Talk:Harmonium

Harmonium - the Quebec musical group
Please excuse my english,I'm from a french speaking part of Canada...

About the word "Harmonium"

I was well pleased by your website and kept it on my desk kor further visits,yout site is very helpful.I presume your are includind North America in your marketing aims and if we're talking North american market,you might want to consider the french market of that area of the world.And this where the word "Harmonium" comes in as the name of the top 3 groups(my estimate) who's had the most important influence on North american french music.Iwas disapointed at first but I'm sure you can explain to me the point I must be missing to understand your point of view.

Thanks in advance for taking the time

Jean-Marc Williams

Québec,Canada —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.80.185.124 (talk • contribs) 20:45, 21 October 2006 (UTC).


 * This article is about the musical instrument called a harmonium. It does link to a disambiguation page that lists several other topics by the same name, including some on musical groups called Harmonium.  Your comment suggests that you do not understand the nature of this web site.  It is a free, non-profit encyclopedia, and has no marketing aims. --Dfeuer 22:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Repertoire getting a bit long
Should we split off the list of pieces using the harmonium? --Dfeuer 17:38, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

What does it sound like?
I think the article is fantastic - very descriptive. A link to an audio file (mp3, midi, ogg, etc.) featuring the Harmonium seems relevant. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.189.34.154 (talk) 01:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

Samvadini section getting out of hand
I'm sorry but this section has got to go. After someone (not me) added the advertisement tag it looks like someone has actually added even more irrelevant material about Indian performers and their status as geniuses. It's utterly unencyclopaedic, its sole purpose seems to be to name as many of the editor's favourite artists as possible, it does not cite any sources and the style and tone of the text are ridiculous and it's becoming longer than the main text about the harmonium. I will remove anything not to do with the samvadini itself. Nothingbutmeat (talk) 13:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Merge / Split
I think that the part about the Indian harmonium should be factored out into a separate article, and that the rest of the article should be merged with reed organ and pump organ. Comments/suggestions? I'm [dʒæˑkɫɜmbɚ] and I approve this message. 00:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree. Most of this article, including the history and repetoire sections, is in reference to pump organs, not the small Indian box like harmonium which sits in front of you while seated.  It should be moved to that article and this article should be about the small Indian instrument.Cosprings (talk) 14:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Drastically reducing the "Popular" section
Despite the "Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles" notice, this section remains a list of miscellaneous information, and the list keeps growing.

There is no reasonable way to rewrite the section in prose form, and retain all the information.

And I'm not sure how or why it is useful to enumerate every single instance of the use of the harmonium in popular music that anyone can come up with.

Maybe the best solution is to rewrite this as a short paragraph of examples of the use of the harmonium in popular music, retaining just four or five really notable examples (e.g., The Beatles)? --Sarabseth (talk) 18:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

"Some well known harmonium players of India" section
People keep adding (and subtracting) names. Perhaps the list should be much shorter, and only include those for whom some proof of notability can be adduced? --Sarabseth (talk) 22:22, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. If the players don't have their own Wikipedia article then they probably shouldn't be here: the Notability principle.  Let's prune it.  And what does this 'Pt.' thing mean?  Is it some sort of title (like Dr, Prof, Hon)?  Wikipedia tends to avoid such titles; let's prune those also. Feline Hymnic (talk) 23:04, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Turns out per WP:INDIA Talk that "Pt." stands for Pandit. Removing that honorific and linking all names.  Turns out about all of them are redlinks, should be removed after a brief period to let folks create articles for any absolute must-haves. MatthewVanitas (talk) 07:08, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Rework lead to focus a bit more on Indian portable harmonium?
Not sure if my view is the common one, but I (an American) am way more familiar with the term harmonium as meaning "those little hand-pump things Indians play". Is this variant the most likely one WP readers would be looking to learn about? If so, I suggest the lead more clearly indicate that the name applies to the small hand-pumped organs as well, and that the first pic be of the small Indian organs (maybe the pic currently second in the article). Thoughts? MatthewVanitas (talk) 00:15, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * As a Brit I was quite familiar with the term in a European context and only later became aware of the Indian instrument. I believe the main difference is that the European instruments are generally pedal-pumped and the Indian ones generally hand-pumped.  Is that right?  I have re-worked the lead a little to try to reflect this and give greater parity across them. More work might be beneficial. Feline Hymnic (talk) 22:58, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Use in Western Music
Please only add referenced or noteworthy artists i.e. the following musicians use of the harmonium can all be verified on the artist (or album) article page. All speculative unreferenced additions should be removed. Seventhirtyam (talk) 22:20, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Lisa Hannigan see Sea Sew
 * Steve Adey see All Things Real
 * Jeff Buckley see Grace
 * The National see High Violet
 * Sorry, but what's the point? Mere use of a harmonium is trivial--unless its use is verified in an independent source, possibly rendering it notable. Almost that entire section can be removed: proof needs to be given that any one of these uses is notable. Drmies (talk) 02:04, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorting categories in alphabetical order
The following comment [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ASarabseth&action=historysubmit&diff=411317012&oldid=405594303 was left on my Talk page}. Am copying the comment, as well as my response:

Hi, Sarabseth. Re-sorting categories in alphabetically order on Harmonium seems to be odd and inconvenient for readers who know about harmonium.

For example, instrument classification categories such as: follow widely accepted Musical instrument classification systems　(Note:at least three different classification systems are complementary coexistent on Wikipedia category). If these categories are grouped on sequence of categories (i.e. placed on top or tail), readers are comfortably navigated to hierarchy of instrument family.
 * Category:Free reed aerophones or Category:Sets of free reeds
 * Category:Organs (music)
 * Category:Keyboard instruments

On the other hands, ethnic music categories such as seem to be Indian subcontinent POV, because harmonium is widely used around the world.
 * Category:Carnatic music instruments
 * Category:Hindustani musical instruments
 * Category:Indian musical instruments
 * Category:Pakistani musical instruments

Your alphabetic sorting ignore the difference of these two groups of category, and result seems to be inconvenient. You should admit the limit of your way. --Clusternote (talk) 04:25, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I already explained my reasons in the edit summary, and really have nothing to add to that. Any ordering other than alphabetical becomes POV because it asserts a subjective personal opinion about what categories are more important.


 * The purpose of the category list is not, I think, to comfortably navigate readers in any given direction.


 * So are you saying that the existence of the existence of these 4 ethnic music categories is POV, or are you saying listing these existing categories here is POV?


 * I think that if there are categories for non-Indian musical instruments, they can be added. If there aren't, they can be created.  But what categories should exist is a quite separate issue from how they should be ordered. --Sarabseth (talk) 11:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comment. But, your comment seems to lack the objective rightness.
 * The theme of this thread is "order of categories in articles". Other issues should be ignored here, or if you want, please discuss on the other thread.
 * Musical instrument classification is not the personal POV, but the hierarchy defined by musicologists, and widely accepted all over the world.
 * If possible, you should follow the conventional manner of each projects, to keep the consistency of projects. On most musical instrument articles, categories haven't been re-sorted in alphabetical order.
 * --Clusternote (talk) 12:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * your comment seems to lack the objective rightness: feel free to substantiate, since I have no idea what you mean.


 * The theme of this thread is "order of categories in articles". Other issues should be ignored here, or if you want, please discuss on the other thread.: once again, I have no idea what you mean.


 * You have totally ignored my basic point, which is that any ordering other than alphabetical is, by definition, POV because it asserts a subjective personal opinion about what categories are more important.


 * You are clearly asserting your personal opinion that the "Musical instrument classification" categories are more important that the ethnic musical instrument categories. Someone else may feel the opposite is true.  The issue is not whether "Musical instrument classification" is a hierarchy defined by musicologists, and widely accepted all over the world.  The issue is whether the notion that some categories are more valid or more important than others is intrinsically a POV notion.  You have said in so many words that the justification for putting the "Musical instrument classification" categories first is to "comfortably navigate" readers in a specific direction.  That's the very definition of a POV edit. --Sarabseth (talk) 11:14, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Your opinion is only a your POV. On English Wikipedia, there is no general consensus about "order of categories", because it is too trivial and too hard to reach the general consensus. But we should find a some consensus, to avoid more of reverting war.  This reverting war was started by you, therefore you should offer some compromise plan acceptable by both me and you.  --Clusternote (talk) 15:19, 2 February 2011 (UTC),  [fixed in italic] Clusternote (talk) 20:32, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Your opinion is only a your POV.: isn't that a tautology?

Submitting such disputes for a Third opinion seems to be the recommended course of action. I'll be happy to do so, if that's acceptable to you.

(BTW, there's no need to edit my comments. Every successive comment does not need to be indented further to the right.  Successive indentation eventually starts to swallow up available page width.  There's obviously no difficulty in distinguishing my response from your previous comment.  That's really all that matters.)  --Sarabseth (talk) 12:32, 3 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Coming in here as an outside party: I have to argue against a purely alphabetical category sort, as that just seems an oversensitivity to any POV-ness implicit about categories.  I'm not too particular about how the various ethnic categories get sorted, but technical categories should go first.  I'm thinking of a basic "fundamentally, what is a harmonium?".  It's a box with reeds and bellows, so let's get the technical categories out of the way first.  Then we can dicker over the precedence of what cultures "own" it.  I'm vexed beyond caring about the by-nation categorisation of widely-popular instruments.  Swedish bagpipe goes into Category:Swedish musical instruments, but we could add almost every country on the planet for Guitar, for example.  Hamonium isn't as popular as guitar, but it's still an instrument that could be arguably well-linked to a dozen cultures. In any event, count me as a strong opinion for not slavishly going alphabetical. MatthewVanitas (talk) 03:17, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * So be it! (I reversed my last edit.)


 * What about the four technical categories? What order should they be in?  Currently it's: Organs (music), Free reed aerophones, Sets of free reeds, Keyboard instruments. --Sarabseth (talk) 13:00, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Some upcoming revamping ideas
I've gone through the harmonium page and I think it has some great background on both varieties (Western and Indian) and a nice repertoire of pieces. However, I've also spotted some problems, some of which were mentioned in previous discussion sections. I will slowly try to fix them, as well as beef up some points. I am thinking mainly about:

1. Sorting out the classical repertoire list. Right now it's very messy: neither alphabetically ordered, nor chronologically. Sometimes the piece name is the first word and sometimes the composer's name. 2. The popular music section has a similar issue and the known citation issue. 3. It might be that other genres warrant more subsections. Not sure about it though. 4. Some basic description of the sound is missing, notably, the instrument range and dynamics. 5. There's little musical-acoustical research available, but I'll try to fill in on whatever there is. 6. Additional western version features: knee pedal functionality, forte and vox humana effects. These might go into construction. 7. I should be able to upload a sound sample as well.

Hopefully these changes will be satisfactory. Please follow up and let me know if you recognize any additional problems or see room for other improvements. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robusticon (talk • contribs) 03:01, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Point 1 is complete for the time being with the addition of an introductory paragraph about general repertoire that be more appropriate at the end.

In the future, upon any modifications to this list, please try to stick to the current format: ''Surname, first-name. Piece Name...'' And order it alphabetically. It might prove useful to divide this list into periods (romantic/modern), or something similar. Robusticon (talk) 04:22, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Welcome aboard Wikipedia. And welcome to trying to tidy up this article.  (If you check its edit history, and the talk page above, you'll see I began to do a little tidying in past months.)  So please do try to improve the article.
 * But one point about names, relating to your "surname,first-name." In the body of the article, you ought to follow the Wikipedia conventions.  "Claude Debussy" is just that... "Claude Debussy", not "Debussy, Claude".  Check almost any other article on any other topic. The only place in Wikipedia that the "Debussy, Claude" form appears is in formal citations of externally published work: the "References", "Notes", etc. sort of sections that are grouped towards the very end of the article. And when it comes to doing those, then the 'cite book' template is there to help you and to ensure consistent layout.  So I'm going to edit the page to restore the name formats, in keeping with Wikipedia conventions.  But don't be discouraged by that; rather be encouraged... it is great to see you improving the content of the article, and what I'm doing with your work is merely minor house-style sub-editing!  All the best. Feline Hymnic (talk) 09:05, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the welcoming wikification. Although I was looking for a standard format before doing it, I couldn't find it...Robusticon (talk) 11:20, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I started a new section about acoustics, beginning with some 19th century records. Upcoming are subsections about dynamics and timbre. I hope it's not going to be too "hardcore" in the upcoming sections, but let me know if it will be. Some Wikification is potentially needed here, but I hope it's only slight. Robusticon (talk) 04:22, 5 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The acoustics section is more or less complete for now. My apologies that it may have come out a bit too technical. I tried to make it more readable, but probably another iteration will be needed. From superficial inspection of other musical instrument Wikipedia entries I think that this section usually doesn't appear. So there's not much of a reference to work with here.Robusticon (talk) 03:49, 6 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The last 2 subsections do sound very technical indeed. But they are short subsections, and can be easily skipped over by readers who are not interested.  So maybe it's fine to leave them in? --Sarabseth (talk) 12:10, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Make two articles: European and Asian
1)The hand pumped harmonium used in India, Pakistan, Afganistan, is no longer manufactured in Europe since 19th.

2)Differente techniques: European uses two hands.

3)Repertoire and music totally different.

I propose to make two articles: Hand-pumped harmonium and pedal-pumped harmonium. --Opus88888 (talk) 23:45, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Really don't see the point of this. How is it relevant whether it is manufactured in Europe any more? Surely all that matters is its use in Western music? The repertoire and music are obviously going to be different, but why does that justify splitting the article?.


 * Apart from anything else, keeping all the content in one article allows the differences between Western and Eastern uses of the instrument to be brought out more clearly. Also, European versus Asian ignores the rest of the world; will there be a third article for that? --Sarabseth (talk) 11:21, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The current harmonium article is not that long -- it has a manageable size -- maybe the way to approach this is to add information about European vs Asian harmoniums and see if the article grows too big -- if so, then we can split it.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 11:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I didn't say that harmonium is not manufactured in Europe. I mentioned that hand-pumped harmonium is not manufactured in Europe. There are specialized artisans for this instrument in the East. Pedal-pumped harmonium and hand-pumped harmonium are practically different instruments. Even the sound varies. --Opus88888 (talk) 02:50, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I understand the impetus for wanting two articles, but I don't think that the two are so unrelated, or the article so lengthy, that it needs to be split. The two are essentially the same, varying only in size and pumping method (broadly speaking). I do think, however, that there should be a clearer distinction in the article between these two major types. The various Western uses are covered in separate sections that make it sound almost like there are multiple Western versions, vice different traditions of the same instrument. I also (still) feel that the lede is weighted against the most "living" harmonium tradition, that of South Asia, as though it were a minor sidenote as opposed to probably the primary reason people would come to this page. So I would leave this as one article, but I think it needs some re-ordering, and the prominence of the S. Asian harmonium made clearer, especially in the lede. MatthewVanitas (talk) 13:59, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * EDIT: Thinking on it longer, I'm going to go Neutral for the moment on the 1-vs.-2 article issue. I could really see it working either way, but in any case my primary concern is that the article currently gives a lot of focus to the very minor role the Western harmonium plays in modern music, and moderate role in past music, and not enough focus to the massive presence of hand-pump harmonium in modern South Asian music. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:35, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Reply: Also, European versus Asian ignores the rest of the world; will there be a third article for that? - Interesting point, do we have any evidence that free-reed harmoniums (of either type) played a notable role in Latin America, Africa, East Asia, or Oceania? That would be awfully cool to include if so, but I'm not aware of such. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:36, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not just Latin America, Africa, East Asia, or Oceania. Given the prominence of North America in the lede, one would hope there's some substantive material about the harmonium in North America. If not, the second paragraph in the lede should probably be relegated to some other section. Sarabseth (talk) 10:25, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that it's an important distinction to make between the two instrument versions and it could be made clearer while still kept within one page. The problem may be more semantic than encyclopedic, as there is no convenient semantic distinction now between the two variants. If one reads about any music for harmonium, it's left for their best judgment to figure out if it's Western or Indian (if the names are not very Indian, that is). For example, I had no idea who Shilpa Ray is and which kind of harmonium she plays until I saw that it's Indian, unlike the one played by most other Western artists listed.

I can also say that the small section I've started to add about acoustics refers just as well to American reed organs and the sound producing mechanisms appear to be identical for all those instruments.

P.S. I tried quite hard to find any reference or mention in English about Samvadini in scholarly literature (books and journals). But for the life of me, I couldn't find anything about it or about the names of the musicians referred to. Everything online about it looks recycled from one common source without a primary one ever cited. Unless some of the Hindi speaking contributors can come up with a reference in Hindi for it, I suggest to remove the Samvadini section.Robusticon (talk) 04:39, 5 July 2011 (UTC)


 * These instruments, of similar construction, have their own articles:

portative organ, positive organ, pipe organ --Opus88888 (talk) 06:57, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, but they also have totally different names. What we're talking about here are two very similar instruments with the same name. --Sarabseth (talk) 11:00, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * No, they do not have totally different names. They have partially different names. --Opus88888 (talk) 08:07, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

That's an amusing piece of hair-splitting, but the point is that we're talking about two very similar instruments with the same name.--Sarabseth (talk) 10:52, 15 July 2011 (UTC)


 * These instruments are similar in appearance and function (maybe in repertoire too), but their principle of operation is predominantly dissimilar to that of harmonium or reed organ (if free reeds are actually used, they are always coupled to pipes, which don't exist in the case of the harmonium). In the instrument sandbox, I put in related instrument category "organ" to keep it inclusive and generic enough, where other organ types could be sought for. If anybody feels that the resemblance warrants a specific link, it can be easily added there. Robusticon (talk) 18:02, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Other examples of very similar instruments: viola and violin, mridangam and pakhawaj, kamancheh and rebab, jaw harp and morsing, etc. --Opus88888 (talk) 14:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Renewed discussion October 2012
Opus, you should've at least posted a mention here when you created Harmonium (hand-pumped) back in July. There's a ton of repetition between that article and this one, so I'm not seeing the utility at this point. What do folks think? Trim this article to make it mostly about the non-Indian harmonium and make a link, or delete Harmonium (hand-pumped) as an unnecessary WP:Fork and move its content all back here? MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:27, 15 October 2012 (UTC)


 * To clarify, I'm not totally against having a separate article, just that it shouldn't have been made in the same month as other people were still raising objections, should have been done with an update posted back here to let folks know you'd moved forward (I only noticed because I happened to be looking at Category:Indian musical instruments, and because you didn't deconflict it with this article. Also, there's a lot of overlap with Reed organ, so we should check all three and ensure they have neither too much nor too little overlap and linkage. MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:40, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Split off "List of harmonium players" or similar?
The article is getting pretty heavy with lists of names; anyone object to splitting them off to their own article? Said article could then have sub-sections for foot-pump and hand-pump, and maybe a sub-sub-section for Westerners using hand-pump (Allen Ginsberg, Shilpa Ray, etc). Objections? MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:24, 15 October 2012 (UTC)