Talk:Piano ballade

This article has been moved from a user page
It appears that this article (Piano Ballades) was originally written by User:Iforgot21 on his/her user page. Instead of uploading the article into a new name space, they simply moved their user and user talk pages here. See. Consequently all the comments below are from the User's talk page and do not pertain to this article. This article needs to be renamed anyway per Manual of Style to something like Piano ballade. I'd do it myself, but it's too complicated with all the various re-directs which will have to be changed as well. I'm afraid of making an even bigger mess. Voceditenore (talk) 16:53, 27 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Moving this article to the proper name "Piano ballad e " will still move the history of the original user page along with it. Nothing short of creating "Piano ballad e " by cut/paste and subsquent deletion of "Piano Ballades" will lose it. Thise seems rather drastic and will require administrative action. I suggest to move this article as suggested and simply remove the comments below.
 * The matter of cleaning up the article itself is more challenging.
 * PS: Shall I move it to Piano ballad? Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:21, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, moving to Piano ballad is the only sensible option. But I was concerned about what to do with the original user pages. I guess the re-directs could be removed from the user and user talk pages? If that's possible, then Iforgot21 can have their pages back. Otherwise there's no way to leave them messages, etc. Would that work? Voceditenore (talk) 07:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Isn't this redundant with Ballade (music)? ALTON   .ıl  07:20, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The way that article started, yes. But it has since developed into something a bit more general. This article, however concentrates on the piano ballad. While I'm not sure Wikipedia really needs such an article, this one here seems more thorough than Ballade (music). They could either be merged, or the section "Instrumental Ballades" could simply be reduced to . The former is more work than I am prepared to spend on this, the latter is easily done. Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:36, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I see. There appears to be precedent (cf. Sonata, Piano sonata), but I always thought Wikipedia more conservative with regards to page creation. ALTON   .ıl  07:47, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right, the history of this page will forever show what happened when it was Iforgot21's user page — I suppose that can't be helped now. The REDIRECT at User:Iforgot21 should be deleted, which would in fact be in the user's interest. If no objections are raised in the next 2 or 3 hours, I'm going to move the article. Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:20, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I've taken the redirect off of User talk:Iforgot21 and have left them a message about the moves and where they can find their previous talk page messages. Voceditenore (talk) 13:16, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I seem to have come upon this after the discussion is already over and the matter seemingly settled - but I believe "Piano ballad" is entirely the wrong title for this article. I submit that the best title would be "Ballade (music)". However, that title is already taken up with an article considering a broader range of musical Ballades. In that case, maybe this article could be merged with that article. However, if that is not done and this article kept separate, then it might be called "Ballade (piano)", or "Ballade (instrumental)" if you don't want to tie it too exclusively to the piano (which I wouldn't want to do).

I have two problems with the current title:

1. As applied to the form of classical (as against popular) music, the name of the form is overwhelmingly "Ballade" (as shown in the list of examples given). This may simply be French for "Ballad" - but it is still so overwhelmingly preferred for this musical form that it could be regarded as an Anglicized term. So I think the article's title should be spelled "Ballade".

2. I do not believe the term "Piano" should be included in the article title - at least not in this manner as an quasi-adjectival qualifier. While the form of music may usually be for solo piano, I would question whether this is an indispensable property of this musical genre. I'm sure I have occasionally seen Ballades for forces other than for solo piano - for instance, various examples by Frank Martin for different ensembles. Even if it is decided that being for solo piano is close to being an indispensable property of the genre, the fact remains that the form is called simply "Ballade", not "Piano Ballad(e)". "Ballade" cannot be used, because it is the title for an article on a poetic form; so in that case this article should be "Ballade (piano)" (if you want to tie it to the piano) or "Ballade (instrumental)" - but not "Piano Ballad(e)". "Ballade (music)" is also quite good, but can be used only if the current "Piano ballad" and "Ballade (music)" are merged.

I feel sure that anyone knowing the article-naming conventions of Wikipedia who is looking for an article about the Ballade musical form would look up either "Ballade", "Ballade (music)", "Ballade (piano)", or "Ballade (instrumental)". The first two titles are already used for other things; the third wrongly ties the form to the piano alone; so that just leaves the last.

I'm not sure if I (not being an administrator) can make such a change; and, even if I can, I thought it best to raise the discussion before doing so, although I do feel totally sure of my position on this.

Any comments from anyone? If after some weeks or months no-one comments or objects, I may consider whether to make the change (if as a non-administrator I can). M.J.E. (talk) 07:24, 28 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The solution is quite simple and has been mentioned above: merge this article (Piano ballad) into Ballade (music); has M.J.E. just volunteered? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:46, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure I know how to do this properly, and I also wasn't sure if there might be some reason I was unaware of for keeping the articles separate. (Sometimes when one article's subject matter is a subset of another, but substantial in size, it is apparently considered better to keep it as a separate article.) I will take a look at it and see if I can do it - I was just being cautious and suggesting it rather than going ahead and doing it. M.J.E. (talk) 12:20, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Pop piano ballads
A lot of the pages that link to this one are about modern pop artists/albums/songs. In this context, it appears to mean a sentimental ballad in which the instrumentals are provided primarily or solely by a piano. This is incongruous with the content of this article, which has a focus on romantic/classical music and doesn't seem to be describing the same kind of composition.

How best can we resolve this discrepancy? — Smjg (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2015 (UTC)