Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sonome keyboard


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   Delete
 * While not ignoring the 3 keep !votes, I note that this is (from those very same !votes) a newly named instrument with no real references available. The issue is not whether it exists (no one doubts this), or whether it should be covered somewhere - it is whether it meets the notability criteria for inclusion here - as someone said, Wikipedia is not a directory of everything that exists (or has existed). The comments here (both keep and delete) indicate that information is not verifiable from reliable sources, as this information is not available for such a new instrument. This being the case, I do not see that this subject meets the criteria for inclusion at this time. --  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 15:48, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Sonome keyboard

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Contested prod. Evidently non-notable invention from a non-notable inventor. While a tiny number of websites discuss this, there are zero gnews hits and zero relevant google books hits. This doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it isn't encyclopedic. tedder (talk) 05:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. I own two sonomes, both Axis-49s, and present information about them in my alternate-keyboard website MusicScienceGuy.vox.com (it's hosted on a blog for convenience, but don't be fooled) and was sufficiently motivated about their potential to contact the people involved and standardize names and start the ball rolling on these articles. I plan to expand this series of articles to cover all commonly used note-array keyboards, so people using Wikipedia can judge which is best for their needs. Note-array alternate keyboards are very new (the technology to make them has become affordable), but they offer profound advantages over standard keyboards and could become very popular. The reason the search hit rate is low is that we've just standardized on naming. MusicScienceGuy (talk) 06:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep as Xj said I own a Sonome keyboard myself: an Opal Chameleon invented by Peter Davies and built by him with electronics engineer Jim Wills. It's correct that these 'alternate keyboards are very new'  but I don't think it's a good reason to delete this article from Wikipedia. —Iranief • contribs 07:37, 4 February 2010 — Iranief (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Comment the issue here isn't that they exist. The issue is if they meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Specifically, are there reliable and verifiable third-party sources discussing it? tedder (talk) 07:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Note that I have added strong evidence of notability in the links to some users of the system and in the Taxonomy of Realtime Interfaces for Electronic Music Performance article. Also, This is a new musical instrument - owners are busy learning how to play them and use them in novel way. The scholarly articles will appear in 2-5 years. I have a article proposal in to New Scientist, but that will take time to get published. Ken. MusicScienceGuy (talk) 17:57, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * CommentRegarding the PROD: The reason the sonome is not mentioned much in the web because I just recently got all the users of the novel keyboard together and got them to agree on a standard: sonome for the instrument, and harmonic table for the note-array layout. Before this, the names were all over the map. Imagine the confusion in the early days of the guitar when it was also known as a tanbur, setar and sitar, among other names. This is early in this instrument's life-cycle. Interest is increasing now that an affordable commercial unit is available. MusicScienceGuy (talk 23:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment As predicted, now that the sonome has become a standard, agreed upon term, the name is now popping up. Here is a link to a brand-new sonome, created in software. New mention. http://www.novation-launchpad.com/index.php/apps-software/launchpad-harmonic-table-controller/ - it is worth viewing. Is not a whole software application nontrivial? MusicScienceGuy (talk) 18:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment In case it is not clear, the term Sonome is the general term describing the class of instruments made by different companies which includes the Axis-64, Axis-49 and Chamelon MIDI controllers. These themselves are a category of hexagonal array keyboard instruments. Various forms of hexagonal array keyboard instruments have been around for over 100 years. The Sonome design has a particular layout and configuration and specific key size and shape that is especially useful. There are other examples of hexagonal keyboards which are not Sonomes. The Sonome is one of the first to actually be a commercial success, being available and widely used by musicians. Saying that there is no reliable third party discussion of these instruments is completely false. The people stating there is no coverage have either not properly researched this by following provided links, or have an ulterior motive for censoring these articles. Well regarded print and web publications such as electronic musician have covered them. Here is a link to an e-m web video covering a Sonome at the NAMM show. http://emusician.com/videos/events/c_thru_axis/. Here's one at Synthtopia http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2008/05/12/the-c-thru-music-axis-64-control-keyboard/ Xj (talk) 02:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 14:02, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. This is not a vote, and I could care less if you own one (or wish you did).  If there aren't any reliable third party sources covering this subject in a non-trivial fashion then it belongs somewhere else, not here.   JBsupreme  ( talk ) 18:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Alan  -  talk  21:54, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment The articles are designed to be highly accurate, peer-reviewed and useful to anyone trying to find information on alternative keyboards, hence the many hours of work that went into them. Does this not count? MusicScienceGuy (talk) 05:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment -- Whichever way this turns out, there are a whole set of related articles. Possibly a compromise would be to just add a small amount of this material on alternative keyboards to an established related article. Maurreen (talk) 06:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Thank you Maurreen. Perhaps a compromise can be arranged. The whole area of alternate keyboards needs a review, and perhaps a new classification of "Tonal-Array keyboards" needs to be set up (Isomorphic keyboards are a subset of this). Another would be to just postpone the deletion by 6 months to a year, to allow the print world to catch up. This would give us (particularly myself) strong incentive to write the New Scientist article that has been suggested. MusicScienceGuy (talk) 18:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * MSG, in that case, a good way to do it would be to (a) put the article in your userspace (see WP:UFY) and move it back 'live' when it's ready. In the meantime, having a small subsection in an existing article would be appropriate. tedder (talk) 18:51, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Must Keep. This is a non-standard instrument that needs to be represented in an encyclopedia. Where else, if not here? I'm a composer, music professor and microtone aficionado, and while I don't own this instrument myself, I'm very tempted to buy one for my school, the Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theater. I'm organizing an international symposium in Boston (March 7 - 9, 2010), and one of the featured instruments will actually be a sonome!! Georghajdu (Georghajdu) 06:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment The above is a live, realtime example of the value of these entries to Wikipedia users, especially researchers like Georg_Hajdu. The commercial sites are too focused on their own product to give background information and a good or unbyassed overview, just as the Stratocaster website doubtless does not have a decent overview of what a guitar is. A wikipedia entry supplies that vital information. Without the entry Dr. Hajdu would not have a way to know about the sonome class of instruments. MusicScienceGuy (talk) 00:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment There is a note that Iranief is a "Single-purpose account". Iranief is actually the pen name of Carlo Serafini, a very prominent composer in the microtonal music world. Don't judge by the fact he does not do much in Wikipedia. I consider it fortunate that I got his support. MusicScienceGuy (talk) 01:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. The sonome hasn't been around long enough for music academics to really take notice of it.  There are no published theoretical stidies of it to source, and there are also no instructors of sonome playing.  What there are is the websites of the companies that make the keyboards, and a handful of websites created by players and music students who have taken an interest in the harmonic table layout.  A Google search of "sonome" will not turn up all of them, since the name was only recently settled-on by the playing community.  The lack of sources available is because the sonome is new, not because it's unimportant or "unencyclopedic".  I have been playing for 8 months and I wish they'd had these when I was younger!  I think it's hypocritical to suggest "anyone can edit" Wikipedia if someone may be told they're wrong on the basis that their contribution isn't interesting enough.  Complicated templates and nonsense words like "unencyclopedic" only serve to discourage non-academics from contributing perfectly good knowledge. Envergure (talk) 23:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Anyone can edit Wikipedia, but Wikipedia is not a directory of everything that exists or has existed. tedder (talk) 00:06, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete per User:Envergure. They may not have meant to, but they have persuasively argued for this item's non-notability: "The sonome hasn't been around long enough for music academics to really take notice of it. There are no published theoretical stidies of it to source, and there are also no instructors of sonome playing.  What there are is the websites of the companies that make the keyboards, and a handful of websites created by players and music students who have taken an interest in the harmonic table layout." In other words, there are no reliable sources and no significance yet. Georghajdu's !vote only argues that the current article may be effective as spam. &mdash; Gwalla | Talk 00:24, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Another academic citation has come up. Formerly they used the term axis, as they did not have generic name, whence it was missed by searches. Having read this article, they have switched to sonome(and that will be the standard name, I gather, henchforth). Axis + "bohlen-pierce" gives 7,760 hits, "axis-64" keyboard: 2,090 "axis-49" keyboard: 5,710 The sonome has also been reviewed by Sound-on-Sound and Music Tech magazines, to name a few. MusicScienceGuy (talk) 00:32, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Where's the citation? Are you confusing the term "google hits" with "academic citations"? See WP:RS for examples of reliable sources. tedder (talk) 00:36, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The citation was added to the sonome article: about the upcoming Bohlen-Pierce Symposium. It is right after the Taxonony of Realtime Interfaces, and just before the list of researchers using the instrument. Google hits is, of course, not a substitute for academic citations. However, the google hit rate, given that we have just changed the name from Axis-something to the generic sonome was added as an indicator of the actual usage level of sonomes. MusicScienceGuy (talk) 00:53, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * sorry about removing the AFD - I was saving the article, and must have stripped it off the wrong one.MusicScienceGuy (talk) 04:37, 10 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: Re comments from Gwallas and User:Envergure; to put the record straight, it is not true that academics have not taken notice. To quote two examples, one sonome product, Axis, has been the subject of academic research since commercial availability in 2007: http://www.ziaspace.com/elaine/BP/Background.html. Georg Hajdo, professor of music, has known about it for some time under the name ‘Axis’.  This article was not his introduction to the invention.  Proof of his prior attention to it is in the Bohlen-Pierce Symposium: http://bohlen-pierce-conference.org/bohlen-pierce-instruments/ which he obviously didn’t organise overnight.  Therefore the article does not constitute spam.  This is the original isomorphic MIDI controller, first prototyped in 1991, pre-dating all the others: http://www.nonoctave.com/tuning/glossary.html#sonome Pd1950 (talk) 16:40, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.