Talk:Music of Mesopotamia/Archive 1

Intro
MichaelHardy, for future reference, what was inappropriate about the first sentence? Hyacinth 02:05, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Among the first
I hate this kind of vagueness! "The cultures of Mesopotamia were among the first to develop writing", which leaves you wondering who was the first, when the cultures of Mesopotamia were, as far as we know, the first to develop writing... So why don't we just say so? Yes it's pedantic, but whatever.
 * Completely agree. Izzedine 16:06, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Instrumentation section super-speculative
I don't see evidence that shows anything definite about the singing style, assertions about which seem absurdly speculative (particularly considering the source which is a book on 20th century popular music!). When the article talks about 'contemporary "typically" Asian vocal qualities and techniques', what is meant by 'contemporary', and how can one generalise over all 'Asian' singing??

Well, the one thing cited is the cupping the hand over the ear, but to see this as indicating emotional quality of the singing seems rather silly. It is acoustically a way for the singer to hear him or herself more clearly, I have seen classically trained singers do it in rehearsal, as well as many sorts of folk singers both introvert and extrovert. --Tdent 18:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. I consulted the original source (van der Merwe 1989), and the author themself is admittedly speculating. I went ahead and rephrased this paragraph to reflect the fact that it's just speculation, albeit by a music historian. I also added a statement from another researcher who basically says we'll never know. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 19:25, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
 * After further thought I'll also remove the last sentence which reads "He further speculates that singers expressed "intense" but "withdrawn" emotion, as if listening to themselves by cupping a hand to the ear, a practice still used today by folk singers." Yes, those claims are in the source given. But according to the source the ear cupping was seen in Egyptian art, not Mesopotamian art.
 * More generally from this source, the author spends half a page in the beginning of the chapter saying that it's speculation. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 23:42, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Move to "Music of ancient Mesopotamia"
Since this is in the first line of the article, and since it works well with Music of ancient Greece, etc. Any objection? CharlesGillingham (talk) 11:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Nope. Chris Weimer (talk) 05:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree it should be moved. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 02:50, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Done. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 03:17, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Aza24 I noticed you moved the page back, citing an undiscussed move. Can you clarify? It was discussed here. The reasons for moving were given in my edit summary. I don't have much stake in where the article is, but I'm just asking because I'm wanting to learn the ropes of Wikipedia and this was the first time I moved a page, so I want to figure out what went wrong. Thanks! GuineaPigC77 (talk) 22:15, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
 * , no formal WP:RM was started, so there was essentially no visibility to the proposal to allow substantial discussion. If the move was uncontroversial/obviously-correct then no WP:RM would be needed, but since there are pages like Architecture of Mesopotamia and Art of Mesopotamia which exist with such titles, changing this page without changing those does not make the move an obvious one.  Aza24  (talk)   22:23, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah sorry I thought this talk page was enough. Next time I'll do it through this route. Thank you.
 * You're right that it's not obvious what the article's title should be. Now it's consistent with Architecture of Mesopotamia and Art of Mesopotamia, but unfortunately it's now at odds with Music of ancient Greece, Music of ancient Rome, and yet another variation, Music in ancient India. And then there is Music of Iraq, which covers an overlapping geographical region but includes modern music as well.
 * Seems like a bigger discussion is needed. I'll head over to those articles' talk pages to see if this wider issue has already been discussed, and if I don't find anything I'll practice my skills and go through WP:RM. Thanks again for your assistance and patience. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 22:42, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not fussed either way, but I think that the "in ancient India/Greece/Rome" use ancient because there is a modern entity with the same name that is outside the article's scope. "Mesopotamia" isn't used as the name of a contemporary geographical entity, so the "ancient" isn't needed. Furius (talk) 19:33, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing that out, Furius. That makes more sense now, and I agree. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 00:16, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The difference between art and architecture on the one hand and music on the other is that the art and architecture still exist as such, but the music does not. Much of the architecture of Mesopotamia is still there in Mesopotamia today, albeit not in its original state. The music, however, is gone. It is ancient in a more profound way than the art and architecture. Perhaps that is why the title sounds worse to some ears (mine included) than the others. I would readily move all of them, however. The term "Mesopotamia" does not imply "ancient". Srnec (talk) 04:03, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia formatting
Does anyone know where it says that the preferred way of linking is to do links rather than links? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cheatsheet gives the latter, but when I did that, it was changed to the former... Chris Weimer (talk) 05:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)