User talk:Hugh Beresford1997/Choose an Article

I really appreciate that you've identified five possible articles to edit, that you've offered a specific but succinct evaluation of each one, and that you've identified possible sources. I'm not sure how you feel about the articles you identified, but I think that you may want to lean towards the "muwashshah" and "maqam" articles -- there is lots of scholarship about both. By contrast, it seems like you're relying on the same couple of sources for the other articles, and they aren't particularly strong. Rough Guide books are not scholarly and although they provide reasonable information, they tend to emphasize westernized popular music, they don't cite their sources, and the information they provide is rather minimal. The Bonvin article dates from 1918 and is therefore potentially very problematic. It's also pretty short at only 10 pages. The Touma article is probably better but it doesn't seem to be focused on Syrian chant so I'm not sure how much of value you will get from it.

Please note that while the Bahkali appears to be an excellent (and recent) source, it's a thesis that must be ordered through ProQuest. I have not found it easy to get theses from ProQuest. However, many recent theses are now made available online through their home universities, which is the case here. Here's a link. Note that there's a specific citation format for theses -- please review how to cite one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CBFraoch (talk • contribs) 20:25, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

You note that the "maqam" article is rate "low importance. However, it's rated this in the "Arab world" project, which is not music-specific. From what I understand, there is no more important concept in Arab music so I'd take this rating with a grain of salt! I'd guess that muwashshah is less important than maqam, but I'm not sure that it would rated low importance by an Arab music project. In other words, I think both these articles would be worth editing. You could then take what you learn about maqam and muwashshah and summarize it on the "music in Syria" article. --CBFraoch (talk) 20:46, 16 October 2021 (UTC)