User:Librarystudent1/sandbox

My thoughts on the articles
For the Wikipedia articles I just looked things up that I was interested in and that I had heard of before or had done some prior projects on. Once I had at list of a few articles I went to the online encyclopedia to see if I could find any articles on the same subject.

My initial thoughts on the differences between the Wikipedia and the other encyclopedia articles, is that the Wikipedia article were generally more informative. Especially for the Rideau Canal and Hill of Tara articles I found the Wikipedia article to be far more informative. The other encyclopedias gave a general gist of what the subject was about but did not go into detail. The Wikipedia article gave a more in depth history of the two subjects. For the Aten and didgeridoo articles I found both to be just about the same. They were roughly the same length and did not cover more information then each other. The only real difference was the elaboration on what the Hymn of Aten is in the Britannica article. The Wikipedia article only gave a link to another article which gave the same elaboration.

The music notation articles were the only ones where I found that the Encyclopedia Britannica article had been written with more information then the Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia article was organized very poorly, jumping from subject to subject. It went from the history of the notation, to the modern notation back to the history of it. The Britannica article had a much better flow to it making it easier to follow and understand. Both articles were about the same length and did have roughly the same information. The Encyclopedia Britannica article was just written better.

Wikipedia references
"Aten." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 15 Aug. 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.

"Didgeridoo." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 26 Sep. 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.

"Hill of Tara." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 27 Sep. 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.

"Music notation." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 21 Sep. 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.

"Rideau Canal." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 24 Sep. 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.

Other encyclopedia references
"Aton". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012

"Didjeridu". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012

"Musical notation". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012

"Rideau Canal." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historic Dominion, 2012. Web. 28 Sep 2012.

"Tara". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012

Assignment 2
For this assignment I decided to look more into the Wikipedia article and Britannica article about musical notation.

The Wikipedia article discusses many different times in history and different notation. It starts off my describing how musical notation is how to receive music through written symbols. The earliest form of music notation was found in Nippur, Iraq in 2000BC in the form of a diatonic scale. In Greece musical notation was able to note pitch and the duration of the note. It was used up to the 4th century AD. Byzantine music notation only noted pitch rise and fall so the musician had to guess which note was going to come next based on the note they were already playing. Many different lines and brush strokes were used to show the largest to smallest pitch change. Byzantine notation is still used in some churches today. In early Europe symbols called neumes were used for chant music. The staff was created to show pitch change. This then evolved into the modern day musical staff we have today by the French in the 16th century.

Today there are different types of notation such as percussion notation, figured bass, chord chart, and lead note. Each of these is used for different instruments and situations. Many countries have their own symbols and staffs that they use for noting music. Some use numbers, letters of native characters or a mixture of both to show music. In the western world they use letters, symbols, and numbers. In Asia they tend to use more characters and numbers for their musical notation. Most countries have a form of solfege that use a pronunciation that works with the native language.

The Britannica article discusses many of the same subjects. It says that musical notation is visual instruction for performance music. The western 5 line staff notation has gained international acceptance in the 20th century. There are different symbols to represent pitch and duration of the note. It shows tempo and which instruments in a given group are playing what part with its different clefs. There are also symbols to indicate volume change and different duration such as staccato.

Western notation started out with neumes. They were only a memory aid to musicians and they used brush strokes to indicate when to change pitch. By the 13th century mensural notation was being used. It used diamond shapes notes that would be colored in or note to indicate duration and they were placed on a staff in show pitch. Slowly the notes became more rounded to become more like the notation in the 20th century. Staff notation is very difficult to fit into non-western music. There are different scales and note durations that make it difficult in write down in the western notation.

In other countries many different types of notation are used. Verbal and syllabic notation are used. It is similar to solfege but uses different syllables for each note in every country. Alphabetic notation is used as well, especially in the middle east where each letter I used for a note. Numerical notation is used in the Japanese system where numbers 1-7 represent a note in a scale. Graphic notation with a graph and lines and curves that represent duration and pitch of the note. Tablature is used for stringed instruments to show which fingers to use to pluck which string, when to used vibrato and the direction of the stroke of the bow. It is mainly used in China and Japan today.

In the Wikipedia article it discusses many eras in history and how the musical notation was used during that time. The Britannica article discusses the evolution of musical notation to the notation that we use in the western world. It brushes over some periods such as the Byzantine era. The Wikipedia article uses terms that most people would understand. It explains terms that might not be familiar to people who do not use musical notation in their daily lives. For example when it comes to the note values and names it explains it quite well; it tells you exactly what they mean by whole note and dotted notes. The Britannica article uses many terms that people in general might not know. It speaks of the different scales such as the diatonic scale, solfege, mensural notation, and the different clefs used in notation without explaining exactly what they mean. Anyone unfamiliar with musical notation would have to do further research in order to understand everything. The Wikipedia article jumps from subject to subject without any real flow or reason. Everything discussed in the Britannica article flows well. There is no additional information that would confuse readers.

There are numerous people that contributed to the Wikipedia article. Most of the people don’t have a profile page so there is no information on them. There are 3 people that contributed the most to the article. The first two call themselves wikipedians, but they do not have anything on their profile page about being an authority or expert in music. However, the third person’s, Jerome Kohl, profile page says that he has a B. of Music and that he has a PhD. in music theory which would make him an expert in musical notation. I could not find any information to prove that about Kohl. There are 19 links to other articles about music notation and the history of music. Half of the links say that the articles need more citation so they may not completely accurate,

Ian Bent is the person who wrote the Britannica article. He is a professor of the History of Music Theory at Cambridge University and he has written 2 books on musical theory. He is the only person to have written the Britannica article. There are 24 links to different articles for further reading that offer a huge amount of information on the history to music and theory. It also gives suggestions on books that one could read if they wanted more information. The authors of some of the other articles linked to the musical notation article are also experts in musical theory and history.

Both articles are filled with information but I think that the Britannica article is better. It is for sure written by an expert in the field of music theory and it flows very nicely. The only down side to the article is that it uses terms that the average person might not know. One would have to do some further research to understand some of the terms. It is written very systematically and makes the article easy to read. The article is not filled with information that doesn’t exactly fit with the main subject. Instead it has these other topics covered in the links in further reading.

The Wikipedia article jumps from subject to subject. There is no real flow to the information. It starts off talking about the history of music notation then moves to types of music then back to the history. It is filled with information that is related to musical notation but seems to be randomly placed in the middle of the article for no real reason. For example in the other systems and practices section it has cipher notation as first on the list. Cipher notation is rarely used compared to some of the other notation mentioned in that section. It makes the article a little harder to read. On top of that there is a note that this article is in need of citation. In the history of the page there are a few instances when fake citations were used and had to be deleted. This happened mostly in the history sections of the article. There are only 23 citations for this article which is a little surprising considering how long the article actually is. Based on the amount of information covered in the article I would think that there should be twice that amount of citations.

Related articles to musical notation
1) Touliatos-Miles, Diane. "Byzantine Neumes: A New Introduction to the Middle Byzantine Musical Notation." Notes 69.1 (2012): 101+. Academic OneFile. Web. 8 Nov. 2012.

2) "Western Notation In Turkish Music." Journal Of The Royal Asiatic Society 18.4 (2008): 401-447. Humanities Source. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.

3) Buckley, Ann. "Music And Musicians In Medieval Irish Society." Early Music 28.2 (2000): 165-190. Humanities Source. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.

4) Dahl, Per. "The Rise And Fall Of Literacy In Classical Music: An Essay On Musical Notation." Fontes Artis Musicae 56.1 (2009): 66-76. Library & Information Science Source. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.

5) ZBIKOWSKI, LAWRENCE M. "Music Theory, Music History, And Quicksand." Music Theory Spectrum 33.2 (2011): 226-228. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.

6) Botstein, Leon. "Music In History: The Perils Of Method In Reception History." Musical Quarterly 89.1 (2006): 1-16. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.

7) NEUMANN, FREDERICK. "Conflicting Binary And Ternary Rhythms: FROM THE THEORY OF MENSURAL NOTATION TO THE MUSIC OF J.S. BACH." Columbia University Press Music Forum Volume Six 6.1 (1988): 93-127. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.

8) Alden, Jane. "From Neume To Folio: Mediaeval Influences On Earle Brown's Graphic Notation." Contemporary Music Review 26.3/4 (2007): 315-332. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.

9) N.A. "Musical notations." Times, The (United Kingdom) n.d.: Canadian Reference Centre. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.

10) Clague, Mark. "Portraits In Beams And Barlines: Critical Music Editing And The Art Of Notation." American Music 23.1 (2005): 39-68. Humanities Source. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.