Talk:Mantra (Stockhausen)

Crotales don't mark the sections
"The entire work is based on this formula and is divided into 13 cycles, each marked at the beginning by a crotale stroke" - according to the Toop lectures cited, this isn't true. The new cycles are not marked by any particular event, but by the transposition of the formula to a new pitch. The crotales enter more than 13 times and give more than one form of the row, not marking section beginnings. This mistake wasted considerable time for me as I was analyzing the piece, and gave me a new reason to tell my students not to trust Wikipedia. Kylegann (talk) 14:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I shall check the two citations (Cott 1973, 220–22 and Stockhausen 1978, 155), one or both of which presumably is/are the source(s) for this claim. One of the great joys of Wikipedia is that "the threshold for inclusion … is verifiability, not truth". Thanks for bringing attention to this, Kyle.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm. "Truth vs verifiability"? Here is the relevant passage from near the beginning of the first quoted reference: "C[ott]: I suppose that each of the mantra's thirteen notes is matched by a cymbal corresponding in pitch. S[tockhausen]: That's very precise. The mantra itself has thirteen notes, and each cymbal sound occurring once in the piece indicates the large sections—you hear the cymbal whenever a new central sound announces the next section of the work. . . . And there are wood blocks, too, which have the function of marking and emphasizing certain attack and decay accents" (Cott 1973, 220). Toop does not actually say, "the crotales do not mark the beginning of each cycle"—in fact, he scarcely mentions the crotales at all, except to note their presence at the beginning of the third section (Toop 2005, 92). If Toop did directly contradict Stockhausen, then we could insert a statement to that effect. What he does say is "perhaps I should qualify the notion of 'main section'. The beginnings of these are the points at which you'll notice at least one of the sine-wave generators being retuned, and where presentations of the formula shift to a new starting pitch. But for the most part they don't involve dramatic changes" (Toop 2005, 78), and he then summarizes the 13 sections in a table at the end of his article (p. 98). Toop's divisions, indeed, are not all marked at or near the beginning by the crotales. One possible explanation is that Toop sees the major structural divisions in different places than the composer did (on p. 78, Toop notes that there are "various points throughout the score at which Stockhausen has placed double bar-lines, which are indications to the performers of significant formal divisions. … Of these, just three coincide with the start of 'main sections'"). The other is that Stockhausen was wrong when he said what he said. Either way, the claim is verified, even if it is untrue.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:16, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Luckily, we need take neither Stockhausen's nor Toop's word for it, since we can verify the facts from the score. The appearances of the crotales, spread across the score's 59 pages, are as follows, with page numbers: A-1, B-1, G#-2, E-5, F and D-6, G-9, Eb-18, C#-20, C-21, Bb-23, F#-23, A-29, G-30, A#-34, D-35, C# and E-37, EBA#-38 (presumably B is the emphasized pitch), D#-41, F-42, F#-44, G#-47, C-58, A-59. That's 25 appearances of the crotales, making up the prime form and inversion of the row (sigh - sorry, I suppose this is "original research," and therefore can't be substituted for the documented misstatement). If the first row marks the 13 sections, then the final section is the second half of the piece, and the last 12 crotales notes don't mark sections. If every appearance of the crotales marks a new section, then there are 25 sections, and some of them are extremely brief - in fact, F and D appear together in the first row, and C# and E in the inversion, so it's difficult to see how those notes could be taken as initiating separate sections (meaning, in fact, that there are actually only 23 appearances of the crotales). Perhaps Stockhausen was speaking loosely, perhaps he forgot what he had done. I didn't entirely verify Toop's section markings, so I wouldn't report them on my own authority, but they seemed to me to pretty much work out.Kylegann (talk) 11:07, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that in the mentioned A#BE chord on page 38 the emphasized pitch is E; the B appears on the bottom of page 40 at Player II. It makes also sense to take the A#BE chord for E as E is the inversion of D, which in the analysis published by Stockhausen himself (on the cover of the score) corresponds to the character `Akkord (betont)' (that is: chord, emphasized). Just my 2 cents. AdamSiska (talk) 01:59, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It is quite true that this is "original research". While this has no place on Wikipedia, it is exactly the sort of thing that your students should be encouraged to do themselves and, if there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that Wikipedia is not the only authority that should be mistrusted. Why should we trust the composer? Why should we trust Toop? It is possible that neither of them understands the structure of the piece according to our own ideas of what "structure" means. Wikipedia's only shortcoming here appears to be that it provided convenient access to some distressingly contradictory "facts" that otherwise might have taken the student countless minutes to discover independently, by actually reading the books by Cott and Toop, and analytically examining the score. Dubitare autem de singulis non erit inutile, as some wise guy once said.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah. So it doesn't bother you that the article says there are 13 sections marked off by crotales gestures and the score actually contains 23 crotales gestures. I would be embarrassed, but that's just old-fashioned, pre-post-literate me. Kylegann (talk) 18:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * On one level, at least, of course it bothers me, but we can't just go filling up the article with "facts" that we "know to be true". It is imperative to find some sources to sort out (1) whether there are 13 or some other number of structural sections and (2) what function the crotales actually serve, if they do not do what Stockhausen said in Cott (there is of course also his essay from 2003 and the even longer analysis not yet cited here that he recorded on film in London in the 1970s). At the moment, we have what we have, and surely we can add something from Toop's analysis, but there are other contenders out there as well (Blumröder, Febel, and Frisius, to start with and, to judge from an illustration added some months ago, perhaps Arnold Whittall). I'm not going to stand still on this, but there are a lot of other fires to put out, as well, and I would certainly appreciate any help you or any other editor can give.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The score itself is a document. A count of items in that score is clearly not "original research" and is clearly verifiable.  If WP is to ignore THE primary source, the score, in favor of secondary sources, then this whole project is worthless.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.193.68.122 (talk) 14:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point, except that the score does not say what is a structural section, and what is not. It might be legitimate to point out where the double bars are, for example, but as Toop points out, these do not for the most part agree with the points at which the sine-wave generators are retuned. Toop also points out that the recording edited by the composer has subdividing tracks that provide yet a third parsing of the piece, but did the composer think of these as important structural divisions, or just convenient starting points for illustration of lectures? It is perfectly legitimate to report that the C# crotale is struck in bars such-and-such; it is original research to claim that this does or does not mark the beginning of an important structural division—and probably unwarranted synthesis to observe that in context it is the fourth member of the inverted form, or the ninth member of the original form of the mantra. Toop's analysis represents a reliable source concerning analysis of the score; the score represents the score, and very little else.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Since other references are currently not available/covered, why not simply report, for now, right after Stockhausen's statement, that there are 25 appearances of the crotales? Something along the lines of, "in one interview, the composer explained [...], although there are 25 appearances of the crotales in the piece." Stockhausen's statement is referenced, whereas the other statement falls under things readily evident from the score; the same way one doesn't need a source to prove that the first movement of the Moonlight sonata is in C-sharp minor. --Jashiin (talk) 19:46, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That would certainly be permissible, though it would not actually clear things up a great deal. For example, Stockhausen's quotation refers to "each cymbal sound occurring once in the piece". Kyle has already noted that, because of the two double occurrences, there are only 23 actual entrances, but if Stockhausen means that only the single entrances (as opposed o those doubled ones) mark the structural sections, then perhaps only 21 of these count as section markers, etc. In fact, the more I think about this, the more I think a direct quotation should replace the current phrasing, which itself amounts to an interpretation of what the composer said, and very possibly a misleading interpretation, at that.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:39, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for the revision. It's not at all clear, in the context of the piece, what Stockhausen means by that, but because of the ambiguity it at least wouldn't have sent me down a blind alley as the earlier language did. Kylegann (talk) 00:33, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I may have been the person responsible for the misleading "interpretation" (I haven't done a tedious check of the edit history to be confirm this), and if so, I owe you an apology. I shall not abandon this, however. It will be interesting to see how much difference there is among the various published analyses, particularly on this issue.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:07, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Mojibake
In the second listing that lists the dynamics (`b. with crescendo or decrescendo'), in the last two items there are some non-standard characters that (at least, on my machine) render as mojibake. As I understood, in such cases, the Template:Special characters template should appear on the page and should inform the reader about the specific font that needs to be installed in order to read the full content. Unfortunately, I can't even put that template on the page as I am unable to figure out the font that had been used to create that specific entry. AdamSiska (talk) 11:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what or who a mojibake might be. On my browser (Safari 5.1.8 running under Mac OS-X 10.6) the two characters I imagine you are referring to display as semiquavers (sixteenth notes). However, they appear to be Unicode, and should be replaced by the usual Wikitemplates, even though they will display about twice the intended size. I think this problem was probably my doing, from several years ago when I thought Unicode characters were the only available option to present these character. I will replace them (as well as the other music symbols). Thanks for calling attention to this.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:01, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Indeed, the mojibake were the two semiquavers, which now display perfectly well. Interestingly, my setup is just identical (Safari 5.1.9, Mac OS X 10.6); perhaps you have installed additional fonts which render those symbols correctly. Actually, you may check whether the original symbol is part of the standard Unicode music block and if yes, it might be just enough to put the template and point the user towards the appropriate unicode block. AdamSiska (talk) 01:45, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It is useful to know about this, thank you. However, my understanding is that the Wikipedia guidelines strongly prefer the templates for these music characters.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:10, 2 May 2013 (UTC)