Talk:Interpolation (popular music)

Phrasing

"Interpolation can also refer to when an..." this is awkwardly grammared. Let's clean this sucker up.

Citations needed: borrowing

Citations are needed both on the claim that "interpolation" is used to refer to musical borrowing of this kind and the specific borrowings described. Thanks. Hyacinth (talk) 06:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Patter

I don't question whether square dance callers use patter, I question whether that is considered interpolation. Hyacinth (talk) 19:58, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

• In the broader sense of interpolation as something inserted into a performance that breaks into a phrase, I would say yes. Here's JESSIE SALISBURY of the Nashua Telegraph on "Trying to learn the basics of square dancing", in News and Classifieds from Southern New Hampshire [1]:
  • "In most groups, there was one outgoing, life-of-the-party-type person who memorized the figures and became the prompter, or later 'the figure caller.' He acquired a list of colorful sayings, or 'patter,' that he could insert among the cues to add to the fun."

• My idea in this article was to show several of the many ways in which artists interpolate new material into existing music or texts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fbarw (talk • contribs) 21:02, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I would caution you to check Wikipedia:No original research first. Hyacinth (talk) 02:02, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I think Contrafact may be more what you're looking for. Hyacinth (talk) 10:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Removed

In a process analogous to its use in music, a literary work could be enlarged, amplified or expanded by interpolation, often of witty material or quotations; this was called farcing (from Latin farcire, to stuff). In the commedia dell' arte, an interpolated comic episode usually involving a practical joke was called a burla (Italian for joke), while a piece of interpolated comic business or dialogue was a lazzo (from Latin laqueus, noose or snare). A gag originally meant an interpolation by an actor in his lines of an amusing local or topical allusion, or bit of byplay.

Interpolation can also occur at the level of individual words or lines. Thus, in classical prosody, lengthening by an interpolated syllable was designated diectasis (from Greek diekteinein, to stretch out), while a short colon or rhythmic series called a mesymnion (from Greek mesos, middle, and hymnos, hymn) could be interpolated in a stanza. The interpolation of meaningless sounds or words into speech is called embololalia (From Greek embolos, something thrown in, and lalia, speaking).

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I removed the above (references) since it is not about music. Hyacinth (talk) 01:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

interpolation in Nicholas Slonimsky's "Thesaurus of Scales and Patterns"

I don't have a copy of this book to cite from, but I remember that he used "interpolation" in a specific melodic sense to mean inserting as little material as one note into an existing melody, rather than inserting a whole new phrase within an existing phrase. If someone else has a copy, will you add this additional meaning to the article and cite an example from the book? Another Stickler (talk) 11:16, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Use in popular music: citations and claims questionable

Anybody else find the idea that interpolation now means "cover version" in popular music a bit dubious? All the citations are album reviews, and most of them cite a quote from the producer of Wu-Tang Clan that sounds like a probable misuse of the word... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.20.66.27 (talk) 03:26, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I find INTERPOLATION used often in forum discussions when the intent is clearly to interpret or to transcribe. I would avoid using interpolation to mean anything other than a sketching-in between two points, it's original meaning in mathematical graphing technique, wherein there are two points given and you have to guess the curvature and path of the line connecting them. This is similar to the usage made in in sampling theory, specifically where a Digital-to-Audio-Converter must make a "best guess" aka interpolation(/interpretation) of what to output when one or more samples are missing in the playback stream for CD or other digital sourceBandcoach (talk) 02:19, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Novel redefinition not backed by pre-existing use

As far as I can tell, the term "interpolation" referring to "replayed riffs or restated lyrics from another musical work" is a definition wholly originating from the website WhoSampled. All uses of "interpolate" to mean this seem to stem directly from that site. It doesn't reflect any pre-existing usage of the term. I speculate that the editor behind WhoSampled picked a ten-dollar word that he thought meant this or would be appropriate to use to mean it, but not really knowing at all what the term meant. But because few people know of another term for the practice, and likewise don't know what "interpolate" otherwise means, it's leaked into contemporary usage.

Note that the only citations in this article, as of this writing, are from WhoSampled.

Existing definitions of "interpolate" refer to mixing something of one type into something of another type, for example, interpolating images within text -- but not interpolating text within text, as both things are the same type, namely, text. In mathematics, it basically means inferring or estimating intermediate, non-sampled data points from existing sampled data points. In classical music, the closest thematic usage, it means "insert something of another genre/style in a work of another style." The only aspect that the WhoSampled definition of the term has in common with those meanings is "putting something into something else," for which there exist plenty of other words besides "interpolate," such as "integrate," "reintegrate," "intersperse," "insert," "mix," "disperse," "combine," "pepper," "spike," etc.

Prior to WhoSampled, replaying someone else's riff in your song was, at best, called an homage or called "borrowing" (and in early hip hop, restating someone else's lyric in your own song was called "biting rhymes"); at worst, it's called "a copyright violation." - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 16:38, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Confused entry

This article is confusing the subject of musical interpolation, like the beatles in All You Need Is Love, which the legal concept of rerecording samples, which is a very distinct idea and topic. They should not appear together. Editor6060842 (talk) 10:30, 6 April 2021 (UTC)