Talk:Mass in B minor structure

Instruments in Infobox
As discussed on Classical music (when the template was designed and again now), each individual instrument is important, for example the horn for exactly one aria. "Instruments" appear at the very end of the box, I don't understand how anybody who read so far would be "intimidated". Please consider to restore information that would help interested readers. The abbreviations are standard for publishing, well known, each with a link to what it stands for, and a link to a table of all of them. Why should knowledge be limited to the level of those who wouldn't bother to look up what an abbr means? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Hello Gerda! You had previously argued that infoboxes should be for those who know nothing about the topic. It would be very unlikely for such people to know anything about standards in music publishing. They would thus be very confused, even intimidated, to see "3Tr Ti Co 2Ft, 2Ob 2Oa 2Fg 2Vl Va Bc" in an overview - if you don't know what those mean, it looks like gobbledygook. Sure, there are tooltips, but not everyone knows about or can use those, and as said in the discussion you mention it may not be clear even what kind of instrument "trumpet" refers to. Listing the full names would be unwieldy, as would be explaining how the instrumentation varies over the course of the entire mass (as would be necessary for "instrumentation" to have much meaning). It's much clearer and more accessible to explain instrumentation in the article itself. After all, you suggested that we should keep it simple, right? Hope that helps you understand. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I responded at Talk:St Matthew Passion structure: Trying to understand, but unconvinced, sorry. - Did you see where the link on "Scoring" takes you? Your quote above is a bit misleading, it said "instruments 3Tr Ti Co 2Ft, 2Ob 2Oa 2Fg 2Vl Va Bc", - I would think that people reading on a composition would get "instruments" as "musical instruments", and those who know more get the details. Please note, that this is not the article on the Mass in B minor, but its structure, addressing those who want to know the bit more. It's a work in progress. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:37, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you suggesting that confused readers who just want an overview should be made to read a whole other article on a different topic just to understand this stream of letters? That seems a bit counterproductive when the infobox is, as you have previously argued, meant to be a quick overview. It would be much simpler to give the explanation about the instrumentation of the mass in this article's text, where it belongs. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You misunderstood. I give those who know the abbreviations (without explanation) a short way to the scoring, and offer a longer way to the others, - you cut the short way. Please read infobox Bach composition. - Messiah structure has a similar list of instruments, the article received more than 2000 views when Messiah was TFA, nobody made a comment about being confused or mystified, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * No, your explanation seems consistent with my understanding. As to Messiah, having no complaints doesn't mean no one was confused - the people most likely not to be able to understand the tooltips are also most likely not to be able to post on talk. Or maybe people just ignored the infobox ;-) Nikkimaria (talk) 18:35, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If they ignored it, it could be as I prefer, no? - So much talk about people wanting articles their way, without an infobox, or with a collapsed one. I like it open and detailed, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If they ignored it, then surely it would make more sense not to have one at all? I know you want things your way. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:43, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Please cease your personal attacks, Nikki. You know better than this.  Gerda seeks accuracy and completeness, she has shown a willingness to compromise.  I suggest you look at your own psychological projection here and cease accusing others of what you yourself appear to be doing.   Montanabw (talk) 21:29, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Er, what? The statement you're replying to made no accusations or personal attacks. Not to mention it was almost two months ago...Nikkimaria (talk) 21:50, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, you are right, I do apologize for not checking timestamp. Mea culpa on that one!  Montanabw (talk) 16:08, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I slept over this - not well - and arrived at the following thought: the abbreviations are internationally understood, therefore I would like to have them visible at least "also", for those who are familiar with "Fg" but don't know what a bassoon is, as a little service - needing only a few extra characters - to the international community. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Surely it would be more helpful for the international community to read an article in their own language, rather than trying to decode what our words are? Besides, the abbreviations are not even close to being universally known. I suppose if you insisted you could have something like "bassoon (Fg)" in the article text, but that does seem a bit silly. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I doubt I would have done it like this myself, but the abbreviations are likely to be known & understood by most people reading a relatively detailed article like this. Johnbod (talk) 16:07, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I concur. While I don't think that instrumentation details are the most useful part for a composition's infobox (if such a box is to be used at all), I can't see how their presence would diminish a reader's encounter with this page. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:40, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This is not "a composition", but one in which Bach especially asked for a corno in only one movement, for a specific meaning, trumpets in others, with a meaning, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:21, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It is important to note Johnbod's point that the article itself is of primary interest to people who already are interested in details of a musical piece, this isn't Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. Gerda's points are well-taken, a more detailed infobox containing instrumentation matters here, obviously.  Montanabw (talk) 21:29, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Infobox for Bach composition?
This infobox was replaced by a less specific one. Needless to say, I designed both the Bach infobox and the article and prefer it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:12, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Why? Nikkimaria (talk) 17:54, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It has features the general one doesn't have:
 * Unique catalogue number, which for many readers may be the only clue to a title full of German
 * Three parameters for text sources, because some 200 of his works (cantatas and motets) require distinction of different sources
 * No title in the header because the same some 200 would look extremely long - and German, - this is the English Wikipedia ;)
 * It has planned features the other one should not have, such as a link to Musical instruments of the Baroque or similar, discussed on the template talk.
 * I will ask people what to do to make the two templates more similar, - it's desirable to have the same parameter names for scoring, even if their representation and links are different. It is desirable to overwrite the BWV number by a title in the case of a short title such as this one. Some "titles" should not be capital, such as this one, I learned that today, thank you Toccata quarta ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:22, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Those may be good reasons to use the Bach template instead of the general compositions template for the cantatas, but most of those reasons do not apply to this particular article. Why do you feel this article should use the box you posted above? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:07, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Those are perfectly valid reasons; the various infobox designs can be refined as they are put into use.  Montanabw (talk) 21:24, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * They might well be perfectly valid reasons in a different article. However, a) the compositions infobox does include a unique catalogue number, and the title in this case is not in German; b) the Bach box here did not use those parameters, and this is neither a cantata nor a motet; c) again, the title here is not German, and not long. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:48, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that IF we have a separate template for Bach, we should use it for all his works, for consistency. On the talk of that template, I mused about more similarity and even merging, with caution, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:45, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Accessibility
For what it's worth, the table in the "Structure" section causes the article to stretch beyond my computer screen, even though mine is not particularly small. Is there some way to make the table more flexible? Toccata quarta (talk) 10:04, 27 September 2013 (UTC)


 * It could be split in two, but I don't think it would really help if you had to make the connections from one to the other by scrolling up and down instead of sideways. I just moved the images out to help. I will try to place the comments to the text section. The comparable table in German is larger but shows not as many details such as where brass plays and year of base for parody. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:15, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Moved
The article, created as "Mass in B minor structure" was moved to "Description of the Mass in B minor", which leaves the links above broken. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:43, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

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External links modified
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