Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music/Appraisal

Appraisal of Manual of Style (music) MoS as of 6 April 2010 by Jubilee♫clipman 18:32, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Initial observations

This section contains my initial observations on each section of this MoS.

• General thought arising from my attempt to rewrite Accidentals: the avoidance of the ambiguous phrase "accidental symbols/signs" must be sought after at all costs!
• Another thought: a few sections simply summarise the advice found in WP:MOS, eg the first section; other sections are not obviously about MOS issues, eg Citing sources

Equivalent terms in different varieties of English

• This duplicates/summarises WP:ENGVAR. Is it strictly necessary?
• If "yes" to the above, should we add examples? Or too WP:BEANSy? E.g. tone vs note; measure vs bar; semibreve/minim/crotchet/quaver vs whole, half etc tone, note, step etc [how to explain all that?!].
• "The first crotchet (quarter note) in the bar is loudest." this actually has two occurances of ENGVAR, only the first being highlighted.

Accidentals

A suggested rework of this section based on my observations here can be found in the next section below

• Why write "Use either the {{music}}... or the words..." for sharps and flats but only write "template is recommended" for the others?
  • Why no mention of ♭, ♯, and ♮ under symbols in the insert bar? What actually is the status of these? They are easily accessible, afer all, and far more obvious that the whole {{template|parameter}} thing.
  • The whole explanation is horribly convoluted, anyway: "Use either the {{music}} template flat {{music|flat}} (♭) and sharp {{music|sharp}} (♯) symbols or..." = "Huh? What was the either again?"
• Is The Unicode Standard 5.0 explanation necessary? Surely, a "bee" is not a "flat" and a "hash" is not a "sharp" says the same thing?
• Do we really need to know about SVG?
  • Would Unicode and SVG be better explained in a footnote, if an explanation is necessary at all?
• Why single out IE? It is not the only browser with compatiblity issues. Is that information still up to date, anyway?
• Double-sharps are used in an example before their usage is explained.

Chords, progressions, and figured bass

• "...are indicated through the use of...", "...there is an application of..." etc - sloppy writing. Better to use more direct writing style.
• Strike-through text styling can now be replaced with {{!xt}} and the boxes caused by leaving a space before the line can be replaced with a table or some such.
• "The degree sign ("°")..." - horribly complex explanation of the options. Cut to the chase and recommend the template, then explain alternatives (footnoted?), IMO.
• What about the other math markup discussed in 2008? <math>\mathrm{C_4^6}</math> = $\mathrm {C_{4}^{6}}$ and <math>\mathrm{I^{\flat6}}</math> = $\mathrm {I^{\flat 6}}$

Italian music terms

• Plurals - why say there are alternatives but not give them in two of the cases? I.e. "cellos" or "celli"; "timpani" or (rare) "timpanos", or, for that, matter "timpany", tympany", and (incorrect but common) "timpanums" etc etc... The correct Italian singular needs to be explained perhaps? Or avoid T[y/i]mpan[i/ums/os/y/is/ys] altogether as too BEANSy?

Major and minor

• No obvious problems. Could be tightened further, perhaps.

Classical music titles

• Gets a bit tl;dr
• Need the advice first then description: e.g. "Generic titles are in Roman type. These are title that..."
• Generic movement titles
  • We need this advice to be next door to that on generic titles in general (as it were) so that people don't just read the first line, look at "Piano Concerto" and write "Minuet And Trio". (!)
    • (I'm, not convinced that "Allegro Moderato" is wrong, either, after reading countless scores, linernotes, books, etc, but that's an issue for another day.)
  • The examples place the names at the head of a sentence so the words are bound to be capitalised, anyway. Refactor examples to use the names mid sentence.

Popular music

• Generally OK but could be tightened further.
• There was talk of adding eponymous to the list of words to avoid as it, too, is not widely understood and often misapplied.

Images

• Needs WP:Image use policy to be linked at the head in BIG FLASHING TEXT. Or at least using {{See|WP:Image use policy}} or the like. The near-asides at the end of this section are "too little, too late", IMO.

Stringed instrument tunings

• "In articles on stringed instruments and related topics, information on the tuning of the strings is very often included." - Well "D'uh!". "...almost never excluded" included is probably closer to the truth: Violin, Viola, Cello, Viol, Double Bass, Guitar, Bass Guitar, Sitar, Mandolin, Scordatura...
• "...raises some surprisingly tricky issues, as the conventions adopted elsewhere are not terribly consistent." Am tempted to add {{pov-inline}}, {{weasel-inline}}, {{cn}} etc to this...
  • Update - have toned this down in the actual MoS --Jubilee♫clipman 19:33, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Citing sources

• Is this a MoS issue?
• "Only basic information... may be left to an editor or editors' ears..." - Huh? Does this mean it is editor's choice or that that info can be left uncited or what?

See also

• Wikipedia:Disinfoboxes presently relates to nothing on the page. It should either be removed (as not being relevent to the actual MoS as it stands) or balanced with Help:Infobox plus an explanation of when (and how) best to use or when (and why) to avoid infoboxes in music articles. NB: most of the Classical Music WikiProjects object to the inclusion of biographical infoboxes in articles on classical musicians, composers, etc: there may be need to include that fact at some stage.
  •  Done Hm... I added that! Forgot...  :) Have removed it. Wonder if anyone will put it back in? --Jubilee♫clipman 19:42, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Rework of Accidentals

Use either the words or the symbols as explained below.

Words - The use of words to indicate accidentals is always acceptable but must follow the recognised standards (see WP:MUSTARD).

Symbols - The {{music}} template is available for all accidentals (as well as several other symbols used in music scores). As a general rule, use of the template is recommended over use of the Unicode characters (such as ♭, ♯ and ♮ found under symbols in the insert bar) and HTML entities because the template is designed to render correctly on all systems.

• Avoid b, #, x and X
  • b, x and X are the symbols for the letters of the alphabet only and # is the symbol for the number sign (often called a "hash"). None of these are to be used for accidentals, especially b and #.
  • Also, do not use two sharp signs in a row (♯♯, ♯♯) for a double-sharp () as this usage is not recognised by musicians or theorists.

• Usage:

Further information: [[:Template:Music]]

Accidental	Unicode	Template	Template parameters	Avoid
Flat	♭	♭	{{music|flat}}	b
Sharp	♯	♯	{{music|sharp}}	#
Natural	♮	♮	{{music|natural}}
Double flat			{{music|doubleflat}}	bb
Double sharp			{{music|doublesharp}}	##, ♯♯, ♯♯, x, X
Half flat	♭ (Adds HTML: <s>♭</s>)		{{music|flat stroke}} {{music|halfflat}}
Half sharp			{{music|halfsharp}}

Examples:

• Key signature:
  • Right: E-flat major
  • Right: E♭ major
  • Wrong: Eb major
• D major triad:
  • Right: D, F♯, A
  • Right: D, F sharp, A
  • Wrong: D, F#, A
• D♯ major triad:
  • Right: D♯, F, A♯
  • Right: D sharp, F double-sharp, A sharp
  • Wrong: D#, Fx, A#
  • Wrong: D#, F##, A#
  • Wrong: D♯, F♯♯, A♯

Footnotes [to be placed at the bottom of the page rather than at the bottom of the section]