Talk:Music of southern China

History info
On 28 April 2009 pages Music of Guangdong and Music of Jiangxi were text-merged into existing page Music of Fujian, which was then moved (the usual way) via Music of south west China to Music of southern China. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:41, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Merges

 * I moved this discussion form Cut and paste move repair holding pen. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The pages Nanguan - Beiguan - Music of Guizhou - Hakka hill song - Chaozhou xianshi and Music of Guangxi merged to Music of southern China. Redheylin (talk) 22:14, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose all merges; these are distinct regions and cultures and individual articles are quite appropriate. Badagnani (talk) 04:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * User:Redheylin text-merged each of those pages to Music of southern China and replaced it by a redirect to Music of southern China. User:Badagnani changed each of them back to a separate page. Please settle this dispute quietly. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Merges should be proposed individually, and consensus built for such. The regional, genre, and ethnic music articles are distinct and each deserving of its own article. Southern China is not a unitary musical tradition but a huge geographical region containing many musical cultures that are not very similar to one another--even when living in the same province, such as the Cantonese and Chaozhou. Badagnani (talk) 06:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Opposed to merger. Copying and pasting chunks from existing articles into another, does not make a good article. The resultant becomes a hotpotch of different styles. It would be better to give a line or paragraph about each in the general article [Music of southern China], and then linking them over to the individual articles themselves. A general article is no place to become an indepth discussion about each style, this is what the individual pages are for. Granted, some have little information, but that would be due to the few editors knowledgeable in the niche genres, which hopefully we will see them filled out rather exist as stubs presently. Somewhere along the line, if the general article becomes too specialised in each genre, a split would be required, so why merge now when they will be split later? Dylanwhs (talk) 12:11, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Why merge now when they will be split later? Because the split can be achieved in several different ways - for example, into genres that are common across the area. This allows greater levels of comparison. Badagnani, you are correct that there are here "many musical cultures that are not very similar to one another--even when living in the same province, such as the Cantonese and Chaozhou" - and this is precisely why splitting into modern Chinese provinces is a poor way of going about things. Splitting into genres and peoples (eg "music of the miao people") where necessary will get better results, but at present there is not sufficient material for this. You have cited the example of the two distinct opera styles of Canton - please note that, at present, the articles give no account whatsoever of the stylistic and historical relations between the two forms or between all forms of Chinese opera. Further, none of these articles carries the least attempt at references, they do not present wikilinks and are divided in this way that makes further amplification difficult - the articles are not up to standard. I do not think either of you can possibly be campaigning to have the articles remain in this unsatisfactory state, so I would welcome your co-operation in improving this material and, if you cannot, please refrain from blocking someone who is ready to do so. I understand that at the stage at which you intervened no great improvement was yet visible. The same is true, by the way, of the western and northern provinces. I look forward to your constructive co-operation. Please examine pages such as Nanyue and Zhuang people. Redheylin (talk) 14:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Southern China is too huge of an area, and the province articles can simply give an overview of the various traditions that exist in each province, with bluelinks to separate articles on each tradition. Badagnani (talk) 18:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Too huge - may turn out to be the case, but what do we have at the moment? A lot of redlinked, duplicated, ungrammatical, unreferenced stubs, which I hope you're about to help clean up, set out in a fragmentary way that, somehow or other, has dissuaded any improvement - I'd say that is because the provinces are a means of division that was embarked upon for political and not musicological reasons.


 * I am looking mainly at wind-string music genres and I find there is little detail, no comparative study between local genres, little historical and geographical background, little info on links between local instrumental and operatic styles, no linking of info on rhythm and mode, no pics and no overall idea of the influence of religions, courts, ethnic subdivisions like the Hakka and Miao and key institutions like the song-clubs. And no sign of any editor constructively active enough to merit an invitation to "consensus" so far: if you'd like to alter that it would be good.


 * Meanwhile, best have a look at the page Chinese National Music. This page exists because of a little spat you had a few weeks ago. And what you were saying to that editor was perfectly right, but the result is a mess that someone has to clean up. Now here is another mess. So let us get on and clean it up, and maybe put a little less stress on being right and a little more on good articles? Just a kind suggestion.... Redheylin (talk) 15:13, 1 May 2009 (UTC)


 * We should work together to improve and add to all Chinese music-related articles. Even articles that are currently short can be expanded with the proper sources. Badagnani (talk) 02:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Redheylin, I am saying that a general article on the Music of southern China should be a general introduction to each different genre. It shouldn't become specialised in each topic, because that's not what a general article is for. It lead the user to offshoot pages like those that you've decided to mine for information, and later converted into redirects, without any consensus other than your by your own move, that is a unilateral that ought to be decided by consensus from editors as a group discussion. I'm here to voice an opinion that those musical genres should have their own devoted wikipage so that other editors more knowledgeable than I or Badagnani who have responded to you here, can eventually find and edit and make full at some stage to come. If you go far back enough to any wiki article, they all grow from stub status, not redirects.


 * You still haven't addressed the different style of representation that you've cobbled together from copy and pasting. In the general article, you'd remove the local pronunciation of the genre in the genre's dialect, and give a common Chinese representation wrt nomenclature. Since at least one article which you've delete has got local the pronuciation of nomenclature in, you'd be removing information for the sake of keeping the general article uniform in approach, but the stub article that would have served the function of local pronunciation that you deign to remove, would be lost. I favour the retention of the stubs as it serves other purposes, which you have clearly not thought about. Dylanwhs (talk) 20:50, 2 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Glad you are still with me. Busy with silk-bamboo articles just now: hope yu will like nanguan and, any time now, Chaozhou xianshi. Still do not think provinces are of much value musically. We can see, for example, the same comment about Hakka songs in several locations, but hakka music seems to have been deleted, though the content of the articles tells us that ethnic subdivisions and cultural centres are more significant than provinces. There is no "Zhuang music", for example, and Taiwanese music is very badly linked to that of Fujian though it is very close. I think this is part of the reason that articles have not expanded, (and there are few English speakers who are also into traditional mainland music). As far as I can tell, academic sources dealing with music province by province simply do not exist - though sometimes genres and provinces coincide, other times they don't.


 * There was nothing to do but pool what was there, expand it and put it out again (which is not at all pointless). It is then easy to see what is there and what is missing, what information should be distributed upwards and downwards etc. For instance, there seems to be no article on Canton shizhu, no article on the genre itself across all China. No article on poor old Henan province. On the other hand, nanguan and beiguan ought to be merged, I think. It is impossible to tell that the terms belong to the same musical idiom and to understand the connection with temples and song-clubs. The sources I added tie them much tighter.


 * While I was sorting out the categories (still not finished) I saw the category "music of China" disappear in favour of "category:Chinese music". But the "music of China" template still points to the deprecated category. It's a good time to introduce regional categories and modify the template, but you chaps have undone without asking what was being done - which is not exactly consensus-building either! - and redistributed all those dud links and unreffed duplicate text. I think maybe a category:southern Chinese music with a main article may indeed help. Please note that this page was created by me - it is now unlinked and more or less a sandbox for the mo. Obviously there need to be sub articles but it was not and is not clear which will be the most helpful beyond the main genres. (The opera articles are better, though very OR and do not link.)


 * So Dylanwhs, I agree with you absolutely, and that is what I am doing, building genre articles and farming them out again, leaving at this page only common information. It is the province articles that are of questionable value. I am pretty careful to conserve info but, if you find I have lost some details, please insert them, I appreciate it. Redheylin (talk) 23:23, 2 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Certainly academic sources dealing with the music of specific provinces of China exist. And other statements above, that Beiguan and Nanguan are the same tradition are quite incorrect. Badagnani (talk) 06:45, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * A citation is needed to show that the "province by province" approach is a notable-authoritative approach to the subject - as I said, this approach is sometimes valid, sometimes not when dealing wth specific provinces. Citations are already provided in the text re the relations of nanguan and beiguan - the "southern and northern" Fujian styles, the interrelationship of their names, their complementary functions and their common roots in song-clubs. There are no contradictory citations. Redheylin (talk) 03:34, 4 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I have books, in Chinese, on the traditional music of particular provinces. It certainly is a valid manner of presenting Chinese music and such articles can simply serve as cursory overviews, pointing users to separate articles on the music of particular Han or minority genres characteristic of that province. Badagnani (talk) 03:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Need verifiable sources showing this is a notable and authoritative approach to Chinese music per se. Obviously ANY sources dealing with ANY province would be an improvement - it is no use saying you have them if you do not cite them. There are no such citations in any material I have handled. Redheylin (talk) 04:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

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