Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music/Archive 8

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Defining "for tape"

Hello Classical Music buffs! I have been doing some work on the Disambiguation Links project, and have found that there is a style/type of music composed "for tape." This really seems like it's the sort of thing that should be explained, whether on the Minimalist music page or else in its own article, but I can't find an explicit definition of it. The term is used all over the place in naming pieces, it would seem, but I still don't have a clear conception of exactly what it means. This is the closest I was able to come to a definition.

Anyway, if someone knowledgeable on the subject would create this article, I would gladly use it to fix some of the many links which people now point at the general tape disambiguation page. Oh, and if this is the wrong Talk page for this, I'm sorry! Please let me know who I should ask about this. Thanks. -- ʞɔıu 06:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

See Tape music, Tape loop, Process_music, It's Gonna Rain, etc. Personally, I don't know anything about this music, but you should be able to find editors who do by looking at the history of those articles. DavidRF (talk) 15:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Removal of project banner from Simon Rattle page

Regrettably, IP 131.111.213.37 has now removed the project banner (twice) from the Simon Rattle page, see [1]. -- Kleinzach (talk) 07:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The anon does have a point in that none of the other conductors are in this project. Many of them are instead in WP Musicians. Looks like the Classical banner wasn't added until yesterday (after this debate had already started). Now, it may or may not have been an oversight that conductors were not added to WP Classical, but it doesn't seem in good faith to add project jurisdiction in mid-debate (at least without some higher-up's authorization). I'd wait until this debate is over and then we can discuss which WP (or WP's) should govern the conductors. DavidRF (talk) 14:33, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... It seems like WP Musicians would not be a very good choice, because that places the classical musicians, as a tiny minority, amongst the popular music performers. The knowledge base and editing skills required to cover classical music are really quite different than for popular music. So I feel it would be more sensible to place the classical musicians in the WP Classical Music project instead. Cheers, Opus33 (talk) 16:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Editing skills? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 17:03, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Yup. Take a look at professionals writing about music, for instance the reviews in your daily newspaper, or at a more scholarly level the New Grove or the popular music writing in The New Yorker. Both classical music and popular music get some outstanding writing, but the styles and vocabulary used are different. It's true we Wikipedia editors are just amateurs, but we should aspire to use the writing styles and vocabularies that are the professional norm in any field that we cover.

That's what I meant. Cheers, Opus33 (talk) 17:42, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

We've never tagged classical musicians before and I have never considered the articles under this project's jurisdiction. Looking at just how many articles there are, I think it would be best if a whole other WikiProject was set up to cover them. I think WP:CM should stick to classical compositions myself. Centy – reply• contribs – 17:34, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, singers fall within the scope of Project:Opera so it's not that crazy to put conductors in the bounds of the Classical Music Project - but if anyone wants to start a sub-project for Classical Musicians, I won't stop them. --Folantin (talk) 17:38, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The obvious follow up is then what about soloists - violinists, pianists etc.? Centy – reply• contribs – 17:42, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have no plans to write articles on any of these subjects so my opinion isn't that important here, but maybe they'd go under Project:Classical Musicians too. Of course, this assumes we need a project to write those articles which isn't necessarily true. --Folantin (talk) 17:49, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Break

Here's the thing: even if we did decide WP:CM should cover conductors and instrumentalists, I feel we would be called up on ownership and bad faith by other editors by making this decision now so that we can use consensus we've reached here, at our WikiProject, on infoboxes. After all most of these articles have long been tagged by WP:BIO and a there a LOT of pro-infobox editors at that WikiProject. This all of a sudden means we have two WP at loggerheads. I reckon if we had a WikiProject Classical Musicians, we could make these subprojects of WP:BIO and then those projects could have the final say on the infobox matter. Centy – reply• contribs – 17:53, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

May I add another point - read our project page. Apart from Biographical infoboxes, not one section mentions how we should write for classical musicians. The whole page is virtually geared at writing for pieces of classical music. Even or stub template acknowledges our project covers only classical compositions. My argument is why bother totally restructuring this WikiProject when we could easily make a new WikiProject with the added benefit of higher gravitas on the issue of biographical infoboxes. Centy – reply• contribs – 18:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as what we decide, can I please remind people of the discussion at WT:WikiProject_Classical_music/Archive_5#Infoboxes for conductors? which left me with the impression that people thought it probably appropriate for conductors to fall here.--Peter cohen (talk) 18:33, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we really came to any consensus over whether we should create a separate WikiProject. The discussion quickly turned into an agreement that conductors should not get infoboxes. But I for one support an offshoot project. As Kleinzach points out - there are over 3,000 articles on conductors - that's more than enough for a WikiProject. Besides most of the classical music editors on Wikipedia are members of Composers, Opera and CM projects - having another WikiProject is not going to dilute our editors - it simply makes it easier to manage the articles on Wikipedia and also come down with firm guidelines. At the moment we can't really argue that we have the last say on infoboxes for conductors given we've said for quite some time - we cover articles not already covered by other music WikiProjects and all biographies are covered by WP:MUSICIANS. Centy – reply• contribs – 18:41, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

TFTR, I was really wanting to highlight that this was not a new subject of discussion. As far as how things should be organised is concerned, I know that WP:DOGS recently took over WikiProject Dog breeds with the latter becoming a taskforce. If we have such a substantial overlap between the CM-related projects, are taskforces the way to go?--Peter cohen (talk) 19:30, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this idea. The gigantic WikiProject Biography manages its articles by creating task forces, allowing articles still to "fall under the jurisdiction" of the main project, while concentrating efforts and directing questions to a smaller group of editors. Also, if we have all these offshoot projects (Composers, Compositions, Musicians), then the banner for this project will become redundant, having to be included with at least another one of its child projects, or miscellaneous, as the fallback template for odd articles with no specific project. I'm still not entirely convinced about the apparent need for delegation in the first place, but maybe I'm understating the gravitas of the situation. ALTON .ıl 03:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Alton: Not really. We can always do what WP:BIO and WP:MILHIST do...put this parent WikiProject banner on all the pages and then say underneath, this article is supported by the following subWikiProjects and then say either composers, musicians or compositions. Heck, I reckon composers and musicians can even be merged. Centy – reply• contribs – 03:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you've done, and it's excellent. ALTON .ıl 06:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Scope of this project: the discussion in September 2007

On 7 September I started a new topic ('Infoboxes for conductors?', see here) and asked this question: "Do conductors come under your bailiwick, I wonder?" and "I was wondering whether this project has a policy on conductor infoboxes?" . (My main interest is in opera hence the focus on conductors (with many of them working in opera) rather than instrumentalists etc.)

After some discussion, Alton replied: "CM covers conductors in the broadest scope. Therefore, the answer to Kleinzach's question is: yes, WP:CM covers them" . This was tacitly accepted by all those taking part in the discussion (including Centy). Having settled that, we then went on to talk about whether the project should have a guideline on biographical infoboxes for classical musicians including conductors and musicians. (It was agreed not to have them.)

I believe this project should renew its commitment to classical music in general. If anyone wants to concentrate on compositions then it would be better to start a new project called Compositions. There's great scope for developing the structure of these music projects. No doubt we will have new projects in the future if we have a enough editors and sufficient interest in more specialized projects. However until that happens I hope this project will continue to undertake the responsibility of looking after classical music in general - in line with its name. -- Kleinzach (talk) 23:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem with renewing its commitment to classical music in general is that there are too many offshoot projects covering the same thing like WP Composers and WP Contemporary Music that really should be part of this project (or at least taskforces). Saying that this project covers all classical music except composers and opera is a little arbitrary to me. If we have separate projects for composers, then I say we should have separate projects for conductors and musicians. However, I am not saying this project should only cover classical compositions. We still have things like String section and Curse of the ninth which are classical music articles (should) not covered by any other music WikiProject at the moment.

To summarise, my point is that if this project takes on conductors and musicians then I believe we should also have composers. Otherwise what do we do about performer/composers or composers that were conductors or vice versa? I think we should have a completely separate project for classical biography articles - maybe rename WP:Composers as WP:Classical Musicians and make this WP free of the biographical infobox debate. Centy – reply• contribs – 01:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

It's normal on WP to have overlapping projects (also parent/descendant projects), also to defer to the expertise in specialized projects (e.g. the relationship between Opera and Wagner/Gilbert and Sullivan projects). See the section on Inter Wikiproject coordination. Meanwhile, until a new consensus is arrived at, may I respectfully ask you not to edit the project page or remove any more banners? Thank you and best wishes. -- Kleinzach (talk) 01:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes I know there is nothing wrong with overlapping projects - it's just at the moments WP:CM claims it will not overlap with WP:Opera or WP:Composers. And also I have only removed banners from those pages that are clearly currently under the jurisdiction of WP:Composers. I have listed on my sandbox all the classical musicians currently tagged with our banner and they will remain until we have reach a consensus. Basically I don't mind whether we have a pan-classical music project or a project that is sans-opera, sans-persons – I'd just rather not have a mish-mash of articles which are basically not part of any other classical music related wikiproject.Centy – reply• contribs – 02:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The relationship between the three (now four) classical music projects has always been excellent. May it remain so! Really, there are no 'jurisdictions' or territories. -- Kleinzach (talk) 02:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Kleinzach wrote: "No doubt we will have new projects in the future if we have a enough editors and sufficient interest in more specialized projects. However until that happens I hope this project will continue to undertake the responsibility of looking after classical music in general - in line with its name.". I would agree here. I had no idea this project was only concerned with compositions. It might account for the resounding silence when I posted this query about major problems with a conductor bio on the CM talk page.;-) I have to say, however, I received an equally resounding silence from both the Spain and the Biography projects as well. You might want to think about rewording the lead paragraph along these lines (my addition is in bold):

"WikiProject Classical Music aims primarily to further comprehensive documentation of classical music — including historical and musicological analysis. Major works will be at the forefront. The project aims to improve, expand, cleanup, and maintain all articles related to classical music that aren't covered by other classical music related projects. Its participants help sort stubs and source statements made throughout the world of classical music.".

By the way, the Composers Project is a bit of an anomaly. It covers all genres of music according to their page, but from what I can see, the vast majority of both the participants and the work-in-progress etc. seem to be classically oriented. Best, (Voceditenore) 11:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with the rewording. -- Kleinzach (talk) 12:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

In the absence of any objections, I have now added the word Classical as suggested by Voceditenore. -- Kleinzach (talk) 02:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Trois Nouvelles Études (Chopin) – (a.k.a. something to take our minds off infoboxes)

There's a old (unfinished) discussion whether 3 Études, No. 1 (Chopin), 3 Études, No. 2 (Chopin), 3 Études, No. 3 (Chopin) should all be merged into one article. Personally this seems wholly reasonable. The main short discussion happened here Talk:3 Études, No. 1 (Chopin). What do you guys think? Centy – reply• contribs – 02:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

New Task Force

You may have noticed the project page shorten somewhat. This is because I have moved all guidelines about works of classical music to the new task force Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Compositions task force. This should mean that some guidelines concerning classical musicians should probably be drawn up and inserted in the relevant place. Also note that once I sort of the distinction between conductors and bandleaders, all conductors will join our flock.

Sometime we will have to tag all classical musicians and conductors with our banner. I suggest using SatyrBot for this so we can keep the To-do lists together. For now I will try and start up my new task force. Feel free to join. Centy – reply• contribs – 05:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on setting up the new task force! Will it have its own discussion page? I'd recommend introducing the task force to WikiProject Contemporary music as well. They have the greatest potential overlap with what you will be covering. -- Kleinzach (talk) 05:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Classical music

As the portal didn't show any image I tried to add a few here but can't see them in the portal. Any idea on what's going on ? P-e (talk) 17:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I've done a bit more tinkering, adding links to a couple more of our sister projects. Of the two items in the news, one was almost 10 months old, and the other was written by someone whose first language is not English. I've removed the one and edited the other. I've also added a reference to the Beaux Arts Trio's final tour as something that will remain current until August. Unfortunately, the articles on the Trio and its pianist read as if they were written by their agent. I've tinkered with the former, but if anyone has access to Grove or another suitable source, that woulde be helpful.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Boston Chamber Music Society

Hello all. I just joined the project and recently created an article on the Boston Chamber Music Society. I would love your feedback and I look forward to working with everyone.Nrswanson (talk) 18:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Infoboxes: is there a better way?

Hello, I've grown weary of defending articles against infoboxes. The conflict level is increasing, and let's face it: classical music enthusiasts are vastly outnumbered on Wikipedia. The future of a policy that simply rejects the infoboxes seem bleak.

So, what if we set up our own infobox for classical composers and performers? What I mean is something that would have just a picture, and a single field, whose content would be determined by the article editor. Example: imagine a box containing a nice picture of Simon Rattle, with a single text field below it saying (e.g.) "Simon Rattle (1955- ) is the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic."

This strikes me as quite harmless (no horrible stuff like "associated acts"), and it would probably keep the infobox people happy (since their concern is usually just matters of procedure and formatting, not content). Does this strike people as a plausible way to end the unpleasantness that the infoboxes are causing? And is there someone out there who knows how to design infobox templates and would be interested in giving it a try?

Thanks for listening, Opus33 (talk) 16:21, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

A picture of Rattle with an informative caption, long or short, is fine - but will the bio-infobox creators accept it in lieu of an 'musical artists' bio-box? Will they be willing to switch to such a format? Will they be capable of writing the captions? I doubt it - though I certainly wouldn't be against the idea. (I'm pro-photos when they are available.)

Actually I doubt the conflict level is rising. Recent disruptions on Simon Rattle and Luciano Pavarotti involved sock puppets and IP juggling rather than regular participants. Many non-free images have been deleted from WP in recent months and IMO this has led to fewer bio-infoboxes being created. Also it's worth remembering that almost all the conductor bio-boxes were created by one person. Most of the box creators are working on more popular material. Best. -- Kleinzach (talk) 00:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Simon Rattle

Born	19 January 1955 Liverpool, UK
Princliple conductor for	Berlin Philharmonic 1974 - present
Years active	fl. 1974 - present

Simon Rattle
Princliple conductor to the Berlin Philharmonic
Incumbent
Assumed office 1974
Incumbent	yes
Preceded by	Claudio Abbado
Personal details
Born	19 January 1955 Liverpool, UK

Having a specialised conductors' infobox seems a good idea to me - fields such as "associated acts" are wrong, and fields like "principle conductor to" make a lot more sense. I've added two quick examples to the page to see what it looks like.

In response to Kleinzach's point, this seems to be the case for Pavarotti's page; but editors to Simon Rattle's page all seem genuine to me, and only one ip is involved. Infoboxes seem to have been added at regular intervals by Wikipedians with long and distinguished contribution lists. --h2g2bob (talk) 00:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm...the infobox must allow multiple orchestras to be listed. The infobox should definitely mention Rattle's position with CBSO too. Centy – reply• contribs – 01:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. . . Let's be clear about this! Navigation boxes already exist for orchestras/chief conductors etc. sometimes with all holders (e.g. Template:LSO principal conductors, sometimes with preceded by/followed by sections (e.g. see Valery Gergiev). These are uncontroversial. They don't need to be re-invented - because they already exist and are fully utilized. -- Kleinzach (talk) 13:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Kleinzach's right. The issue here is bio boxes not navigation boxes. I must confess that if we had to have the cursed things, I'd prefer a much simpler and more uniform infobox for all classical music bios, and preferably ones with a kind of visual unity, marking them out as pertaining to the classical music related projects. So many of these people are noted for two or more areas in classical music, e.g. conductors like Barenboim and Rostropovich who are/were also virtuouso instrumentalists and singers and virtuouso instrumentalists who were also composers like Pauline Viardot and Paganini, etc. etc. Plus, with conductors where do you stop listing the orchestras they conduct or once conducted? And take a look at this infobox for Paganini (adapted from a mish-mash of pop music bio infoboxes). Does it really need to list all 16 of his "notable instruments"???

Anyhow, if worse came to worse, I'd suggest something along the lines of this. (I don't know how to make real templates, those just give an idea of the lay-out). I'd avoid any kind of "information" which is potentially subjective or open to debate, e.g. style, best known works, influences, influenced by etc. Even nationality can be controversial and lead to tinkering and/or edit-warring. As far as I can make out, the kind of reader for whom these infoboxes are intended are 10 year-olds doing their homework. It's enough to give the areas of classical music in which the subject achieved prominence, e.g. composer, conductor, etc., their birth date and place, death date and place, a singer's voice type and possibly in the case of composers, the kinds of works they mainly composed. For the rest, they can... um... read the article. Now there's a revolutionary idea.;-) Best, Voceditenore (talk) 16:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Follow-up I've added two infoboxes for Rostropovich and Nancy Storace to my sandbox with only the basic parameters. They are basically adaptations of {{Infobox Artist}} used by the Visual Arts Project with |bgcolour = left blank. Nice, simple, very similar to what Opus33 was proposing, but standard enough to content the biography project. The mock-ups to the left show what other kinds of parameters could be added, but in my view would be better left out. Also, note this guideline by the Visual Arts Project here. Voceditenore (talk) 19:49, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem with the 'totally innocuous' bio-box (of which many prototypes have been created in the past couple of years) is that they merely duplicate the information in the first couple of sentences in the articles. (Opus33's idea of the extended caption is preferable in my view because it can at least be nuanced.) Few bona fide editors will want to create these (theoretically) factually-accurate boxes and we'll continue to get bio-box specialists making pop music bio-boxes without referring to the articles. With all due respect to Voceditenore - one of WP's finest arbitrators - it's better just to say 'no' and get back to editing articles. Basta! -- Kleinzach (talk) 00:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I rather like Voceditenore's infoboxes. I do have two suggestions: perhaps just a bit of color would be nice? and in case of unanticipated difficulties it would be nice if all text fields were made optional.

I do admire Kleinzach's battlefield courage, but have no urge to emulate it! If we have something like Voceditenore's infobox template available, we could use it to correct horrible infoboxes like that Paganini one he mentions--with less chance of offending the creators of these boxes or getting into edit wars with them. Regards to all, Opus33 (talk) 03:49, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

If you just persuade the project to change the guideline, I believe in practice you'll get the musical artist bio-box not the sanitized version, and the project will end up having more conflicts not less. I've seen perhaps half of the two thousand odd conductor articles and less than 10 percent of them have ever had boxes. We've recently had conflicts on two pages - one a singer, one a conductor (albeit with a spill over onto a couple of others). It could get a lot, lot worse.

So if you decide to go ahead with having bio-boxes you'll need to get your bio box approved/listed by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Infoboxes and Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography - which may take a lot more than mere 'battlefield courage'! - as well as making a proposal here to change the established project guideline. -- Kleinzach (talk) 05:04, 17 March 2008 (UTC) -- * Add Please note 18 editors were involved in establishing the guideline in September/October. -- Kleinzach (talk) 05:38, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I was one of the editors on the Opera Project who argued against infoboxes and my very strong preference is still not to have them at all for opera singers or any other classical-related bio. I was just suggesting a model for the least objectionable alternative if we were eventually forced to have one. I'm virtually positive that the Bio Project folks would never go for the "simple caption" option.

I also agree with Kleinzach's prediction about opening a can of worms if we try now to change the policy or get a new infobox approved. My basic suggestion was to hold a really simple "least bad" option in reserve if we ever need one, but to try very hard not to get into a situation where we do need it. At this point, apart from the recent disruption on the Pavarotti and Simon Rattle articles, the skirmishes have been relatively few and far between and can be dealt with on individual article talk pages if/when the need arises. In the end, most infobox adders back off after it's discussed on the talk page. Mainly because they have rarely contributed anything else to the article apart from slapping on an infobox, and often know nothing about the subject of the article.

One thing I would suggest though, is that when discussing the removal of an infobox on a talk page (or in an edit summary), care should be taken to word it diplomatically and to avoid phrasing which could be interpreted as 'elitist', aggressive, or dismissive of the editor who added the infobox. It just fans the flames and the issue then gets spread from the talk page to wider forums and notice boards. Best Voceditenore (talk) 06:55, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello Kleinzach and Voceditenore. I was surprised and entertained by VDT's last contribution, which expressed a more nuanced position than I had thought. I.e. VDT supports Kleinzach's views, but wants to provide a long-term backup in case the hard-line policy doesn't work out.

Fair enough. If it's the consensus among classical music editors to keep avoiding infoboxes, I will continue to support that consensus, even if I doubt its long-term viability. Yours very truly, Opus33 (talk) 16:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Ima_Hogg/Archive_1#Infobox.3F I refer people to this debate which may allow us to set a precedence. Turns out FAC do not require an infobox even through projects such as WP:MILHIST require one to even be considered B-Class. Centy – reply• contribs – 00:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)