write, but not where there are many notes in a row to be named. Comments on this problem? I would think that we're going to need to allow Fx for F-double-sharp in some usages. Two flat signs closely approximate a double flat, but two sharp signs don't substitute for a double sharp. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 03:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

What I personally wish is that we could incorporate pictures of double sharps and double flats into the text, but they never seem to align properly (eg F) still it's best if we just stick to F double sharp for now. It's not that often you get a whole string of double flats and sharps. Centy – reply• contribs – 10:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! The DoubleSharp.svg image's alignment is good enough for my purposes (it's at least as good as the unicode flats and sharps that my font shows, which are terribly misaligned horizontally). It's the issue where I don't want to write: "the motive is E#, G#, F-double-sharp, A#, B#, C-double-sharp" because of the huge extra space taken by the double-sharp symbols. (talking about some of the Skyriabin late pieces). Thanks! -- Myke Cuthbert (talk)
I just happened to read that paragraph with a page width that put the F at the end of a line and the at the beginning of the next. How on earth can you force no-break? David Brooks 02:18, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
The nobr HTML tag might prevent breaks:<nobr>don't break this</nobr>. - Rainwarrior 04:21, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually, after checking that out, it's not standard HTML and doesn't work with a lot of browsers. You could maybe try packing it into a table with no padding or border? - Rainwarrior 04:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Wiki-forcing unicode fonts

02-June-2007: (revised) It is sorta pathetic that the world is 99% MS Windowsish and unicode sharps/flats are still trouble. However, it is worth a try to Wiki-force that font ("MS Reference Sans Serif") in limited sections of a music article to attempt to reveal those horrid unicodes, especially for C-natural. The Wiki-force could be HTML tags:

"<font face="MS Reference Sans Serif">D♯=E♭ (D#=Eb)</font>"

As long as the font is limited to short phrases/notes, it wouldn't be a total violation of each user's personal font choice for displaying Wiki articles (plus the issue of WP feeding articles to other websites). Here's the result of using the above font-face tag: "D♯=E♭ (D#=Eb)" (previous font here). Compare several fonts (to see how few work):

  • Courier-New font: "D♯=E♭ (D#=Eb)" (previous font here)
  • Arial font: "D♯=E♭ (D#=Eb)" (previous font here)
  • Lucida Sans Unicode font: "D♯=E♭ (D#=Eb)" (previous font here)
  • Symbol font: "D♯=E♭ (D#=Eb)" (previous font here)
  • MS Sans Serif font: "D♯=E♭ (D#=Eb)" (previous font here)
  • Bookman-Old-Style font: "D♯=E♭ (D#=Eb)" (previous font here)
  • The "Arial Unicode MS" font: "D♯=E♭ (D#=Eb)" (previous font here)
  • The "MS Arial Unicode" font: "D♯=E♭ (D#=Eb)" (previous font here)

The troublesome unicodes are really needed mainly for C-natural, which would justify a Wiki-force to override each user's font to ensure the unicode-natural symbol appears. Of course, none of the above fonts worked for me, so at this point, I've spent days trying to display unicode sharps/flats. Wow, I could have composed an entire piece of music during that time. (huh?) -Wikid77 01:47, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are suggesting here. What is the point of specifying a font face? Also, what version of Windows are you running, and what browser? (The last few versions of Windows have had pretty good unicode support as far as I've seen, right out of the box.) On an older computer I've seen the problem remedied by enabling support for international languages in I think the regional language settings (it was one or two checkboxes to click). I believe at this point both Opera and Firefox automatically come set up to display these unicode characters properly (I think IE is fine with it too at this point). - Rainwarrior 04:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
For clarification, IE7 (the latest version) still doesn't have full support for Unicode characters unless the Unicode character is found in the first font specified by the webpage (see my comment above]). From the list above, Lucida Sans Unicode font is the only one that worked for me in IE7. --Dbolton 16:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Interesting; you seem to have hit on the fact that the Lucida Sans Unicode characters are much more nicely designed than the default MS Gothic characters. So at least on my browser, this text: F<font face="Lucida Sans Unicode">&#x266f;</font> produces F♯ which looks more professional. How can that be turned into a macro? David Brooks 18:03, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Correction - "Arial Unicode MS" looks even better: F♯, B♭ David Brooks 18:06, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
You could make it into a template, but I don't think it's a good idea to be forcing the user to use a specific font because you think it looks better, especially since the availability of fonts seems to be the primary problem here. - Rainwarrior 14:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
However, on the issue of whether to render sharps and flats using the unicode symbols or the number sign and lower-case b, I disagree with the latter for several reasons. The symbols do not have the correct meaning, which is the biggest issue I have with it. Second, modern search engines are not thwarted by unicode symbols. Google handles these characters perfectly, for instance. Third, your reference to things like guitar tabs (at Talk:Circle of fifths or Template talk:Circle of fifths) having used these symbols is somewhat invalidated by the fact that most of those files are encoded in a format that does not make these characters an option. Internet guitar tabs go back a long way, and at the time ASCII was the most useful format for reasons that are irrelevant to this discussion. Wikipedia is internally encoded in a unicode format. It is encoded this way because it is a very good standard for international text encoding, and support for it has only been increasing over the last 10 years. I don't think the majority of users should be forced to use the wrong symbol to avoid a problem for the minority of users who have out of date software. Browsers which support the characters in question without problem are very freely available. - Rainwarrior 05:22, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Since IE6 and IE7 hold the majority, this is not a minority of users. This doesn't necessarily mean that we should change because of IE. For example, Wikipedia made a similar choice with the OGG media format (until the recent Java applet, the majority of user had to install additional software to view or listen to it).--Dbolton 16:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so the problem is not that IE can't display the character, but rather that the user does not have the required font? IE6/7 may have the majority of users, but how many of them are missing the required fonts? I haven't actually seen the problem in quite some time, which is why I'm assuming it's not as widespread as it used to be (don't the more recent versions of windows come with these fonts already installed?). I think it would be better to try to assist those who don't have the correct fonts rather than to replace it with symbols like # and b. - Rainwarrior 14:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
This article contains Coptic text.
Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Coptic letters.

I've discovered what might be a good solution to this problem in some of the multilingual articles. Wikipedia already has a Help:Multilingual support page intended to help people get the proper fonts installed, and on some pages using these characters have one of the little templates from Category:Multilingual support templates at the top right which link to it (see example). Why not create one of these templates for musical characters? - Rainwarrior 16:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Your template suggestion is a good one. However, it is important to note that the primary issue is the limitation of a users' browser, regardless of whether they have the correct fonts (see the "Technical Note" at the top of Help:Special characters). It appears that Template:IPA was created to properly render IPA pronunciation symbols in IE6/7. I think this type of template maybe more helpful and is more akin to David Brooks' font tag proposal above.--Dbolton 22:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Unicode template for sharps and flats

I created a page to demonstrate a possible music template for displaying sharps and flats in Internet Explorer. Since it uses CSS I had to create a page outside of Wikipedia. See Template:Unicode#Purpose for an applicable explanation. Please comment below.--Dbolton 22:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Can we use this to render natural signs and double sharps and flats? I appreciate the work, but I also think that once we start with templates we should aim for a larger set of supported glyphs. It's great work so far though! Oh, can we make it {{music|flat}} via #if statements instead of {{music|&#x266d;}}? You're right though that the rendering is much better on Firefox than the default. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 22:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm in favor of your suggestion to use {{music|flat}} via #if statements instead of {{music|&#x266d;}}. I will look into it. This would also allow the use of pictures for double sharp and double flat until the Unicode characters are better supported. --Dbolton 22:08, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
This is an interesting solution. I like it. - Rainwarrior 03:20, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I think this provides a solution for showing flat, sharp, and other accidental signs when those are appropriate. There is, however, a bigger issue of when they should be used and when they shouldn't (or when it might be better not to). Even when the signs come up on screen properly, not everyone in the general public understands what they are. I think that is often better, certainly when stating the key of a musical piece (Symphony No. 1 in D-flat major) to spell it out, so that everyone can read it (whether they understand it or not, at least they can read it), rather than putting in the accidental sign. Certainly, in my experience, most printed programs at concerts and recitals (both in the United States and Europe) spell it out this way. Perhaps the signs themselves are best reserved for discussing instrument keys (E-flat clarinet), although even there we are forcing people to somehow understand what that means. I think we might be surprised how many people unfamiliar with the accidental signs might look up "clarinet" and be somewhat mystified. An analogy might be with discussing elements. The Wikipedia article about "water" uses the term water throughout, and only refers to H2O as the chemical formula, for instance. QwertyUSA 09:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Sample template

Unfortunately the Template:Music namespace is already in use. Since the current Template:Music is only used 14 times (see Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Music) the move would not be burdensome. In the meantime I created Template:Accidental. Please edit or make suggestions. Myke Cuthbert could you help with the #if: statements? [I managed to get the if statements working]--Dbolton 23:32, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

WAY, WAY Cool! This is Great! Dbolton is my new hero! Suggestion: we try to get the class name "music-notation" or something like that. But let's get Template:Music -- all but four of the 14 times were mistaken usages, and of the four only two are using the template to display anything except "Doesn't play any instruments". I think moving would be fine, but I've put a note there. I think it'd be great to be able to put {{music|whole-note}}{{music|tie}}{{music|eighth-note}} and get something nicely inline. It may also be possible to do more complex things like {{music|roman|ii65}} and get something like ii_5^6 -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 02:04, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I know zero about fonts, unicode, and the wiring behind all this, but a big pat on the back if you can get a universal (or near-universal) way to display music characters, just so we don't have to regularly revert the well-meaning insertion of lower-case 'b's and number signs. - Special-T 15:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

People will do that no matter what, unless you mean the ones who do it because they can't see what's there? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 16:05, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Belated weighing-in: it seems that the good-looking solution is at hand. One root of the problem is that it's more a question of what fonts are installed on the user's system, so it's hard to come up with a universal solution on the basis of a few self-selected people testing it. Given the adoption of a template instead of a single in-line character, we could have the unicode characters with fonts specified in decreasing order of goodness, and a graphic as ultimate fallback, but I don't know if that is possible to code in HTML. So, where are we with the template name and the choice of fonts? On my Windows system, Lucida Sans Unicode would be the first choice with MS Gothic as fallback. David Brooks 23:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I take that back: on my system MS Reference Sans Serif looks best. The other fonts seem to include more whitespace at the top and/or bottom. David Brooks 00:06, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your input. The first font in the list is Arial Unicode MS this is based on your comment above that it looked the best. It comes with a full install of Microsoft Office but it is not a standard system font (I don't have it on my computer). Lucida Sans Unicode is the back up font. Lucida Sans Unicode is install by default on Windows since '98. Mac and Linux seem to display sharps and flats correctly with or without the template (although User:Rsholmes reported an issue).
The advantage of using a template to specify the fonts is it allows us to make changes universally rather than editing every single occurrence across Wikipedia. If issues crop up once the template it is used beyond our "self-selected testing" environment the template will allow us to easily fix or refine it.
If you have a preference on the template name please comment in the section below.--Dbolton 02:26, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed move to Template:Music

Doesn't accidental better suit what you are all trying to do? Why music? Isn't accidental what you are trying to express. -PatPeter 23:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a couple small advantages with the Template:Music namespace. First, "music" is half the length of "accidental". The word "music" offers convenience (brevity) without sacrificing meaning which will be factors that determine its wider adoption. Second, the more general category "music" would allow us to address future needs of a similar nature (a few possibilities are mentioned by Myke Cuthbert above). That said Template:Accidental would address our main concern, and it is not the end of the world if Template:Music doesn't work out.--Dbolton 00:47, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that the template has been used at Note. Should we still move it to Template:Music (before it receives wide-spread use) or should we leave it at Template:Accidental? So far, it appears Myke Cuthbert and myself are in favor of the move. PatPeter is opposed. --Dbolton 23:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Another vote for the move. Template:Music may be overly generic, but Template:MusicalNotation is obviously too long. David Brooks 16:55, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
I'd say take Template:Music based on the fact that Template:Music isn't relevant to articles anyway. Even if you broke it, no article would have a problem. Why is a template with such a general name being used for user page info like this? (And only like 6 of them, even?) I'd say use Move on the existing template (or just go to the user pages and subst it in) and then just replace it. There is no reason to be using Template:Music for what is there right now. - Rainwarrior 17:52, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
I have made the move to Template:Music and moved the older page to Template:User Instruments List. At the same time, someone else wiped Music and put in a completely different usage, which I moved to Template:Music Portal and fixed all the links. Because I'm not an admin, the edit history at Accidental couldn't be moved. If a couple other people could watch these pages, I think it'd help. I'm going to work on the template to add some other functionality. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 16:05, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Mac issues

On my desktop computer, an iMac running OS X 10.4.9, Firefox 2.0.0.4 displays the symbols on Template:Accidental the same way with and without the template -- good sharp, double sharp, flat, and double flat signs, but the natural sign displays as a question mark. Safari 2.0.4 displays all the symbols including natural sign correctly, with or without the template. Just a data point. -- Rsholmes 03:50, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. The primary intention for creating the template was to address a Windows issue with Internet Explorer. If there is a way to address the issue you are describing I will do so. Do you (or anyone else) know if Lucida Grande or any other default fonts have support for the natural sign? I wasn't able to work out which fonts had which glyphs on Mac. (For what it's worth the natural sign displayed correctly for me when I tested it on Mac running OS X 10.3.9). --Dbolton 06:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Yup, the default Mac browser displays all of these with no problems. If possible, please try to design a template which only affects display in browsers with problems (as was done in template:IPA; see Template talk:IPA#Technical details).—Michael Z. 2007-06-27 07:33 Z
For the record, two browsers do not display sharps and flats without the template: Internet Explorer, Safari (Windows). It also improves rendering for other browsers on Windows by choice of fonts. This is different than technical demands of the IPA template. If anyone know how to make a template that does not affect display on Mac, let me know.--Dbolton 16:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
From what I've seen this template does not affect display on (my) Macs, at least in Safari (all signs work with or without template) and Firefox (all signs except natural work with or without template). Correction: The double flat/double sharp signs are affected -- they're better with the template, in both Safari and Firefox. (Without the template they are rendered correctly in shape but much too small.) -- Rsholmes 18:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
By the way, can anyone confirm whether these characters work in Safari/Windows?[1] —Michael Z. 2007-06-27 07:33 Z
Interestingly my test of Safari on Windows displays only the natural sign without the template, and all the symbols with the template.--Dbolton 16:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Linux issues

On my Linux box (Scientific Linux 4.x) using Firefox (2.0.0.4): Without template, flat/sharp/natural are OK, double flat/double sharp are bad; with template, all five symbols are OK. -- Rsholmes 18:32, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Why Template:Music and not Template:Accidental?

Because treble clef life half note would quarter rest be so much sixteenth note less fun alto clef without symbols!

or Because {{music|treble}} life {{music|halfnote}} would {{music|crotchetrest}} be so much {{music|sixteenth}} less fun {{music|altoclef}} without symbols! -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 18:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your work Myke. --Dbolton 21:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposals for diatonic and chromatic

I propose that the term "diatonic" be used on WP exclusively to mean the more restricted definition of the white keys and their transpositions, while encouraging editors to link the term to the page Diatonic and chromatic. The reason for choosing this option is that there isn't any other really convenient way to refer to this meaning, whereas it's easy to refer to the set of major and minor scales. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:02, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

This is an important matter, and it affects many Wikipedia articles. The article Diatonic and chromatic can quite reasonably include a section on "approved" Wikipedia usage, mentioned and internally linked prominently in its lead, once things have been settled here.
I'll present my own starting position soon, as Wahoofive already has, when I have time. I suggest that others think about doing something similar. One recommendation: deal with diatonic and chromatic jointly here. First change the heading of this section to reflect this. [O, I hope this doesn't offend anyone. I've now made such a change. We need to be able link informatively to this discussion from other pages.– Noetica♬♩ Talk 04:10, 10 June 2007 (UTC)] The two terms are connected, very often being taken as opposites. (While I am drawn to Wahoofive's suggestion for its simplicity, unfortunately there are many ways of using both terms, and some of them are not straightforwardly connected to the choice we might make for scales as derived from the "white-key" gamut. We want a simple and rational solution, but we can't just jump to one.)
Other recommendations: suppress biases, and work genuinely towards a robust consensus; keep the discussion orderly, making it clear what comment you are addressing, from which editor; preferably reply after a whole contribution, not interleaving fragments within it, and always sign your contributions, wherever they occur on the page.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 04:08, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Wahoofive. This is the established use among academics, and we should defer to them on Wikipedia. I furthermore think the page on "Diatonic and Chromatic" should be renamed as "History of the terms Diatonic and Chromatic" or something similar. Njarl 22:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I said above that I would present my position here soon. I regret I have been unable to give this my attention because the world presses for a share of it as well. I do believe the matter is irremediably more difficult and subtle than Wahoofive's proposal makes it appear (see Talk:Diatonic and chromatic, where there is still more to say, and still more to go into that article), much as I like that proposal. I'll get back to this later.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 00:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think we should have a policy of using any term in a restricted way rather than using it as it is used in the real world. For example, in musicology especially, "diatonic" is often used in a way that is interchangeable with "tonal". I think the policy should be to take care when using the term diatonic. Just make sure the intended range of meaning is crystal clear (i.e. explain it where you use it). Wikipedia music articles shouldn't have a different set of definitions from the real academic music literature. Wikipedia is supposed to teach you about the outside world, not be its own insular conservatory of music theory. - Rainwarrior 03:44, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Images using b's and #'s instead of Unicode

I noticed that Image:Pianotocircle.jpg and Image:Circle of fifths.svg use b's and #'s instead of Unicode flats and sharps. When I tried to fix the images I ran into problems with the Unicode characters in my drawing software. Can anyone help me out?--Dbolton 03:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Since you're creating the images on your own computer and thus know which fonts you'll have installed, you might try using a font where flat and sharp are in the lowest 255 characters. The Bach font would do perfectly for that. I know this will work for a .jpg--I don't know if fonts can be embedded in .svg files. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 06:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge from Wikipedia:WikiProject Music terminology

Wikipedia:WikiProject Music terminology has been marked as inactive again. Would it be helpful to merge that page here? It seems to have been superseded by this MoS page, and partially by List of musical terminology (Which I notice is not currently linked from here (I'll add it now). Possibly parts of the wikiproject-music-terminology page could be usefully merged into there also, as I suggested a year ago). Just some thoughts :) --Quiddity 18:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.