User talk:Jerome Kohl/Archive 20

Script error
You should know that the script you're using introduces errors if there is already a non-breaking space before an ndash. It's frustrating, I know--I've been using it for several years. :/ ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:48, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Ach! That's one I hadn't noticed yet (quite a few others have already caught my eye as I scan the results each time I use that script). Thanks for the heads up. I'll keep my eye peeled for this one, as well.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:01, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Colin Brumby
When I changed the template to Use Australian English, I wasn't commenting negativiely about anyone's edits or the article in general. I was just putting the correct template on the article. I'm sorry if you thought I was making some criticism of your edits. Kerry (talk) 03:28, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * No, no! Not at all! It was a perfectly sensible thing to do. I was only commenting ruefully on my insufficient experience of Australian English! I am reasonably acquainted with UK and US standards, but shaky where other national varieties are concerned.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:34, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Actually, for encyclopedic purposes, Australian English is very similar to British English in terms of spelling with a tiny smattering of different vocabulary (we say "creek" not "stream" and "township" rather than "village/hamlet"). We defer to the Macquarie Dictionary rather than the Oxford (although I am old enough to have gone to school before the Macquarie was published when the Oxford was our standard dictionary). The differences between British and Australian English are far more evident in everyday conversation but that doesn't really affect Wikipedia. Kerry (talk) 15:16, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I shall remember the Macquarie Dictionary for future reference. My limited experience with Australian English has led me to surmise that following UK practice would not lead me far astray. Best wishes.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:28, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Chemistry environment
In this edit hyphens inside a  tag were changed to en-dashes. is basically another form of the mode tag which needs hyphens for correct LaTeX processing. The same applies to. I think the lines need to be changed to include the ce and chem tags.--Salix alba (talk): 00:06, 5 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Beyond my competence, I'm afraid. Apologies for changing symbols that looked like mistaken hyphens for minus signs. Please revert my edit.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:01, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Radio 3
Dear Jerome, please forgive what will probably sound like a stupid question but I promise I will explain it soon. There is method in my madness ... really! Cheers DBaK (talk) 22:27, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you listen to / are you aware of BBC Radio 3?
 * I cannot think how you can possibly imagine that is a stupid question. Yes, I am not only aware of BBC Radio 3, but even listen to it now and again, principally the Saturday-night programme "Hear and Now". As a matter of fact, I have even appeared as a guest on that programme on one or two occasions. Now, what is your method and/or madness?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:15, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the nice answer. Well, I worried that it was at risk of sounding like a stupid question if you were Radio-3-aware ("who is this condescending fool who thinks that I might not know about Radio 3?") or equally if you were not ("who is this Anglocentric presumptuous fool who thinks that everyone in the world should know about a foreign radio station?"), but I am delighted to hear that you are aware, and terribly impressed that you've actually been on it.
 * So, the question is really this: you probably know about Tom Service. Would you be surprised to learn that he is currently the subject of a deletion discussion on the grounds that he is not notable? Now, please note that I am absolutely not canvassing for you to rush over there and !vote. Far from it. The discussion is happening anyway and improvements have been made to the article and ... well, que sera, sera. But what did get me was that it appears to be a good faith nomination by someone who is familiar with the rules, and on the face of it it looked as if they had a point. I was absolutely astonished to see the nomination, because to me he is a self-evidently notable figure. He's never off the radio, he's all over the Guardian, and if you Google him the body of work he has produced is massive. But the way the rules are structured seems to deny the usability of much of this. If he dropped his trousers at an awards ceremony, thumped Simon Rattle, then was investigated for tax evasion then he'd be notable, because there would be news coverage, but producing colossal quantities of public, high-profile work doesn't seem to do it. He is literally a household name (OK, in some households more than others!) and was even on Christmas University Challenge (where, to our hilarity and no doubt to his eternal shame, he flunked on recognizing a bit of the Nutcracker!) ... I couldn't take that to the deletion discussion, but, blimey, you can't get much more mainstream than that round our (yes, gritty, Northern, working-class) way! So, was this a fair cop, or is there something wrong with the notability guideline for critic/broadcaster types? In classical music especially? Or is it something else? Maybe it just wasn't a very good article, but is a deletion discussion the best way to improve it? I'd be most interested in your thoughts. With all good wishes, DBaK (talk) 08:38, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Aha, so that's it! I was unaware of the discussion, but of course I know Tom Service's work, and even met him once (briefly), in the BBC studios in London in November 2008. If his article is to be deleted on grounds of non-notability, then I suppose the floodgates will open on other non-notables like Nicholas Kenyon, Paul Griffiths, Andrew Porter, and George Bernard Shaw. I shall have to look into this.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:34, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks - and yes indeed, all those other people whose fame is poorly documented - out with them all, the non-notable wretches! :) I do worry, and wonder if something is a little broken or needs tweaking. Ah well, thanks again and good night. Best wishes DBaK (talk) 23:37, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Overture on Hebrew Themes
Could you tell me what sentences need references and I will try to add them? Do you give permission to change the format of the referencing to parenthetical to footnotes like in Lieutenant Kijé (Prokofiev)? Thank you Triplecaña (talk) 12:10, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I will take a look at the article, which I have not seen now for long enough that I cannot remember anything about citation needs. I see no reason at all to change the referencing style hy would you want to do that? Wouldn't it make just as good sense to change Lieutenant Kijé to use parenthetical formatting?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:49, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I have checked the article, and it looks generally well-referenced. There is one sentence already marked as needing a source ("Overall, his years in America were not as successful as he had hoped"), and this does not look like it is relevant to the article subject at all. I will delete it for this reason. If you think it is relevant, and have a reliable source for it, please feel free to restore it with a citation.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:54, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Happy New Year!
I have some music and images to offer to express that, in case you didn't watch my talk then. Why - I'd just like to understand better? - Just came across this, and like it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:06, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi, Gerda. I will have to check out your music and images. I'm afraid I have not become one of your Talk-page stalkers. To understand better my edit removing the inbox, consider the immediately previous edit, which added "background = non_performing_personnel". Now, what on earth is that supposed to mean? This is what I was referring to in my edit summary. Quite apart from that, evaluating his "years of activity" is quite problematic. Considering he was publishing books from 1929, giving him a 1942 "start date" (presumably based on his compositional catalogue) seems quite odd. Is he to be regarded exclusively as a composer? If so, why? I agree with you about the Mengelberg article, but why do you especially like it? Because I have never participated in editing it, or in spite of the fact? I noticed it has an inbox, though I did not actually look at it. Is that an attraction?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:31, 1 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for explaining what (at least to me) was not obvious. - Two suggestions: look at Max Reger and tell me what you'd change, - we can change parameters and content, - don't have to remove the whole thing. I try to stay completely away from the topic (of course adding infoboxes to "my" articles, but not interferring with others), and you could do the same ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:42, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Forgot two things: I meant just the infobox in the Mengelberg article, not the whole thing, and Seiber's could be repaired by just using infobox person (which comes without added coloured boxes) instead of the more specific one. I use "person" for all people, and never fill "years active" and "nationality", not even "Alma Mater", - I use "Education" instead. - DYK that back in 2012, I was among those who found an infobox redundant? See Talk:Samuel Barber - It was in that discussion that I was turned around (to: yes, redundant, but on purpose, for us idiots foreigners, vision-impaired, searching for just a bit of information), by the unforgettable comment "Unless, of course, someone wishes to argue that Barber was not a person..." which won my heart. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:02, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The only thing I would change about the Max Reger infobox would be to remove it but, as it is established on that article, I'm not going to waste a lot of time fruitlessly trying to whip up a consensus for its removal. As for the Mengelberg infobox, I barely noticed it was there. Now that I look at it, I don't see any indication that he was a composer, though this activity is mentioned briefly in the article itself. Given that he was a conductor, anyone with the experience of playing in an orchestra might well argue that "Infobox person" is not appropriate, because conductors are not people ;-)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:01, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Symphony No. 4
Hello and thank you for tuning Symphony No. 4. I'm not a musician and would welcome a second opinion. I made the edit because a report (large page) flagged it as having several missing entries (Harbison, Hill, Honegger, Karetnikov, MacMillan, Rouse, Schnittke, Schuman, Tansman). It also threw up other articles such as Piano Concerto No. 3, which I've just edited. Do you think the revised format works here, or should I keep more closely to what was there before?

Thanks again for your help, Certes (talk) 15:18, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I think you have done the right thing. The various "Symphony No. X" lists have been annoying me for some time because of their inconsistent formatting. It had not occurred to me that invoking the disambiguation-list format would be a good way of establishing a uniform style. There are some elements that still need cleaning up (for example, the "one blue-linked item per line" rule), but you are definitely on the right track here. The only nagging doubt I have is the inclusion of lines with no blue links at all. It seems to me that, when there is no separate article for a particular symphony or concerto, that the composer's name should be linked, though of course that creates an inconsistency in itself.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:14, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * That's good to hear.  I'll try to do something similar for the other numbers when I get time.  If a line has no blue link then we should link the article with most information on the symphony.  That's probably the composer's biography but may be a List of works by Joe Composer if they were prolific.  If there's no such article then we should consider removing the line altogether per WP:DABMENTION — there's little point in teasing the reader with "Symphony No. 4 (Doe) by John Doe" when there's no mention of the work behind the blue link.  The alternative would be to make the page into a set index article, which can legitimately hold a line or two about each item with multiple blue links and references even if that symphony isn't mentioned in any other article. Certes (talk) 02:20, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
 * This is just the sort of subtlety that leaves me trailing far behind. It sounds good to me, though I do not entirely understand it! I do understand (and thoroughly agree with) the principle that lists such as these function primarily to guide readers to one or more of the multiple articles containing the title phrase, and therefore are useless if there is no article to which the reader can be directed. On the other hand, I just a little while ago added a Piano Sonata No. 3 entry for Paul Hindemith, whose three sonatas are (in my judgment) of fairly equal importance, and yet only the First Sonata has an article (so far) on Wikipedia.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:38, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm here to help readers rather than follow rules, but mature guidelines such as WP:DAB usually tick both boxes. In principle, we could have a section link to List of compositions by Paul Hindemith[a] or even make Piano Concerto No. 3 (Hindemith) redirect there. However, in this case the article gives no information on the work other than its date, which would probably be on the dab page anyway, so it barely scrapes through WP:DABMENTION and it's a close call whether to include it at all.
 * [a] except that the wikilink breaks because the section header contains a reference. I'm working out what to do with that! — Certes (talk) 13:39, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Except for the small detail that Hindemith's work is a sonata rather than a concerto, this all seems sensible to me. That footnote in the header should not be there, per MOS:HEAD. Maybe I can figure out a graceful way of moving it to the body of the section it introduces.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:03, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Script
ALL the dashes you "fixed" in 1993 are incorrectly spaced. Please do not use that script in articles with date ranges. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:53, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that, I did not carefully enough check the results. The script is expressly designed for use in articles with date ranges, and I have successfully used it now in more than a thousand articles (mainly the various "year" articles like 1993, going back to the 14th century) with only two errors until now, both of which had to do with some special use of hyphens in sports scores, which I did not understand. Normally, the script renders cases like this correctly. I cannot think what caused the problem this time, but I will study the original formatting to see if I can discover why it happened. In the meantime, I will increase my vigilance. Thanks for calling my attention to this.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:23, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I now see what caused the problem. The script does not understand the piped date links. By ignoring the double brackets, it understands both the date before the dash and the date after the dash as compounds, rather than reading the second as the (abbreviated) single number, and therefore uses a spaced instead of an unspaced en-dash. Although I believe this is not best usage of date formats (and it is certainly not usual in these "by year" lists), I have seen it before, and even used it myself from time to time. I shall certainly keep my eye out for this eccentricity in future.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:56, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You don't need to 'fix' dashes v m-dashes when they're inside a cite web, the cite outputs the m-dash correctly Dave Rave (talk) 02:50, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I doubt that.
 * (hyphen) produces:
 * and
 * (em dash) produces:
 * . Correct would be
 * (en dash) produces:
 * -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:07, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Precious anniversary
Very fitting that we have Christopher White on the Main page today, who played in the premiere of Phoenix Arising, Tribute to William Waterhouse. In Freundschaft --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:06, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

It's seven years now, and Freundschaft. Thank you for forgiving me more often than the one time you mentioned in 2012 ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:46, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Easy listening edit
Missed the link to Beautiful music below in paragraph. Thanks for catching this. Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 18:32, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * My pleasure!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:33, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 3
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Symphony No. 3, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Don Gillis ([//dispenser.info.tm/~dispenser/cgi-bin/dablinks.py/Symphony_No._3 check to confirm] | [//dispenser.info.tm/~dispenser/cgi-bin/dab_solver.py/Symphony_No._3?client=notify fix with Dab solver]).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 11:03, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for tidying the dab page. I fixed the link to Gillis.  Do you think we should include Symphony in E-flat major, Op. 11, No. 3 (Stamitz)?  I'm not sure whether that's his "symphony no. 3", as he also wrote a Symphony in B-flat major "Mannheim No. 3" (Stamitz). Certes (talk) 15:05, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Oops! I knew full well there was more than one Don Gillis, but forgot to put in the disambiguator. Thanks for fixing my mistake. I doubt very much that Stamitz's Op. 11, No. 3 would be only his third symphony. Without consulting his list of works, I would not be surprised to learn that Op. 1 is a set of twelve such symphonies, and also Opp. 2–10, which would make Op. 11 No. 3 his 123rd symphony. The problem with those early symphony composers is that they didn't bother numbering their symphonies, either because they were regarded as rather trifling little compositions, or because they simply couldn't count high enough. This only begins to change with the 19th century, when passing elementary-school math was added to the requirements for obtaining a composer's certificate ;-)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:10, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll leave Stamitz out then. I've had a go at Symphony No. 2 if you'd like to check it over at some point.  No obvious problems. Certes (talk) 23:16, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Boulez article assessment?
Hi Jerome - I was wondering whether you thought it would be a good idea to request an assessment of the Boulez article. I've done a fair amount of work on it but am struggling to know how to move it on and would welcome an outside eye as to what needs attention. I have no idea how to request an assessment though... Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Dmass (talk) 11:32, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I have not read through the Boulez article for several months now, though I have noticed the huge amount of work you have been doing on it. Since you are now at the point where you want some feedback, I will be happy to look it over now. For a formal review, the place to start might be with what is called a "peer review". Everything you need to know will be found at this link. If you are feeling a little more confident, you can nominate the article for good article" or even featured article status. I do not have a great deal of experience in these matters myself, but I believe it is usual to start with a peer review. I have participated in a few of these, on both sides of the fence, and the results have been consistently supportive and encouraging.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:37, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Jerome, that's really helpful. I'd really welcome your feedback if you have time.Dmass (talk) 22:39, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I have made a first pass through the article, and I am astonished at how much improvement you have made. I should have been paying better attention over the last year or so. I have made a few minor adjustments, and there are still things that need attention, mostly of a mechanical nature. The main thing I notice is inconsistency in the formatting of references. I believe you have addressed this already in some of your previous edits, but now is perhaps the time to systematically deal with this. The predominant style seems to be short-footnote style, but there are a number of full-footnote references. Those sources are mostly not found in the main reference list, and so will need to be added there before SFNs can be substituted in the footnotes. With this out of the way, I would say that the peer-review level could be skipped, and a nomination for Good Article should be implemented right away. I cannot recall reading any Wikipedia article lately that gave me such pleasure. Congratulations on a job very well done.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:50, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi Jerome, I really appreciate your taking the time to read through the article and your positive feedback means a great deal to me. Thank you very much—also for picking up the various formatting slips. I will spend some time working through all the references, as you suggest, before nominating it. You may not recall, but you and I had a lengthy debate (now archived) a couple of years back about their format and reached something of an impasse (with no one else willing to chip in!). Without rehashing, my main concern was that I didn't want to clog the list of sources with newspaper articles, some of which are only cited once, some of which have no author. I think I'm going to stick to my guns on that—for the time being at least! But there are also some references which don't come into that category (articles, chapters in books etc) and I'll go through them and include them in the list of sources and then refer back to them. I'll also check that the links are all working, which seems to be a consistent criticism in the reviews I've just looked at. I may have to revert to you with further questions along the way, I hope that's OK?
 * On a specific point: you added a 'citation needed' tag at the beginning of the opera section. The statement there was intended to identify a theme which (I hoped) was then borne out by the rest of the section, which sets out the pattern of PB starting operatic collaborations which then break down. But you are the second person to tag it, so it obviously sticks out like a sore thumb! Would you be very kind and just have another look to see if it's justified? If you think not, I think I will just delete that sentence.
 * Once again, thanks for your help. I was really delighted by your comments. Dmass (talk) 10:54, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
 * You are very welcome. Cleaning up minor formatting inconsistencies is a tedious business, but such things are the easiest to spot for an editor who is not familiar with the subject. When the article goes up for review, someone is bound to bring this up, so it is just as well to get as much of it out of the way first. I had forgotten our dispute on this matter until you mentioned it.
 * I will reconsider that "citation needed" tag but, if someone else already tagged it, then it is highly likely that one or more reviewers would also think it needs a citation. I agree that it makes for a smoother narrative by preparing the reader for what is to follow. Perhaps there is some way of making it acceptable by means of a minor tweak.
 * Do please feel free to come back to me if there is anything further I can help with.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:40, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Jerome—and for your offer of further help, which I'm sure I will take up. I've tweaked that passage in the opera section, as you suggested, which I hope now solves the problem by making a narrower assertion which is covered by the citation already there. I'll make a start on working through the references over the next week or so. Dmass (talk) 07:20, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * (watching:) The usual way to higher article quality certificates would be Good article (GA), but I think in this case you could right go for Peer review (PR), with the advantage of addressing multiple editors, not only one. You could ask in the PR if reviewers think it's fit for Featured article (FA). FAs for composers are rather frequent for English and early 20th century, but I don't know a single more modern one. - I could help, but only from next week. Thanks for what you did, both! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:15, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Many thanks, Gerda. I think as I haven't been through this process before, I'm going take it step by step and nominate it for GA in the first instance. No doubt that will lead to many suggestions for improvements and if in due course it then seems that FA status is a possibility, I will press on with that. Dmass (talk) 13:16, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Elliott Carter
Greetings -- could you do me a favor when you get a moment and look at the most recent edits to Elliott Carter? To my eye baldly using the words "harmony and rhythm" is a disservice to a casual visitor -- but would like to know what you think. I'd leave a note on the talk page but don't think anyone else is watching it. All the best -- Antandrus (talk) 03:41, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I did see those edits and wondered about them. What they replaced, however, also had problems. Both versions look to me like unsupported opinion (i.e., Original Research). I am still thinking about how best to respond to this.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:27, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Bold headings on Vivaldi
Thank you for catching those headings that I had accidentally left bold -- I hadn't realised, since they were just plain bold text before I made them headings. — Hugh (talk) 23:49, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * No problem. As I'm sure you know, the Wiki markup automatically renders the heading text bold. It is an easy mistake to make.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:51, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Systems of tuning not closed under inversion (question at the RD)
I've posted a question at the RD you may have some expertise on. If you feel like answering, please, don't hesitate. Basemetal 13:10, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I took a look but, frankly, I am baffled. The whole invertibility thing seems to rely on arbitrary definitions, for a start. I'm afraid I cannot be of help on this one.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:35, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Ok. Any definition is (by definition) arbitrary. Here your "arbitrary" is just another way of saying "uninteresting". That's fine. But there was a factual question in there that you could surely answer: namely Do you personally know of any Western tuning system, among the tuning systems you are familiar with, containing intervals whose inversion is not an interval of the system? You can surely answer it, at least in one of the following three ways: either (1) no, I can't think of any; or (2) there is at least one, namely...; or (3) I don't know, I'd have to take a look and I've got better things to do right now. I've looked at the tuning systems I was familiar with and as far as I can tell it's (1), but I thought you are probably familiar with so many more tuning systems than I am. Incidentally by Western I mean post 16th c. European. Basemetal 12:12, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Under those circumstances, my answer would have to be no, I can't think of any.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:21, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Your teacher?
Has Donald A. Lentz been a teacher of yours? Basemetal 21:16, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes. How did you know?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:57, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I think you've told me, but I wasn't sure I had not just imagined it, so I wanted to make sure. I guess I could have just gone through your archive, but this way seemed quicker. Basemetal 06:33, 28 March 2018 (UTC) PS: Do you happen to have his 1961 book Tones and Intervals of Hindu Classical Music? Basemetal 06:35, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah! That would explain it, then. No, I don't have his book on Hindu Classical Music, and can't recall reading it, though I did once read his 1965 book on the Gamelan Music of Java and Bali, and went back to consult it on a few points after the idealogical tide turned in ethnomusicology on the doctrine of mathematical explanations for every tuning system. I remember Don telling us with some glee in his voice about all the bad reviews his book got on this point, but he was not cowed and believed one day he would be vindicated. I believe he lived long enough to see this happen.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:33, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

The bad reviews for the 1961 book or the 1965 book? I've just discovered I could have searched your archive, that in fact people's talk page archives are searchable. Watch: Special:Search?search=Lentz&prefix=User+talk%3AJerome+Kohl%2F&fulltext=Search (never mind the redlink). Basemetal 17:14, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know how the 1961 book was received, but the 1965 book was seen as an attack on the soundness of theories espoused by some of the most respected authorities of the time (as indeed it was). Thanks for the trip down memory lane, in the archives of this talk page. I do now remember that conversation.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:15, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Donald Lentz's 1961 book came up in this conversation. Unfortunately the other editor can't find his copy and you've never owned one. Was Donald Lentz able to read the Sanskrit sources? Did he do fieldwork in India? (Although that wouldn't have helped since from what I understand the book is about ancient theory not modern practice). Basemetal 21:04, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I see. Well, I can tell you that he did do fieldwork in India (amongst other places) but, as you say, this would not make much difference where interpreting ancient texts is concerned. I do not know whether or not he could read the Sanskrit sources, but I doubt it. What I do remember was his incredibly fine sense of absolute pitch: he was perfectly capable of discriminating a deviation of a schisma. Of course that, too, would not rule out the possibility of a mathematical error creeping into his table.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:17, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Addendum: I have just checked, and there are two copies of Tones and Intervals of Hindu Classical Music in the library here. I could easily check to find the answer to this question.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:21, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm continuing the zigzag. I'm actually starting to prefer your in-out alternate style to the usual permanent-drift-rightwards-until-someone-is-finally-fed-up-and-decides-to-throw-an-outdent-tantrum. I'd guess the error was introduced by the editor, but it would be incredibly kind of you if it's no too great an inconvenience to check. Plus maybe now's exactly the right time to finally read that book at long last. (What does the Chicago Manual of Style say, smiley after or before the period?) The error in cents is absurd and can be ignored. The change of that ratio is interesting. Whoever perpetrated it replaced the real 2nd F sharp (tiivratam madhyam) with a 2nd F sharp that was an inversion of the 1st (tiivram madhyam). The two F sharp are on different sides of the half-octave √2 (in my opinion the best neutral term for that interval, rather than augmented 4th, diminished 5th, tritone, etc. which are bound to specific theories, I don't know what you think) but they are not symmetrical with respect to it. They may have thought there was something wrong with a system that was not symmetrical with respect to the half-octave, that it was an error and decided to correct it. That's why I very much doubt it was Lentz. There is some logic to this, but unfortunately that introduces an interval that's not supposed to be there. The shruti system is built of three sizes of elementary steps. The consequence of that is that the system is invertible for all steps except precisely the two F sharp and that seems to be exactly the reason. The other failure of invertibility, namely that there are two Fs but only one G, results from the same type of consideration seems to be an ideological rather than a technical matter. That could easily have been fixed by the Indians themselves within their requirements of only three sizes of elementary steps but never was. The ideological reason seems to have been that.  [What follows has now become a parenthetical observation which, though true, is no longer directly related to the topic of the ratios of the shrutis]  G (pancham), that is the 5th of the raag, is supposed to be "acal" ("unmovable"), whereas the F (madhyam) that is the 4th is "cal" ("movable"). That's why they also deny the existence of G flat (komal pancham). Even in raags, such as Raag Lalit, where the best analysis seems to be that the raag contains F and G flat (a bit analogously to our Locrian mode if that really exists) they stubbornly insist on describing it as a raag with two versions of F, F natural and F sharp, and no G. They say it's a six note raag (shadav jati) because two versions of F's do not count for them as two different notes (when it's so obviously a seven note raag). Here's a nice little snippet of Raag Lalit by two flute players, one left handed and one right handed. Unfortunately in this particular style of playing which is characteristic of the end of a recital the melody doesn't dwell on all seven notes equally and leisurely but that's the shortest I could find because I don't suppose you would be ready to listen to a 30 minutes alaap in Raag Lalit. I think there's a discussion of Raag Lalit in Nazir Jairazbhoy's The Rags of North Indian Music: Their Structure and Evolution, among other things regarding this business of how suspect the G flat seems to be to Indian theorists. [Here we're getting back to the topic] In any case, to go back to Lentz, I'm reading the Nāṭyaśāstram and in 1961, when Lentz published his book, a translation of it had barely been published that very same year so he couldn't have used it. That's why I was wondering if he could use the Sanskrit sources directly. I can't imagine what resource in a European language he could have relied on. Of course there are other Indian theorists, more recent than "Bharata", and maybe there were translations available of their works in European languages, but from what I understand the Nāṭyaśāstram is an essential piece of the puzzle since the actual ratios for the intervals are based on a construction described there. Intriguing stuff. I see there's a new 2013 printing of Lentz's book. I might just buy it. But before that if you get around to getting it from the library, I may ask you how big it is, is there a bibliography, what Indian treatises are mentioned... Basemetal 01:04, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I suppose I might be breaking some law with the zigzag, as you call it, but it does seem a lot more sensible than the usual right-drift-with-eventual-sudden-snap-back, especially when there are only two discussants involved. I can tell you this much about Lentz's book: it is only 25 pages long, so more of a booklet than a book.
 * I can just about follow your race through the shruti system (thanks in some part to Don's lectures back in the 1960s), which strongly calls to mind aspects of both ancient Greek and medieval European modal theory. The former of course had four fixed notes in an octave— and four wildly movable ones, but the medieval system tended more to the stable-dominant-and-everything-else-can-wobble-around idea. My attention was drawn back to this concept recently by a performance of the Machaut Mass given here in Seattle by Marcel Pérès—not so much Machaut's polyphony as the plainchant Pérès chose to fill out the programme. If you know his work, you will be aware that he has been strongly influenced by Eastern Christian chant, and what was so very plain in his solo performances was the drone-like stability of a certain small number of pitches and the motility of all the rest, especially the fourth above the final. This obviously relates directly to the theoretical status of the Lydian mode up until that half-informed meddler Glareanus started insisting on fixing all seven steps of the scale and brainwashed the general public into believing there was therefore a difference between Lydian and Ionian. What rubbish!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:13, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Aha! So you're siding with the Indians and accepting a variable 4th degree! I must quickly correct a conjecture I made above before checking the ratios rigorously, namely that the Indian system's failure to include a second G (40/27) to correspond to the second F (27/20) had something to do with their dogmatic position regarding the 5th degree. I checked the ratios rigorously and it turns out this is not the case. Instead it is also a result of the same technical consideration that prevented them from taking the two F sharp to be inversions of one another. The rest is well known and not a conjecture of mine. I've struck out above my hasty conjecture and grayed out the whole business about Raag Lalit which has now become a parenthetical remark irrelevant to the topic of the shrutis. I hope you enjoyed Raag Lalit though which would never have come into the picture without my hastily connecting the two situations. Basemetal 05:45, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Hold on just a dadburned minute! I was simply stating the medieval traditionalist position with respect to Glareanus, and Marcel Pérès's Eastern-Orthodox-influenced approach to performance. Recall that I also mentioned the ancient Greek system which, in the Dorian and Phrygian tonoi, at least, has fixed fourth and fifth scale degrees. It is probable that Glareanus, who could read Greek and was familiar with Greek theory, was influenced in this respect by the Greek system. I did enjoy Raag Lalit, by the way. Very much so! Thanks for the link.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:40, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, I now have Don Lentz's book in my hand, and I can answer the question. He did not make a mistake, but this case shows how important it can be to read the annotations to a table. First of all, Lentz's table is not solely intended to display the intervals of the Indian system, as the caption makes clear: "Comparative Chart of Tones within the Octave in Hindu and Western Music Systems". It has a total of 14 columns, compared with six in the Wikipedia article. The offending interval in question is marked with an asterisk in the column for Western just intonation (column III), but finding the meaning of this mark requires reading the following chapter where, on p. 13, Lentz explains some simplifications made in order to facilitate comparison with Western just intervals: "Large ratios have been reduced, such as 1024/729 to 45/32, or 729/512 to 64/45 (which differs slightly from the 11/8 of the F sharp in column III). The discrepancies are so slight as to be negligible and do not affect the understanding of the system. The exact derivation of any particular tone can be checked from column VIII or column IX. The numbers in these columns indicate the number of fifths or fourth from the fundamental (1)." Indeed, the interval in question is marked as being 7 fourths away which, when reduced to the same octave, gives the more complex ratios. The values in cents in Lentz's table are rounded to the nearest whole number, but otherwise correspond exactly to the corrected values in the current version of the Wikipedia article's table. The incorrect numbers in the earlier version are clearly transcription errors.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:02, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you so much. Does the book have a bibliography? What source does it use for the data it presents? Another thing: the note to that table that explains why 729:512 has been reduced to 64:45 ("large ratios have been reduced") also says that 1024:729 has been reduced to 45:32. This one I'm puzzled by because 45:42 is the ratio used in the Indian system, it's not a simplification, and 1024:729 is not actually used. Basemetal 06:30, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * You are welcome. The book has no bibliography, but rather acknowledges seven authorities at the beginning ("Conferences with outstanding musicians and scholars throughout India were a very productive source in obtaining material for use in this book. ...It is impossible to acknowledge all who generously contributed ideas and information, but I wish to express my gratitude and thanks to the following in particular ...". Mainly heads of music schools are listed, in Benares, Karachi, Madras, Delhi, etc.) So, no Sanskrit involved, nor even printed sources, apparently. The table is large and complicated (as I said, there are 14 columns, but there are also some inter-columnar and inter-row annotations), and I am faced with an additional problem: the copy I checked out has been library bound, and that table is displayed broadside across two pages. The result is that the tenth row of the table has been completely swallowed up in the sewn binding. Nothing at all of it is visible.
 * That note did puzzle me, as well. For what it is worth, the ratios in column II ("Ratio of Indian interval [above fundamental]") are: 1/1, 256/243, 16/15, 10/9, 9/8, 32/27, 6/5, 5/4, 81/64, [?], 27/20, 45/32, 64/45, 3/2, 128/81, 8/5, 5/3, 27/16, 16/9, 9/5, 15/8, 243/128. (There is no 23rd row for the octave above the fundamental.) Columns VIII ("Appearance from fundamental in cycle of fifths") and IX ("Appearance from fundamental in cycle of fourths") show (following the invisible tenth row) 12/–, –/7, 7/–, 2/–, –/5, and so on. This does suggest that Lentz was thinking the "true" values of rows 12 and 13 (rows 11 and 12 in the Wikitable, which begins with zero instead of 1) were 1024:729 (Prati Madhyama) and 729:512 (Chyuta Panchama), respectively. I hope this answers your question.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:57, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

This is funny. (Ok, first I have to get this off my chest: Damn those librarians and their book bindings!). It's amusing because the mistake we feared he made he didn't, but the one we didn't he did: at the center of the table (from F to G) you should have: 4/3, 27/20, 45/32, 739/512 and 3/2. Having 1024/729 instead of 45/32 is exactly the same kind of error as having 64/45 instead of 729/512. It's replacing the real ratio with the inversion of the previous (or following) ratio. I understand he did not put 1024/729 there but 45/32, but from what you're saying he thought the correct value was 1024/729 and 45/32 only a simplification. Could it be a result of getting your data verbally from musicians and scholars, be they ever so eminent? (Karachi? He must have visited India before Independence.) This said, that there is agreement currently in India as to the ratios of the shrutis is obvious. You can check several websites, for example the site of a guy who's invented a 22 shruti harmonium, several Wikipedia pages in Indian languages, etc. and there's no question there's agreement. But is that based on what the ancient treatises said or is that apparent uniformity just an artifact, all going back to an influential recent (end of 19th or beginning 20th century) formalization such as Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande's who may have dogmatically oversimplified things? Based on Lentz's book we don't know. From a practical point of view it matters little. No sitar player places the frets of their sitar by taking out a pocket calculator and an electronic tuner. They place it where they sound good to them for the particular raag they're playing, where they've been taught by their teacher, who learned it from their teacher, and so on. But from a cultural history point of view it is a pity and really frustrating that it is so difficult to find a source that clearly establishes a link between the ancient tradition and the modern theory even (let alone modern practice). Btw, reading your answer, where you're quoting the Southern names, I've just noticed that the Southern name of 729:512 is "chyutta pancham". I had never paid any attention to the Southern names because I know almost nothing about Karnatki Shastriy Sangeet. But that means my statement about the dogmatic refusal of the G flat may not be accurate for the Southern tradition. You will notice that the Northerners call that note a "madhyam" (4th degree), that is they think of it as a kind of F sharp. But the Southerners apparently refer to it as a "pancham" (5th degree). In other words they think of it as G flat. Hmm. I'd like to look into this, but I've spent so much time trying to get to understand and enjoy Hindusanti Sangeet that the idea of now embarking on the same kind of effort for Karnatki Sangeet doesn't immediately appeal to me. I think I'll wait for a few years. In any case, thanks again. On another topic completely: you are a flute player (among other instruments). Have you ever tried the Baroque (traverso) flute? Basemetal 17:25, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, he does say "Karachi, Pakistan", and two of his acknowledgments go to Colombo, Ceylon. It is possible, I suppose, that some standards have changed over the past 50-odd years, or that a certain select group of performers had a differing opinion about Prati/Tivya Madhyama at that time (or, as you suggest, that it may be a Northern/Southern difference). FWIW, Lentz is slightly biased in favour of the Carnatic tradition, at least insofar as he uses the southern names by default, and lists them one column earlier in his table than the Hindustani names.
 * I first learned flute from Don Lentz, but did not progress very far with the Boehm instrument. I have spent a lot more time with the Baroque one-keyed flute, though I cannot claim to play it very well. I have also played the keyless Renaissance flute, likewise only to a modest degree, and it has been five or six years since I have actually played flute at all.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:48, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

At least I suspect you can answer this: from what I've seen Europeans stop the holes with their fingertips. (Is that correct? I've just looked at pictures and video, I play no flute and certainly no Baroque flute). But, I don't know if you've noticed, Indian flute players (cf. the video) stop the holes with the 1st finger joint (is that a word?) Strange. As a flute player could you adventure a guess as to why? Basemetal 19:01, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I can answer the first part: yes, European flute players stop the holes with the pads of the end-joint of the hand (not quite the very tips of the fingers, but I think this is what you mean). I have known a few players of some woodwinds—flutists, yes, but mostly clarinetists—who reach further across and close some of the holes with the second joint of the finger (I think this is what you mean by "first joint"). Players of the Scottish Highland Bagpipes normally use this technique. The reasoning is that the finger action is simpler when the finger is kept straight. On the bagpipes, at least, certain ornamental figures will only "snap" properly when played with absolutely straight fingers and, for the longer fingers, at least, this requires using the second joint instead of the tip joint. As far as the Baroque flute is concerned, Hotteterre advises the player to keep the fingers of the lower hand as straight as possible, though he does not seem to suggest that the tip joint should not be used. I advise the same thing to my recorder students, since even a little curl in the right-hand fingers can result in bringing the tips of the fingers down on the tone hole, rather than the broader finger-pad just behind the tips (not to mention the more complex action of curling and uncurling the fingers, using three joints instead of just one). It may be that, on those larger bamboo flutes, the tone holes are so large that they are more easily closed with the second finger-joint although, considering the size of some of those instruments, it does seem like it would make reaching the holes more difficult.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:04, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

There's one more question I'd forgot to ask that I wanted to ask, about Pérès, specifically his peformance of Machault's Mass. I like to be exhaustive when I pick your brain though not exhausting if I can at all help it (because that I don't like to be). It is about what you described as "the plainchant Pérès chose to fill out the programme" while performing Machaut's Mass. Here I was intrigued by what you were describing ("solo performance" and "drone-like stability of a certain small number of pitches and the motility of all the rest"). Although I'm not very familiar with the performance of Medieval Music, as far as Machault's Mass I was used to the idea of people performing the Mass by embedding Machault's polyphonic ordinary into a proper sung in plainchant, more or less consistent with the liturgy, even though the actual proper chosen may differ: for example I've heard a performance of that mass by Andrew Parrott where the proper used had an Introït starting with "Gaudeamus omnes in Domino..." and another by Marcel Pérès actually which used an Introït starting with "Suscepimus Deus misericordiam tuam..." But it seems what you heard in Seattle was not this sort of thing. First of all you say Pérès peformed it solo and then that he actually improvised (or possibly prepared) that part and that sounded very similar to Eastern Christian chant and was characterized by a "a drone-like stability of a certain small number of pitches and the motility of all the rest". Is my understanding of what you were describing correct? Basemetal 14:56, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I did not mean to imply that all of the plainchant material was sung by Pérès as soloist. Only the parts that would ordinarily be taken by the officiating priest or the cantor. I can't find a copy of the programme leaflet, nor can I recall just which chants were used. Most of the chant portions were attributed in the programme to a Limoges manuscript of the late-14th century, with which I am not familiar. One of the longest cantorial solos, however, was not so attributed. This may have just been an oversight, or it may be that it was entirely improvised by Pérès. Naturally, the manner of delivery of plainchant is one of the more debatable things in the performance practice of medieval music, and Pérès's approach is often described as "controversial". There is a rather nice review of the performance I heard, which you can read here. There are even a couple of photographs.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:58, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for this and for always being ready to help. Many people call on your expertise. It must often divert your time and attention from what you'd planned to do. You must sometimes go: "Oh, no, not again!". But if you do, you never show it and instead receive everyone with the utmost kindness. Basemetal 21:29, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Bill Smith
Now I understand! You were right: "or" was not a typo. It just looked like a mistake for "full name of William O. Smith". Your latest fix is an improvement, anyway. Regarding the way it was before, now that I see what was intended, I'll admit it was only a cursory Google search, but I can see only "William O. Smith" as the credit for Smith's classical compositions. Of course I can't prove that he was never credited as "William Overton Smith". On a side note, I'll add that I find Smith an interesting figure. I'm familiar with some of his jazz, and I had the pleasure of seeing him perform with Dave Brubeck some years back, but I'm not familiar with his classical compositions (though I knew about them). Glad to see he's still around. --Alan W (talk) 04:45, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the jokey treatment of your edit. I studied/worked with Bill at the UW and think I can say I know him fairly well, though I have not seen him for several years now. I cannot recall ever seeing his full middle name used in connection with his compositions although, considering his identification with multiphonic techniques, we sometimes referred to him as Bill "Overtone" Smith.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:01, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, I took the jokey treatment in stride. We were clearly both editing "in good faith". As for your having studied and worked with Bill yourself, I'm impressed. And I get the "Overtone" joke after having heard what he was playing about twenty years ago. He hadn't yet developed that style in the earlier jazz recordings I have. Not, personally, my favorite kind of music (the later stuff), but it is intriguing in its way, and he certainly grabbed my attention at the time. --Alan W (talk) 21:10, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It is also true that Bill didn't use multiphonics all the time, even after he had begun developing the technique in the early 1960s. His experimental attitude to performance, however, was one of the main attractions of the University of Washington at the time I was deciding where to go for grad school. That was way back in 1971, so quite a lot more than twenty years ago.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:10, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Interesting to hear a bit about your own background as well as Bill's, and your pointing out that he didn't always use multiphonics even later on. Some day I must get around to listening to more of his music. I also see that, like myself, you are not exactly one of the Wikipedians who were born yesterday. Well, we bring a lot of experience to this project. I know that, for my own part, if I ever finally retire, this is one thing that will keep me busy. It's all good. Whew, late over here. Time for some of us to call it a night. --Alan W (talk) 06:26, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Coming for help again
Greetings: I'm coming for help once more ("not again!") but this should be quick: I've seen someone use the following convention when transcribing Indian (Hindustani) music into Western notation: to them this means an F♯ followed by an F♮. (E.g. https://ibb.co/dM4ehH and https://ibb.co/bVzqpx: the Indian notation below the Western staff notation makes it clear they intend the F without a sharp to mean F♮ even when it immediately follows an F with a sharp) Are you aware of any genre of music or field of musicology or ethnomusicology where Western staff notation is used, where such a convention is used? Article accidental (music) is of no help and Double sharp, while he thinks it is highly unlikely that such a usage can exist, cannot absolutely rule out the possibility. What do you say? Basemetal 17:58, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know about the conventions within that particular corner of ethnomusicology, but the practice of an accidental only affecting the immediately following note is not unknown. In fact, it was normal notational practice in European music up until the late 18th century, and is often specified in 20th-century scores when the musical texture is highly chromatic, in order to reduce the number of accidentals. However, when it is a case of two successive notes, it is still usual to regard the immediately repeated note as affected by the accidental on the first one, and to require a natural sign in case that is not the intention. It is also necessary to supply a warning note that an accidental does not carry through the bar, since most people will assume that it does.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:48, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

So if you (or any musician or musicologist not familiar with that area of specialization) saw those two examples, and w/o further information, you would assume by default that two F♯ in a row were meant. Is that a fair statement? Basemetal 20:43, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, unless there was a suitable warning posted with the example, I would.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:33, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

What are west and east on Venus?
I've taken this to the talk page: Talk:Venus There are indeed two conventions but the official one defines the north pole as the one north of the invariable plane of the solar system, which implies that Venus is tilted about 3 degrees and spins retrograde. The other one defines the north axis of rotation as that of the rotational angular momentum, but the IAU calls the corresponding pole the positive pole. So Earth's north pole is its positive pole while Venus' is its negative pole. Double sharp (talk) 06:48, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Good idea. Let the experts battle this one out. All I know is what I read on the Wikipedia article West, and Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Nor am I, when it comes to things like this!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:15, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Removed painting
Hello, you have removed an image as "irrelevant". I think that painting (Hommage à Stravinsky by Endre Rozsda) is not irrelevant. On the contrary, it shows the direct influence of Stravinsky's music on contemporary painting. That's why I placed it below "Reception". I kindly ask you to consider my argument and please replace the image.
 * There is nothing in the article's text about this painting or the artist, or the relation of either of them to Stravinsky or his music. Rozsda is a moderately important figure in the history of art, but his name is hardly a household word, in comparison to, say, Picasso, Klee, Miró, or Dalí. The reader is entitled to know why this artist or this painting is significant with respect to Stravinsky. Merely putting his name in the painting's title is not enough.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:01, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Can one be a consistent deletionist or is that an oxymoron?
I was looking for information on Francesco Galeazzi (1758–1819), a fairly significant music theorist (I believe, provided you don't disagree at least, since you know this stuff much better than me) and discovered he didn't have a Wikipedia article but, amazingly enough, he was included in the List of music theorists as a redlink! Of course from the inclusionist point of view (i.e. the point of view of people who've got some common sense left even after spending a lot of time on WP) this makes perfect sense: someone going to List of music theorists hopes and expects to find there a list of significant music theorists. It is irrelevant to them if that theorist does or doesn't have a WP article. People with common sense understand the implication is valid (or at least may be valid) that a theorist having their own article must be notable (or at least notable in the sense of WP) but surely it doesn't work the other way round, since there are lots of notable, significant and important people who do not have a WP article. It just means that no one has, so far, gotten around writing one. They may one day have one, or they may never get one, but surely their importance has nothing to do with whether they have a WP article. But deletionists are generally impervious to common sense So, I'm curious, how do you, a self proclaimed deletionist, justify to yourself allowing all those redlinks in List of music theorists? How do you justify it to other deletionists who I'm sure have already attempted numerous times to get rid of all those redlinks? Basemetal 14:53, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * This is a special case. There is a small group of editors working on just this problem, but they seem to have confined their discussion to edit summaries, rather than starting a discussion on the list's Talk page, where the rationale would be easier to find. See this edit, for example.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:28, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

My point was slightly more general but ok. I've just noticed you had a conversation with another editor back in 2017 about exactly the same topic. I'll respond one day to one point you made in that conversation that I thought was amusing as it argues in favor of the right point of view (in my opinion) using the wrong argument (again in my opinion) and also submit to your scrutiny another case (that of the "Deaths in " pages), which is somewhat analogous. But since there's no urgency I'll do that whenever I feel you need a break

In the meantime here's a rare gem for your enjoyment: a significant music theorist having his own WP article but not showing up in the List of music theorists: Nikolay Diletsky, apparently the first theorist to use the circle of 5ths (it's not in the lead of the article but it's there somewhere and certainly in the references), at least explicity, in a musical treatise.

Now it is true this article does mention a work of 1640, Angelo Bartolotti's Libro primo di chitarra spagnola, a cycle of passacaglias that moves through all 24 major and minor keys according to the circle of fifths, and, again from 1640, Antonio Carbonchi's Sonate di chitarra spagnola con intavolatura franzese arranged in individual books according to the cycle of 4ths, which would seem to show that implicitly, from a practical point of view, the concept of the circle of 5ths was already understood. You also mentioned to me once Adrian Willaert's Quid non ebrietas (you called it a musical jest, so, if you were not yourself kidding, you seemed to imply it was written to make a point) where the tenor moves through the circle of 4ths so that in the cadence it comes to rest on a II against the cantus that rests on a I♮. The article even mentions Giacomo Gorzanis's (c.1520-c.1577; yep, another redlink) cycle of 24 passamezzo-saltarello pairs (1567) and a codex of 24 four-part ricercars (for lute?) by Vincenzo Galilei (1584) both illustrating the use of all 24 major and minor keys but it doesn't say how the pieces were arranged. None of that is referenced so we have to take it on trust. Even it all proves to be true, would it make Diletsky less important? There might be other reasons why he deserves to be in List of music theorists.

Basemetal 17:06, 26 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't see why Diletsky should not be added to the list of music theorists. Do you believe he is being deliberately excluded for some reason?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:14, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea. Maybe he was excluded on the basis of data such as what I mentioned. It's certainly very suspicious he's not in there already. Basemetal 17:56, 26 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I think it more likely to have been an accidental omission, especially considering that Diletsky is not one of the first names to spring to mind when compiling a list of sources for the 17th and 18th centuries. Just the other day I was startled to see in this edit a name omitted up until then in the List of 20th-century classical composers. It seems a roughly comparable situation to me.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:59, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Ok then, if you think so. Basemetal 23:28, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I've checked the history of the article Music written in all major and/or minor keys carefully and it turns out these statements were never even supported with a source. They seem more and more dubious to me so I've struck them out here (above) and tagged them with "Citation needed" at the article. Sorry for even bringing them to your attention. Please erase them from your memory, assuming you'd paid any attention to them

Generally speaking how credible does it sound to you that anyone was writing music in F♯ or G♭ major and D♯ or E♭ minor in 1567 and 1584? Did that terminology even exist?

Basemetal 13:56, 2 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean. Although I do know of a few pieces from that early that explore the entire circle of fifths, it would be astounding for any 16th-century composer or theorist to deal with major/minor key pairs at all. Every theorist I know of up to the early years of the 17th century speaks of multiple modes, not major/minor pairs. While it is possible that there are pieces in the repertory that might be analysed in this way, I think it would have to be forcing an anachronistic theoretical frame on music that must have been conceived in other terms. This is beginning to look like a hoax.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:30, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Did you mean "early years of the 17th century" or "early years of the 1700s"? Basemetal 15:51, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I meant "early years of the 17th century". Not because I know of sources describing major/minor tonality from such an early period, but because I don't know the theoretical literature from about 1620 to 1700 at all well.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:07, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Is Adrian Willaert's Quid non ebrietas, that you once told me about, one of those "few pieces from that early that explore the entire circle of fifths"? Basemetal 18:09, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

PS: If you wanna see what a 3-way conversation looks like in "Jerome Kohl Zigzag" style, then take a look here (it's a transcription in Jerome Kohl style, not the actual conversation) Basemetal  18:09, 2 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, Quid non ebrietas is one of the pieces I was thinking of. Others included John Bull's Fantasy Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, William Cornysh's untitled three-voice catholicon (designated "Consort VII" in the Musica Britannica edition of the Henry VIII book), and a three-part work whose title I cannot now recall in a more recent volume of Musica Britannica, which relies on canonic instructions for transposition upon repetition to send the piece off into all sorts of hair-raising territory. Perhaps Ockeghem's Missa cuiusvis toni would also qualify.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:00, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Per talk page etiquette I can't do it myself: links for John Bull, William Cornysh, Musica Britannica may be nice for the readers of 2118 who will be grateful we worked for posterity and took the long view What's a "catholicon" (in music) btw?

Done some light digging and it seems those Gorzanis and Galilei things may be real after all. The statements are repeated here and this time Grove Online links are supplied. Note for Galilei: 24 groups of dances, "clearly related to 12 major and 12 minor keys" (so no four-part ricercars for lute like the dead web page seemed to suggest) where the wording seems to be quoting the Grove article. For Gorzanis: the Italian article mentions a work called Libro de intabulatura di liuto nel quale si contengono vinti quatro passa mezi doceci per be molle et dodeci per be quadro sopra dodeci chiave novamente composte con alcune napollitanae (published in 1567) and the Catalan article apparently another work (not published, manuscript from 1576), it calls a or the Munich Tablature in which (it is said in Catalan): en la que hi figuren 24 passamezzi, 12 per bemoll i 12 per becaire, constituïts per 12 díptics basats en els 12 semitons de l'escala. I corrected at the Catalan article what I think was a slip of the pen: changed "sostingut" to "becaire" as "sostingut" means "sharp" in Catalan, like "sostenido" in Spanish, but it obviously has to be "B natural" not "B sharp". Some of the things they say at the Catalan article left me puzzled. They say: Ensems, cada díptic està constituït per un paràgraf en modo dòric i un altra en modo mi sòlit, corresponents, respectivament, a una gran part de modo menor i una altra en modo major. But if by modo dòric they mean the 1st mode and by modo mi sòlit the 3rd mode then I don't see how they could "correspond largely to the minor mode and major mode". I suppose the modo mi sòlit means the "usual E mode" although I'm just guessing the meaning of "sòlit", relying on Latin, as I couldn't find the meaning of the word in any of the online Catalan dictionaries. Basemetal 22:00, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Aha! Things are beginning to fall into place! As for "sostingut" vs. "becaire", keep in mind that, up until the end of the 16th century (at least), there was no distinction made between "natural" and "sharp" as far as the note B was concerned: this note was either molle or quadro (= French carré, representing Latin durum). The Catalan article probably mistakenly used "sostingut" as the modern equivalent instead of "becaire". It gets confusing. In any case, whoever said there was a correspondence to the minor and major mode failed to say "on G", and, even then, was rather thoughtlessly assuming that modes 3 and 4 are not significantly different from modes 1 and 2 (old style, of course: Phrygian/Hypophrygian and Dorian/Hypodorian, respectively).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:41, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

So what do you think should be done now to fix the references at the article? Basemetal 07:07, 3 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I think you have done all there is that needs to be done, by requesting citations where none currently exist. Perhaps after a decent interval, the unretrievable dead link should be deleted and, if the requested citations are not provided in, say, six weeks time, then the claims themselves should be removed as well.
 * I have had another thought about these "24 keys" sets from the 16th century, though of course we will know the truth only once the reliable sources show up. There are any number of sets of didactic pieces from the late-16th century illustrating the twelve modes of Glareanus (the set by Zarlino is just one well-known example). These of course in no way involve chromatic transposition, or even transposition at all, but it could be that someone got confused about the description of these collections, without having consulted the actual scores.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:22, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

But didn't you notice at the very beginning of my edit two edits back (just below the section in small characters) I noted that the very same claims are made here and this time the claims are backed with references to Grove Online. So there seem to be sources, assuming the people who put those statements in there understood exactly what the Grove articles were saying. Do you have access to Grove Online? Basemetal 17:44, 3 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Oh, bother! No, I didn't notice that you were linking to two different articles and, yes, I do have access to Grove Online. I shall see what I can do.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:47, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Sinfonia
Met you on an article I often link to but never read ;) - I fixed 2 citations, but 3 are still not used. Biggest problem I see: the Monteverdi choir organised their website, and the links to the liner notes for the Bach Pilgrimage are no longer there, or under different names. If you can find them, please let me know, - I used them heavily. Happy musical days! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:59, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I shall do my best. I wonder why there are unused citations (or did you mean, sources that are not cited?).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:04, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I meant sources that are not cited, sorry, Bukofzer, Cusick and Randel. - With some luck, Gardiner has the same thing in his book, . --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:21, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Schnebel
Sad to see another great music maker gone. Thank you for updating. I added the works from de, please check the translation. I will be busy most of the day, making music ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:52, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is always sad to lose such a person. Thank you for transferring the work list. I will check the translation, as you ask.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:58, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "Harv warning: There is no link pointing to this citation. The anchor is named CITEREFAnon.2018." that's what I get without saying ref=harv. No time to check further. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:04, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see! There is in fact no inline citation to that obituary, though perhaps there should be one. The DPA version included cause of death, mentioning his son as the source of information; the one from Deutsche Radio cites Schnebel's widow as their source.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:01, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I made some progress trimming the career section of pov, and added a few obituaries. I guess you might be better prepared to improve the section on works, - some are simply missing. Opera tonight, completely different style ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:23, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the updates! I nominated him for RD (Recent deaths), where they didn't know the referencing style. Could you please explain there? FAS is a little less known than FAZ and BBC, it's Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. Could that go in the "work" parameter, or newspaper? I usually don't specify author when I don't know who, and place the refs where I do at the beginning. Can we do the following: if the refs in brackets are acceptable for the Main page purpose, we do it your way, and if not, we do them my way until RD is over? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:50, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Parenthetical referencing is one of several valid formats on Wikipedia. The basic guideline is here. I am surprised that the RD people don't understand parenthetical referencing, since it is common enough across Wikipedia, even if a smaller minority than the several other formats (SFN, FFN, Vancouver, etc.). I will look at the discussion there and see what I can tell them. (And, yes, I did know what "FAS" stood for, but in author-date citations the author's name is expected in that field, and sometimes only initials can be discovered. You can see how this could lead to confusion.)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:18, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Trying to understand ;) - Please fix the DNB and Attinello, - I'll try not to mess further. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:27, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't understand what is wrong with Attinello's entry. It is perfectly in accordance with thousands of other New Grove citations all over Wikipedia. I think DNB must refer to the Deutsche National Bibliothek, which I may have overlooked. However, I also recall that there was a news release that cited an institution as author of an item.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:05, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I now see. You meant I should fix "Atttinello" (with three Ts). A typo, and my fault entirely. Now fixed.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:15, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

ITN recognition for Dieter Schnebel
Thank for your valuable assistance! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:54, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Question about your change
All the sources I looked at suggest that Meditaciones sobre Abya Yala dates from 2001 (otherwise I wouldn't have listed it as 21st century). Do you have other information? Deb (talk) 17:40, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I had at first found a CD recording of the piece made in 1997, but now I find this, which gives the year of composition as 1996, and this, which gives 1995. I was a little surprised because, in my experience, you are usually meticulous about such things. I believe this is the first time I have had cause to object to any of your edits.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:57, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks! :-) Deb (talk) 10:22, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Edgard Varese
"unfair exclusion of Poles, French, Canadians, and Americans" I have only heard of Chou Wen-chung and William Grant Still. And both are American. WGS was also American born with roots in USA for several generations. The so called "Poles, French, Canadians, and Americans" students you want to include are a bit on the obscure side, maybe except Jolivet.Voobootty (talk) 16:45, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The other students listed for Varèse include those nationalities. Why should one composer be favoured over those others, simply because he was from the USA? What you may not understand is the importance Chou has for the continued Varèse legacy. He has edited many of Varèse's writings, analyzed his works, and managed his papers since his death. If you have read his Wikipedia biography, you will have been struck by the emphasis on Chou's relationship to Varèse. W. G. Still is of course a figure to be reckoned with as a composer, though perhaps no more important than Jolivet. As for the composers of whom you have never heard, I suggest you read the articles on James Tenney and Colin McPhee and see what you think of their relative importance as composers. None of them, however, even begins to approach Chou's importance in the Varèse circle, which is why his name alone was originally left, after the rest of the list was moved to the the "List of ..." as part of an effort to reduce clutter on composer bio articles all across Wikipedia.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:19, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I am confused. I added William Grant Still to the list of students with Chou, knowing he is an important composer (I am not familiar with the others to judge their relative importance). You put in the other students saying it is an "unfair exclusion of Poles, French, Canadians, and Americans". This to me suggested you thought neither Chou nor Still were American. Given both are non-white, it was a bit of an irritating comment tbh and honestly it felt as if your complaint (thinly veiled) was that it was unfair that the only students mentioned were the non-white students. Anyway, if the others are important composers then fine, leave it as it is. I agree Chou has a special relation to Varese. But WGS was a very important composer so I don't really see why he should be left out. Voobootty (talk) 22:04, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * My comment was meant only as a (humorous) explanation of why I added back all those names that had been banished to the "List of ...", presumably on grounds that they were less important than Chou in a Varèse biographical article. As for their relative importance, I would say that Colin McPhee, despite his comparatively small output, ranks about even with William Grant Still; James Tenney is more difficult to compare, since he is of a later generation and is notable as a music theorist as well as being a composer best-known for his work in computer music. I doubt that many listeners in France will be familiar with William Grant Still, but most will know Jolivet. Very likely the same is true for Canada, particularly in Quebec, where cultural ties to France are strong. I am less sure of their comparative fame in England, Australia, Germany, or other countries. In any case, reliable sources verifying these judgments would probably be difficult to find. They are nothing but my personal opinion, based solely on the music from each composer which I have heard. It never occurred to me that their ethnicity was of any relevance in evaluating their music or their relationship with Varèse.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:25, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Ramiro Cortés
Hi Jerome, I made this edit with this edit summary "You need to add a citation from a reliable source to change information in an article". As part of the resolution of Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents.

I don't have a problem with the information, per se, it's that it was part of a number of edits by a user without providing reliable sources.–CaroleHenson (talk) 16:09, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I am aware of this situation, and have noticed a large number of similar edits by the same editor. Things such as the addition of a middle name to a biographical article should not require a separate citation, though of course a malicious editor might insert incorrect data. In my experience, this editor knows exactly what he is doing, and is in no way acting maliciously. I am in the process of documenting the conflicting information on Cortés's year of birth, from two equally respectable sources, one of which also confirms the "Jr." in the subject's name.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:15, 12 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't think that there was malicious intent either, but people adding content without a source is not a good thing. People pick up information from all kinds of places where the information is not reliable, like genealogical sources, for instance. It's far better to have a source for that information, so it's clear where it's coming from and that it is a legitimate change.


 * I won't revert the edit, because it sounds like you'll be adding sources.–CaroleHenson (talk) 16:21, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
 * On the whole, I agree with you, of course. However, there is also WP:SKYISBLUE, which might well apply to such things as whether "Jr." is appropriately added to the end of a name. If we require a footnote for each part of a biographical subject's name as well as dates of birth and death, even when there is a reliable biographical publication (such as New Grove, in this case) offered as a general source, then every biography on Wikipedia will necessarily open with a thicket of blue footnote numerals, rendering them all but unreadable. I have already added one additional source to that article, and reconfigured it according to the Manual of Style. I trust it is to your satisfaction.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:34, 12 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I haven't looked, but I am sure it is.–CaroleHenson (talk) 16:37, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Edwin Franko Goldman
I sometimes forget that I wouldn't know a brass instrument if it bit me. --GRuban (talk) 18:55, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * It is an easy mistake to make, especially in this day and age, when trumpets are everywhere but cornets few and far between.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:34, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * ... and here is a distressingly odd photo, which upset some certainties for me.

Help me add a citation
Link here In this edit you removed material that was unsourced. There is a video on a YouTube channel called "Thomas Ligre". The video is called "Musica Ricercata [2/11]". Or something like that. I would add the citation to here, however since I am presently in China, where YouTube is censored by the government, I am unable to do so. Is it possible so that you can search for the video, restore the content you removed, and cite the video as reference? I'm kind of new to Wikipedia, and I am not used to many features. Thanks! ShangKing (talk) 07:10, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The YouTube video would only be useful if it includes the score. In that case, however, the correct thing would be to cite the score itself, not YouTube, which is not usually regarded as a reliable source on Wikipedia. I will take a look, in any case.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:15, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Mission accomplished.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:22, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I fell on this by accident, excuse me for stepping in. I gave the bar number on List_of_musical_works_in_unusual_time_signatures, with a reference to the scores available on IMSLP (which I hope may be considered valid sources, even although they obviously are primary sources ;–)). Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 16:33, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Hucbald. I really do not understand the proscription of primary sources in cases such as these. Meanwhile, I have found the example in the Ligeti. There is only a single bar in 8/4, but I will have to journey to the library to discover the page number for the reference, since the YouTube source does not include a proper citation. (Another example of why YouTube is not a reliable source.)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:15, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * My question about primary sources was a joke, of course. On this topic, however, I am puzzled by what appears in the article as its "Bibliography", apparently listing primary sources exclusively and which therefore is not properly called (IMO) "Bibliography". Such a list appears to unduly duplicate the content of the article itself – or should I add to it the references of the various scores of Mahler's Rückert Lieder? Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 20:04, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The word "bibliography" seems not to be used as much on wikipedia as "sources" or "references", but the referencing in the List of musical works in unusual time signatures is a complete shambles, and has been for a long time. There are at least three completely different formats in use, including bare external links, which are frowned on under any circumstances. A large number of citations use Short-FootNote (SFN) style, but none are linked to the reference list as they should be. A perhaps equally large number use Full-Footnote style, many with external links to sites of dubious reliability. Evaluating these is made more difficult by the fact that they are randomly scattered through the footnotes, using variant formats and sometimes misleadingly labeled. As noted in the banner placed at the head of the list, many of these links are dead. I have despaired of cleaning up this mess myself, though I have made sporadic attempts to patch things here and there. I keep hoping that someone with more time on their hands than I have got will show up, wearing a gleaming suit of armour and mounted on a white charger, wave a magic sword and banish all the demons to some appropriate place.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:56, 17 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I would be more than happy to help clean up the article. Amoymonarch (talk) 04:17, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I think the first step would be to link the SFNs to the sources in the reflist. That is the easy part. Then the remaining citations will need to be sifted, separating out and identifying the raw external links. The remaining full-footnote citations can then be converted to SFNs and the main citations transferred to the reflist. Or do you have a different idea of how this should be done?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:52, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Let me understand ...
... why you removed Zelenka, one of the more interesing guys in Baroque music? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:34, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
 * There is an editorial note there asking that, for every new name added to the overgrown list, a less-important name be removed. As I said in my edit summary, no name was removed to make space for Zelenka. Personally, I could think of several dozen more names that could be added, all just as interesting as Zelenka, but I would be hard-pressed to decide which names already on the list should be removed. It is, after all, just a "for example" list, not a comprehensive list of all the composers identified with the Baroque era.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:39, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I guess I misread your summary, thanks for explaining. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:42, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I looked at the list, would add Zelenka, as of a different nationality, and remove Monteverdi, as not so typical for Baroque, or one of the many other Italians (Albinoni, Corelli). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:52, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Monteverdi?!!! One of the most important composers of the entire Baroque era! Corelli certainly had the most influence on instrumental chamber music of the high Baroque (Handel, for example, could not have composed any of his sonatas or concertos without Corelli's model). Albinoni? Well, maybe.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:44, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I see Monteverdi as between the Schubladen we like to put them in ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:51, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Nonetheless, he is regarded as the founder (if not quite the very first composer) of opera, the most important music genre of the Baroque.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:45, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Edit summary
Dear Jerome,

I very much enjoyed your edit summary here. In the true spirit of Wikipedian helpfulness I would like to offer you the information that convention requires you to blow into the smaller end; in the interests of honest disclosure, however, I should probably add that, with me playing one, it doesn't seem to make make all that much difference ... I think the other end is made larger to allow the storage of your right hand, a mute, or perhaps some sandwiches. Best wishes DBaK (talk) 08:48, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I will try to remember your sage advice, should the opportunity of playing a horn arise ... if only I can remember which hand is my right one.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:55, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

12 New Etudes for Piano
I ask that you take a look at 12 New Etudes for Piano. Hyacinth (talk) 04:55, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Seattle Wiknic 2018
01:22, 19 August 2018 (UTC) To unsubscribe from future messages from Meetup/Seattle, please remove your name from this list.

Scale (music): section "Transposition and modulation"
In Scale (music) the section "Transposition and modulation" probably needs major overhaul. What do you think? Might you be able to take a look? Feline Hymnic (talk) 10:14, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * So many major overhauls needed, so little time! Yes, of course I will take a look. Thanks for helping that wheel to squeak a little louder!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:44, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Modality required
Dear colleague, please write an article 'Modality'. You already edited 'Bimodality', however, it doesn't contain any explanation, what modality is (cf. Bitonality vs. Tonality). I wrote an extensive article Модальность in the Russian WP and in the Great Russian Encyclopedia (vol.20, 2012); there is also Musique modale in the French WP. In English-speaking world the concept of modality was heavily elaborated in 1980s and 1990s by Harold Powers (see e.g. his articles 'Modality as a European cultural construct', 'Is mode real?', 'Anomalous modalities'). In the modern literature modality became a locus communis. For instance, Tymoszko in his well-known 'Geometry of music' (2011) introduces modality without any definition and then uses it extensively throughout his book ('Gregorian modality', 'pre-tonal modality', 'Renaissance modality' etc. on pp. 136, 168, 172, 211, 237, 307). Even if your WP-article would be just a sketch (for the beginning), I would appreciate it very much. Olorulus (talk) 10:17, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This is an interesting observation, Olorulus. I shall have to give this some thought. My first impulse is to ask, "Doesn't the article Mode (music) already cover this?" Perhaps not. Tymoczko's terms do seem to fall within that area, but perhaps Powers goes further.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:27, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Composition Lists
Hello Jerome, I have seen a number of instances in which such lists are discouraged for composers. Has that policy changed?--Galassi (talk) 21:34, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I know of dozens, possibly even hundreds of composer articles that include embedded lists of works. I have never heard of any policy or even guideline discouraging them. When those lists become large, the usual procedure is to break them out into a stand-alone list, usually titled "List of compositions by [name]".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:56, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Oops
Sorry, didn't realize Samuel Adler (composer) was under discussion. Just saw an IP address appear on Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Germany requesting an infobox for the article. Weird. – Vami _IV†  22:03, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That's OK. The IP address (which is actually two IP addresses, same editor) also posted a request on the Composers Project Talk page, without mentioning the ongoing discussion there, either. Clearly not an experienced editor, but is in perfectly good faith, so we won't bite the newby!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:28, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Removing J. S. Bach. Not a modernist composer.
I saw that you reverted my removal of Bach from the list of Modernist composer, saying that the cited article listed Bach as a modernist composer. However, The way Clapp uses 'modernist' and 'modern is different from what modernism has come to mean in contemporary criticism. Modern is an almost useless word meaning a a range of things such as current, present day, to stylish, to something like modernist depending on the context.

Clapp uses it in the sense of being current, the form that has has evolved and is still common practice (even if the current form came about hundreds of years before). He does not address modernism, a broad movement dealing with a range of ideology and expression rooted in late industrialist civilization, often involving high degrees of abstraction, invention of artificial aesthetic forms, industrial technology such as airplanes and railroad trains as subjects (but also a return to primitivism in contrast to industrial civilization). He mentions Debussy and Schoenberg, but Debussy is (arguably) something of a late romantic while Schoenberg was just about to embark on his radical explorations.

Although the way Clapp uses 'modern' and 'Modernist' is superficially similar to how we use the term modernism today, you wouldn't likely have seen Bach dining with James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, and Stravinsky (true Modernist artists) unless he joined them as a ghost. Also, many modernists were just beginning to formulate what modernism was at the time Clapp wrote that article, and much of it wouldn't be defined for another decade. I don't see how he could be making a list of modernist composers when the movement was still in its infancy.

It's also clear from the conclusion of Clapp's article that he is giving something of a polemic against Haydn and Mozart, and an oblique shot at contemporary composers (of whom some would become modernists) that J. S. Bach is more worthy of study than copying the simplistic elegance of the Classical period. It isn't about identifying modernist composers. To misuse the article that way is a different kind of polemic activity.

--JECompton (talk) 20:36, 10 September 2018 (UTC)


 * It is good of you to actually read the source. I have restored that particular entry several times in the past, where it was clear that the editor removing it had not read Clapp, and was just saying, "No, that can't be true." However, part of my purpose in including Bach (as well as Monteverdi, Josquin, and several others) in that list, as well as cross-listing as many composers as possible in the List of modernist composers and the List of postmodernist composers, with John Cage as the prime exhibit, is to show that there is no single agreed-upon definition for modernism or postmodernism in music (music being notoriously difficult to pin down when it comes to assessing philosophical intentions). Perhaps this is because writers on music do not have to pass a qualifying examination in philosophy (or some other exacting discipline) before they can use these terms, but I am also suspicious of that phrase "how we use the term modernism today". Who, exactly, are "we"? The people who know what they are talking about? Who makes that judgment? If, therefore, we exclude Clapp's characterization on grounds that it does not represent "the way we-who-know-what-we-are-talking-about use the term today", we are opening up every single cited source in the list to scrutiny on the same charges, with the same issues of "when exactly is 'today'?", "which discipline(s) are we including/exclusing?" and, especially, "who is the authority who has decided on a precise definition on which 'everyone-who-knows-what-(s)he-is-talking-about agrees?" With respect, I don't think we, as Wikipedia editors, are in any position to do this.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:43, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Removing Robert Buckley's Seas of the Moon (2018) from List of Symphonies for Concert Band
Ok, brand new editor here, so I hope I'm doing this correctly, and if not, could you kindly point me where the correct link is? The page history indicates you removed my addition for lack of notability; if you could clarify if the page is striving for comprehensive completeness or simply notable examples? If the latter, I can sort of agree with you, as the symphony is brand new and not going to be well known (and I know of it because I was in the wind orchestra that premiered it in April). Thanks!

--Christopher Steig (talk) 00:24, 14 September 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Christopher Steig (talk • contribs)


 * Welcome to Wikipedia, and I hope you have a long and pleasurable association here. As a rule of thumb, when a composer has no biographical article on Wikipedia, this is taken as a sign of non-notability. The recommended procedure is found at WP:Write the article first. A properly documented biographical article secures a base for adding things like this symphony to other articles (the link to the composer's name will then be blue instead of red). The idea is that a musical composition is not notable unless the composer is; conversely, if a composer is notable, it is usually taken for granted that any major work by him or her is also notable. There may be exceptions (that is, where a composition is notable even thought the composer is not), but I can't think of a single example, unless you consider works whose composer is unknown. This may seem a roundabout way of doing things, but you might want to read the guideline on notability.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:35, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Script errors
As an example in 1993,
 * March 1–2

should not have spaces. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:14, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I see I reported this before for the same article. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:19, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, you did, and I failed to notice those same places this time. My apologies. I have been more careful up to now (if you check the edit history, I think you will find I have edited this same article once or twice since that first time, without making this mistake), but even Homer nods.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:15, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Titles
I probably need some education about titles and translation. So far I believed that a piece can have more than one title, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit and Actus tragicus. When I translate these I give them in sentence case, with quotation marks if needed, for just a translation, and in title case, with capitals and italic if a title which is used, such as The Flying Dutchman, which is not the title of the piece that Wagner wrote. Help? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:17, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I have not seen a specific Wikipedia style guideline, but the usual way of dealing with this is that, when both a foreign-language title and its English translation are given, the English translation follows the (italicized) title, it is enclosed in brackets (parentheses), and is neither italicized nor enclosed in quotation marks. If the English version alone is used, then it is italicized, of course, as in your example of The Flying Dutchman. Otherwise, it is Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman). Style sheets do vary, and this includes the matter of sentence vs. title case for translations. I rely mainly on the Chicago Manual of Style and the New Hart's Rules (Oxford Style Manual) for American and British styles, respectively.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:49, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Are you serious about the English version alone being used for the flying Dutchman? Not even Ameican theatres do that anymore, at least the better ones, Met, Santa Fe (better spelling of the German), S.F., Chicago 1983, studio - the English title is for the ENO ;) (nothing wrong with that, we have KOB, playing Orpheus by Monteverdi in German in 2017. - 3 sisters: IRCAM calls it Three sisters, English in French title case ;) - A book uses capitals and quotation marks: "Three Sisters". - This has it lc and uc on the same page, - why be narrow? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:29, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
 * As I said, style sheets do vary. Newspapers, for example, generally surround work titles with quotation marks, rather than use italics. It was you, not me who said the English version of De vliegende Hollander is used. However, opera houses and recording companies are not the only people who refer to opera titles, and I see that the Wikipedia article on that opera uses the English version of the title as the primary one. In that case, the original German form of the title is correctly italicized because it is not offered as a translation of a foreign-language title.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:59, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I made a move request for the Flying Dutchman, years ago, and it still hurts, so I will not try again. - Assuming reason might prevail some day (and what Grove calls it): would you then say The Flying Dutchman should be changed to The flying Dutchman, as a translation rather than a title? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:43, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
 * As you know, Wikipedia prefers the most commonly used (= familiar) form of titles. Familiar, that is, to English speakers. I really do not know whether the English translation or the German original is found more frequently in English-language sources, but it may well be the English (unlike the case in The Rhinegold or Twilight of the Gods, for example). As to using sentence or title case for translated titles, once again that is up to the local style sheet. Personally, I prefer title case, but I don't have a good logical argument for this. It just seems more appropriate, somehow.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:23, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * As you know, common name is one objective, but series of works another, and sometimes there's conflict. We don't have Moonligh Sonata, as common as the name is, thank goodness and only after longish discussions, but one of Wagner's stage works is in English, while all others are in German. Two of Mozart's operas are in English, while the others are the original title. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:15, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I sympathize, and Stravinsky provides even more fuel for the fire, with some titles in Russian, some in French, some in Latin, and so on. In his case, of course, Stravinsky was partially responsible. Perhaps you do not find it as amusing as I do, but the case of Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber is at least unusually interesting.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:30, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes. Rite of Spring is another I got involved, - can't explain why that hurt less ;) - "Rite" seems so harmless, compared to "Sacre". Perhaps finding things amusing rather than hurtful would be a good approach, - A Boy was Born, for example, where an image from the score was not tolerated in the article by the defenders of our house style, because it contradicts that house style. Poor BB ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:38, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Re: Editorial Assistance for changes to Medal of Honor - citation for Samuel Adler (composer) in the article.
Hello Jerome Kohl - Perhaps if you have time kindly take a look at Talk:Medal of Honor (See the section on Samuel Adler) for the article Medal of Honor Apparently questions have arisen regarding the suitability of references which were provided in support of citing Samuel Adler (composer) as a recipient of the Army Medal of Honor. Perhaps you could share your expertise as a Master Editor IV in order to determine whether the lack of a "military related reference" constitutes sufficient grounds to disregard published references which serve to document that Samuel Adler received a special citation in the form of a Medal of Honor from General Eisenhower in 1953. Any thoughts on the matter which you could provide in the discussion would be helpful since multiple attempts to include Adler in the article have been deleted on alternate occasions. As always, many thanks for your kind and thoughtful consideration. Respectfully yours, 104.207.219.150 (talk) 22:16, 18 September 2018 (UTC)PS 104.207.219.150 (talk) 22:20, 18 September 2018 (UTC)PS
 * I have been wondering about this issue. Despite the large number of citations you have provided, it did seem unlikely that Adler's distinguished accomplishments with the Seventh Army Orchestra would be quite on the same level of heroism as throwing oneself on a hand grenade to save your companions. It seems certain that Adler received some sort of award. Perhaps one careless writer mistakenly transformed it into the Medal of Honor, and this was picked up uncritically and repeated by others, until it became "received wisdom". Short of finding an official US Army record confirming this award, I don't see how the problem can be satisfactorily resolved.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:25, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello Jerome Kohl - Many thanks for your swift reply. Also of interest is this article dated Feb. 7, 1953 which is posted on the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra's web page. It is written by Omar Anderson apparently for the Army's publication "Star's and Stripes" in Bonn, Germany. The article identifies Corporal Samuel Adler as the conductor of the 7th Army Symphony Orchestra and the recipient of the "Army Commendation Ribbon with Metal Pendant for his efforts on behalf of better German-American relations". Evidently this is a reference to the Army Commendation Medal which can be awarded to a member of the Army who performs noteworthy service in any capacity including distinctive meritorious achievement and sustained meritorious performance of duty after December 1941. See the link to the article here . I hope this information proves helpful. With this in mind, I'll change the reference in Samuel Adler's article from Medal of Honor to Army Commendation Medal and post a link to the reference cited above. I hope this is OK.  As always, thanks for your insights and kind assistance.  Respectfully, 104.207.219.150 (talk) 17:18, 19 September 2018 (UTC)PS
 * Excellent work! It sounds like you have found the answer, and it is indeed a case of one mistake being handed around until it sounds like a chorus.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:49, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Modernity Topic
Hello! I'm a first time editor and noticed your engagement on the topic of "Modernity". Thank you for helping make the entry better. Regarding some of your comments, I am trying to help verify the references attributed to Giuseppe Sarto. This person became Pope Pius X upon his election. The author of the document is Giuseppe Sarto, aka Pope Pius X. I chose Giuseppe Sarto because I am unclear how to format a name that includes a title such as "Pope." How do i verify the author's name? Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kharms88 (talk • contribs) 18:32, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This is a very good question. I am not finding the Wikipedia guideline (though I know there is one somewhere), but I do notice that the article Modernism in the Catholic Church cites "Pope Pius X" in one footnote, but is inconsistent about inverting author names (as is normal for bibliographies) or using normal name order (as is usual for footnotes). According to the Chicago Manual of Style, the correct form for bibliographies would be simply "Pius X", evidently not mentioning his position as Pope at all, though I am sure I have seen the form "Pius X, Pope" in some bibliographies. In any case, using the man's birth name is not a good idea, since the documents you are citing do not bear that name as author and practically no reader will know him by that name. I think you might find this guideline helpful.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:01, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Musical Form
Hi, Jerome! Thank you so much for your diligence on the Musical Form article. We newbies appreciate your insight! User Elben is one of my group members (admittedly more comfortable in Chinese than in English), and she'd made an edit including a Haydn symphony movement as an example of ternary form. Would you be willing to clarify why you removed that for our own future reference? I'm assuming it may just be due to bad (um, terrible) copyediting, but if it's something else, that might be good to know! With gratitude, Ekkobekko (talk) 22:08, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I try always to give an edit summary, but seem to have forgotten in that case. There were three things about the edit that caused me to revert it. First, the removal of the section header for "Rondo form". Second, the addition of a lot of unnecessary words that made a passage less clear than it had been. Third, the addition of the Haydn symphony example without a supporting reliable source. (Unsupported assertions like this are called original research on Wikipedia, and are to be avoided. At first glance, it looked like possible vandalism (especially because of the section-head removal); I see now it was well-intended. My apologies, and welcome to Wikipedia.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:45, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Makes sense to me! Thank you!-Ekkobekko (talk) 02:14, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Musical improvisation
I see that you have strong feelings about the Adorno citations at musical improvisation. Would you like to fix those citations so that they no longer produce red-error links? I'm sure someone with your expertise can handle it in no time. Thanks. Vmavanti (talk) 19:07, 28 September 2018 (UTC) Vmavanti (talk) 23:01, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * "Red-error links"? I don't know what you might be seeing with your browser, but mine shows no redlinks at all. For what it is worth, I have no particularly strong feelings about SFN vs full-footnote formats, though if given the option I would choose not to use either of them, since parenthetical referencing is so much cleaner and less distracting than all those little blue numbers. The only issue I have in this case is the one involving WP:CITEVAR, though there are a number of other issues with the footnotes in this article (for example, unsupported asides put into footnote format do not constitute a reliable source).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:21, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, you changed it, so must have some idea of how you want it to be, right? Before I changed it, there were two "page numbers needed" templates that I was trying to correct. Unfortunately, the person who entered that information did so in an inchoate way: "it's in these two books somewhere" with two "pages needed" templates and error messages which have been there since 2008. I attempted to fix these citations. Right now there's another reference error. I'm not sure why you objected to the passage I entered given that's what the text was discussing.
 * Sorry, but I still do not see any reference error markers in that article. At which footnote number are you seeing this? I also have not seen any attempt by an editor to insert a comment "it's in these two books somewhere" in place of the requested page citations. Perhaps you can point me to the edit in the edit history for the article?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:03, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Rescue chez Ravel
Thank you for restoring normality. I have a horrid suspicion the error was caused by one of my edits, and I am most grateful for your vigilant attention, and not only here, but in so many other music articles too. –  Tim riley  talk   22:00, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I was (and remain) puzzled, because I cannot see how that removal and substitution of extraneous characters occurred. I know you are a reliable editor and would not have done something like that as a prank, so all I can think of is "computer error" (although of course, everybody knows that computers always do things like this deliberately).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:06, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Accessibility
In Freundschaft: When I write an article, I try to make it accessible also for those who don't read English well, or have vision problems, or look for a quick fact. I use an infobox, but perhaps you know of other ways, per the comment by Opabinia regalis there? - Next question: is Udo Zimmermann an article I mainly wrote, even if someone else started it? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:59, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Your invocation of accessibility has given me something to think about. Opabinia regalis has certainly got a point, though I think there may still be some issues with the infobox vs. lead difference. Let me consider this for a while.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:53, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Take your time, in old friendship. When a word or figue is wrong, that word or figure can be corrected, or dropped. It's lovely outside, - dream --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:31, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I should change the image ;) - DYK you know that Alan Bush will probably be FA on 22 December. What could Zimmermann get? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:55, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * No, I was not aware that Alan Bush's article will soon be an FA. I did notice a flurry of editorial activity recently, but it seemed in good hands and I saw no reason to intervene in any way. Zimmermann's article could use some work before it is submitted for GA or FA. For one thing, his activities as composer and as producer are all jumbled together under a general "biography" heading. For another, although his posts are adequately listed, there is no mention of the distinguished productions for which he has been responsible. I am of course thinking primarily of the two Stockhausen operas that were premiered under his direction, but there have been other notable examples, as well.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:08, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I should probably begin a new thread, but the golden image matches mine today, - Stephen Cleobury and now also Colin Mawby who composed for us and came to listen, and we had a good time here and here, - sad. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:07, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Mixolydian
On the clarification, your addition of "in the modern sense" sort of handles it. Aside from using more qualifying language, I don't know how to approach. -Inowen (nlfte) 21:28, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The idea of referencing piano form and interval form seems quite basic, and the issue of multiple meanings seems like it can be handled with some simple treatment that clarifies. -Inowen (nlfte) 01:56, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for understanding. The problem (as I think you see) is that you replaced a three-way definition with a monolithic simplification. I do appreciate what you are trying to do, but at the same time I find it misleading to assume at the outset that the most-recent understanding of the term is the basis from which to start, whereas the historical approach is quite a different thing.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:50, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Flute
Teach me, please. Everytime I see flute (as in Frans Brüggen) I think it's not intended, because that's more or less the concept of flute world wide, while we should distinguish recorder, flauto traverso and western concert flute. Brüggen studied and played the former two, afaik, but I am not sure enough to change the article. Discogs lists 222 recordings. Enjoy --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:52, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You grasp the problem perfectly, though Brüggen also at one time played the modern flute, and he made at least one recording with this instrument. The issue with the edit that I reverted, however, was more to do with attributing more to the cited source than it actually supported. As I said in my edit summary, it was a case of hijacking. There is no question that he recorded more than just those selections from Rameau on the flute, and a discography would be a welcome addition, in my view. Such a list would be self-referencing, and would not require a separate, awkward citation for each and every composer as the names come up in the prose text.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:01, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I hope some enthusiast will do that. I still didn't get back to Zimmermann, other than DYK formality. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:05, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

the studio as an instrument?
Hi Jerome, calling on your expertise, re:this discussion, you might have something to add here with respect to Stockhausen's perspective on this? best, Acousmana (talk) 11:03, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for calling my attention to this. However, I don't know of any reference from Stockhausen on this matter, nor do I have a strong opinion myself.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:53, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

NYorker
Hi, good point, but I have no sub and the article came up OK for me - was I just lucky? Best, Smerus (talk) 09:03, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Some articles are offered for free. Maybe all articles—except the ones I want to read, of course.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:53, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Overtone singing edit reversion
Hi there, I made an edit in the article Overtone singing which you reverted a few hours ago. In your comment you mentioned that this article doesn't use the oxford comma as an explanation for your reversion. I don't think this is appropriate. The oxford comma is useful in clarifying the meaning of a sentence, and as such it should take stylistic precedence over its absence. The fact that the article doesn't contain other oxford commas can easily be remedied, and I don't think that for the sake of consistency (assuming this was your reasoning for removing it) it should not be included. werewolf (talk) 04:45, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Personally, I agree with you. My preference is also for the Oxford comma, although I do understand the arguments against it. However, Wikipedia policy is to retain the existing style until and unless consensus is reached to make a change from it. There are multiple instances in the overtone-singing article of the other style, and changing at just the one place creates an inconsistency, if nothing else. Please take this to the article Talk page, if you have reasons why that particular article should change style. Otherwise, you will have to take your argument for applying the Oxford comma across all of the English Wikipedia to the Talk page of Manual of Style, where I promise you will meet with considerable resistance.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:00, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I went back and read the entire article. It seems there are a few instances of the oxford comma in it, such as in this line: "...created as air travels from the lungs, past the vocal folds, and out of the lips to produce a melody." (the very first line!), here: "There is a wide range of vocalizations, including Sygyt, Kargyraa (which also uses a second sound source), Khoomei, Chylandyk, Dumchuktaar, and Ezengileer.", and here:"DJs and performers of electronic music like The KLF have also merged their music with throat singing, overtone singing, or with the theory of harmonics behind it." Thus, I figured it would be a good idea to insert the serial comma wherever appropriate, and this way it cannot be said that the article is inconsistent in the use of the serial comma :) werewolf (talk) 03:42, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, you have convinced me (that my own predisposition is acceptable here!). I did not check thoroughly enough, apparently. Please make the entire article consistent, though, and keep an eye out for potshots from UK editors who are unbelievers in Oxford style!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:51, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you Jerome, for being open-minded and non-confrontational, this has been a pleasant exchange as well as an exemplary case of problem resolution 😀. Btw, we both have Czech origins 😉 werewolf (talk) 04:35, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't all Wikipedia editors adhere to the standard of civility? I am shocked at your suggestion that some editors may not! I am sure I have never encountered such rude behaviour here! 😉—Jerome Kohl (talk) 08:17, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Good one! 😅 werewolf (talk) 14:40, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Trobairitz
I just realized that the page trobairitz had been vandalized by an IP address two years ago to say that "trobairises" is the plural of trobairitz. This is false. I have fixed that article with a citation to a scholarly source that says explicitly that trobairitz is both singular and plural. In fact, in one of only two certain medieval attestations of the word it is used as an example of a noun that is the same regardless of number. I have put that article on my watchlist. Srnec (talk) 00:37, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I figured that out, but only after I had been suckered into believing it, because it had been in place for so long. I should have cross-checked the Occitan Wikipedia article (though of course even the Occitan Wikipedia is not a reliable source!). Sorry.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:39, 30 November 2018 (UTC)


 * No problem. I can't believe I never visited that article in two years! Unfortunately, it seems that this mistake has even made its way out of Wikipedia... (You will not find "trobairises" in the books in the photo.) Srnec (talk) 00:43, 30 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Ah, well, it is comforting to know I am not the only person in the world gullible enough to believe what I read on Wikipedia!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:47, 30 November 2018 (UTC)


 * And a "sorry" and/or "you're welcome" from me for starting the whole thing by blindly copying the "trobairises" spelling from Trobairitz! I have two hopefully constructive notes: (1) When reverting super-long-standing vandalism, it would be helpful to include in your edit summary the URL of the original vandalistic diff, so that natural skeptics can go see if they agree. (2) Now that my has caused the "in Italy and among the female troubadours" clause to disappear, I'm tempted to go put  on "the most popular being the canso, but sirventes and tensos were especially popular in the post-classical period." I hope that repeatedly asking for reliable sources will not reduce this article to a stub! ;) --Quuxplusone (talk) 19:46, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

serialism
Hello,

Please note that the source says "the dominant modern classical sounds of the 20th Century up to the 1960's." that does not mean 1901 in any way. It doesn't even say from the beginning of the 20th century. Also, I wouldn't take "ambiant music guide" as my reference point on serialism... If you look in the wiki page of serialism you can see that Serialism "began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as a form of post-tonal thinking." and in 12 tone you can see that it was "Invented by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg in 1921 and first described privately to his associates in 1923". Both pages have better sources then ambiant music guide. Also all this only shows when serialism was invented, and not when it started to dominate the classical music scene. Only after world war 2, with Messian's works, and more importantly with his students "take over" of Darmstadt did it really gain the status that one can say is "dominating". See the great book "The Darmstadt School" for more info.

Also - all of the phrase in the page seams off to me because In C was composed in the USA where the dominant figures - Cage, Feldman, where not AT ALL Serialists. I really don't think this music guide should guide you in writing about this subject in an encyclopaedia.

Best regards - IP NUMBER — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.182.123.58 (talk) 07:24, 4 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Since I wrote a substantial portion of the Wikipedia article on serialism, you may take it for granted that I am familiar with what it says. However, Wikipedia is not a reliable source. I am inclined to agree with you, that the Ambient Music Guide isn't much better, but it was the source invoked in the In C article. While it does not specifically name the year 1901, it does say "dominant modern classical sounds of the 20th century", which it then rather suspiciously says something like "often called serialism". This is of course hopelessly vague, and I do sincerely hope that someone will come up with a better source for whatever it was Terry Riley thought he was reacting against, but I have not found anything very specific myself.


 * While we are about it, this "America" thing is a bit misleading. Riley and Young had both gone to Europe starting in 1959, and Riley spent most of his time there up to the end of 1963. And if you think Cage and Feldman were the dominant voices in America at that time, then all I can say is you must not have been there. I was, and I can tell you that the dominant voices in American new music in those days were Aaron Copland (who was an on-and-off serialist), Igor Stravinsky (whose later works use twelve-tone serial techniques), Walter Piston (who similarly embraced twelve-tone writing from the late 1950s onward), Paul Hindemith, Darius Milhaud, and Leonard Bernstein (none of the latter three had much to do with serialism). What both Riley and Young seem to have been reacting against was the music of Stockhausen, which both of them tried to emulate in early compositions. By the time they were finding pieces like Kontra-Punkte and Zeitmaße unsuitable as models, Stockhausen himself had evolved to compositional methods that scarcely resembled these early works, and of course he was accused of stealing ideas from the American minimalists in some of his works from the 1960s, in particular Stimmung and the collection of text pieces, Aus den sieben Tagen. Both of these works, by the way, are serial in construction, but are as remote from those unnamed pieces that the Ambient Music Guide seems to be describing (at a guess, the music of Varèse, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Webern, Ives, and Babbitt, amongst others) as anything Young, Riley, Reich, and Glass were doing in the latter half of the 1960s. As it stands, this is pretty much all original research, or at least improper synthesis. Still, it's a place to start the ideas flowing. Let me know what you think.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:42, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * As a non-professional, the notion that serialism ever "dominate[d] the classical music scene" is at best misleading - ie referring only to the insider contemporary classical composition scene. It never dominated anything for the public, either in live or recorded performance. Johnbod (talk) 18:05, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I do hope you have a reliable source for that! It would make an interesting counter-claim, suggesting that the direction Riley's post-1960 music took was all based on a fundamental misunderstanding.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:35, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your long and interesting reply! So first of all to the matter at hand - we have a bad source, saying something very vague, that is quoted in a way that can simply not be true. I think in such a situation it is better to delete this sentence, or to use the vague term it uses "20th century" rather then leaving something so misleading. I'm also sure one can find a better source, but I won't get to it any time soon, regrettably.
 * Now regarding what was dominant in the US: you are right, I was not there, or anywhere for that matter. I was not born at that time. No doubt that Stravinsky was, (and is) a more dominant figure - but he was not a serialist, like you said. Yet I think Cage had an important role in the forming of Riley's music, more so than Stravinsky, Copland, or any of the others you mentioned. It's true that he spent time in Europe, and that it was a sort of answer to Kontra-Punkte, (I would not use the word "against"), but also the Darmstadt school was, at that time, deeply affected by Cage, and if Stockhausen "stole" (again I don't thing this is a relevant word) it was from Cage. This is all very well researched in Iddon's "New Music at Darmstadt" A book I highly recommend it you have yet to read it (I might find out you wrote that as well ;). So yes, "America" is misleading, the continents were and are connected. Many of the names you mentioned came from Europe. But still, there was some sort of two camps formed around that time in a specific classical music community; one European, working from and around ideas of serialism (as a practice, severe serialism did not survive very long in Europe.) and one American, dealing with questions of composer - performer agency, and aesthetics that are indeed not serialist or expressionist. In this context Riley is understood as working within the American camp and not merely "reacting" to Europe. He is part of a larger dialectical situation, is what I want to say. Now of course this can't find it's way into the page, but would love to hear your thoughts. Best, 79.176.40.247 (talk) 15:47, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * First, a small correction: Stravinsky indeed turned to serialism (in the sense of twelve-tone technique) in his later works, but I agree that he had little influence on Riley. The real issue with that sentence has to do with what Riley may have thought he was rejecting, if indeed that was how he felt. There is a general perception (based mainly on Philip Glass's statements) that minimalism was intended as a rejection of serialism, but just what this "serialism" thing was is not so clear. Glass seems especially to have disliked Boulez, and possibly also the type of serialism represented by Milton Babbitt, but he found Stockhausen's music compelling (though he disliked Stockhausen as a person). Both Riley and Young "tried out" some sort of serialism, evidently under Stockhausen's influence. Young went to Darmstadt in 1959, where he met Stockhausen, and they had some exchange of ideas, though by this time Young was turning away from what was perceived at the time as the "approved Darmstadt style". Of course, there was no uniform style amongst the leading composers of the Darmstadt School (Boulez, Stockhausen, Nono, Maderna, Berio, Pousseur). This idea was a fiction, as Konrad Boehmer eloquently explains in his 1987 article "The Sanctification of Misapprehension into a Doctrine: Darmstadt Epigones and Xenophobes". But there no doubt were some stylistic aspects fashionable at the time, which did not resonate with Young and Riley. I have read Iddon's book, and I think he overstates the case for Cage's influence at Darmstadt, though Cage was certainly a potent presence there from at least as early as 1958, and came to be a focal point of the breakup of the friendship of Nono, Stockhausen, and Boulez a year or two later. As far as Riley and Young are concerned, both have stated how important Cage was for their development, although—as with so many other young composers of the time—it was not so much Cage's compositional output as his musical philosophy that was important. One odd thing about this "rejection of Darmstadt" idea is that it was precisely at the time of Cage's bursting of the presumed solidarity of the Darmstadt School that minimalism began to come into existence. Their reaction clearly was against what the Darmstadt composers had done in the past, rather than what they had evolved into by the beginning of the 1960s. Stockhausen in particular had come under the spell of Mary Bauermeister, who strongly influenced his thinking at that time in ways that led further and further from the deterministic thinking characteristic of Boulez, and the politically engaged thinking of Nono. The German Neue Einfachheit] movement of a decade or so later is yet another example of an indignant repudiation of an already-gone fashion for complexity, which was being replaced in the work of composers like Ligeti and Stockhausen with a newfound simplicity of their own. This case in particular reminds me of the "editorials" by [[Pat Paulsen (if you are old enough to remember him), who would deliver an opinion in a dull monotone, and only afterward remember to thump the table in front of him to show his vehemence. Too little, and too late, with perfect comic timing.
 * You are correct, of course, that this is an international business, not one continent pitted against another. At the same time, the fabled "American camp" was only one of several American camps, just as the "European camp" was just one among many in Europe. The thing about a "historical perspective" is that it tends to notice the elements that managed to make the most noise, and the polemics that stirred the strongest feelings, at the expense of everything else. Those polemics, as usual, were often not based in clear thinking, but created powerful responses nevertheless. What is so difficult to determine, especially at a distance in time, is what was going on in the thoughts of the figures who were then only in the process of beginning a new artistic trend that would spread internationally. The reaction against minimalism, in the 1970s and 1980s, was just about as violent as the minimalist reaction against this "serialism" thing had been, but no comparably coherent anti-minimalist school evolved. The New Complexity rose agains the New Simplicity, and in that arena seems to have held its own, but it does not compare in prominence to the minimalist and post-minimalist trends.
 * What you describe as "severe serialism" is, I suppose, what is epitomized by Book I of Boulez's Structures (1951), and indeed it is difficult to find much of that nature from later than 1955 in the works of major composers (though of course Boehmer's epigones went on trying to recreate Boulez for some time, just as his xenophobes kept on beating their dead horse). It is of course much easier to rise in indignant polemic when unencumbered with actual musical examples, and very convenient when one isolated piece can be cited as "representative". I find much more interesting how the composers tagged with one or another label evolved (or, perhaps, failed to evolve) over time. At the same time, I am suspicious of those convenient labels (and how many composers have, justifiably, objected to the labels they have been given), and want to know what basis, if any, they may have. It is more difficult to actually listen to a large quantity of music and make independent assessment of each composition, than to simply slap a label on a whole barrel-full of scores and put them away, unheard, in a warehouse somewhere. Perhaps the broad outlines of history cannot be drawn without oversimplification, but I prefer to know what I am dealing with.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:45, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * We are pretty much in complete agreement. I am aware of Stravinsky's time with 12 tone music, but when talking about his influence in the 60's, or generally, he is not a serialist. About Darmstadt and Cage, again we agree. About serialism's short life in the works of the "serialists" so to speak, and Boulez is the best example indeed.
 * Of course there was not one camp in Europe and one in America, and Babbitt being the clear "proof" to that. This is why I mentioned it around a specific discourse, that one can "tag" around Darmstadt, even if of course this is only a tag. I think most importantly there is a strong urge to create clear narratives of revolution and rejection, where in fact music works with much more empathy and in with a more complex dialectics than that. This urge comes, maybe, as an attempt to make music that is a lot of the time not easy to communicate into something more simple and clear.
 * This leads me back to the article, where we have a piece of information that is clearly false, and based exactly on that kind of simplification, and it is somehow based on an article from a source that is not great. Can't the sentence be changed in anyway, or removed, in your eyes?
 * Thanks for all the interesting knowledge and perspective! Uri, 79.176.40.247 (talk) 08:34, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think that claim can be removed, though I wouldn't be surprised if some well-meaning editor puts it back on grounds that it is a sourced statement. I was inclined to remove it myself some time ago, but it seemed "so near, and yet so far" that I hoped to find a better source with a more sensible version of the claim—preferably from the composer himself—but I have failed to discover one.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:29, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok, done. Let's hope for the best. I''ll keep my eyes open for suitable sources. Thanks again, and best regards 79.176.40.247 (talk) 09:56, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
 * FYI, the 15th symphony is not Shostakovich's only use of dodecaphony. String Quartet No. 12 also opens with a twelve-tone row and reuses it throughout.AlsoWukai (talk) 04:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * An in turn, FYI, Shostakovich's Fifteenth Symphony is not even an instance of dodecaphony. As I said in my edit summary, he presents a twelve-tone row as one of several themes. Dodecaphonic composition is a great deal more than this. The Twelfth Quartet comes a closer, but it is just a chromatic theme, used together with other materials. This does not make Shostakovich a composer noted even as a twelve-tone composer, let alone a serial one.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:02, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * My point was that your edit summary, "removed Shostakovich, who used a twelve-tone row once, experimentally, in his 15th Symphony," is false.Wukai (talk) 07:02, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, thank you. I did understand that.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:57, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Please join us for our Cascadia Wikimedians annual meeting, Saturday, December 29, 1 PM
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Ghatam
There appears to be a cut and paste issue with Ghatam, per Talk:Ghatam. Hyacinth (talk) 03:49, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It looks like it may be complicated. Thanks for calling this to my attention.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:51, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

The Article on Gustav Holst
What defines the fame of the composer (and hence makes him "best known for") is the popularity of their composed pieces among both the general population as well as experts. It is an incontestable fact that the fourth movement of the St Paul's Suite is Holst's second most popular composition for the general population, so much so that many people have heard of this composition even if they do not know who the composer was. This can be fact-checked by searching up "Gustav Holst" on youtube and counting the view numbers. The different version of the theme in the mentioned composition as played in the string suite or concert band, namely Second Suite in F for Military Band, has been viewed more than any other composition that is shown (except for the Planets). Additionally, it will never hurt to add a small piece of extra information for the users to see and if it does not stand the test of time, it will be removed by another user. December 27, 2018
 * I dare say that Holst's carol "In the Bleak Midwinter" would give the St. Paul's Suite a run for its money, at least as a whole. If you want to isolate the "Dargason", I expect most YouTubers would imagine they are actually listening to "The Irish Washerwoman", but in any case the tune is not actually by Holst. Still, go ahead and restore just the fourth movement of the suite, if you like, but do be specific just what it is that is being claimed to be popular.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:32, 27 December 2018 (UTC)