Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2011 February 13

= February 13 =

Animal Crossing help
For anybody who owns the original Animal Crossing for Gamecube, I need some assistance. I remember hearing about a special event within the game in which the Mayor directs you to maintain the lighthouse in town while he is away. I don't know how to turn the lighthouse on! How does one go about this? (Sorry if this question seems strange, but this is the first place I thought of to ask.) 75.73.225.224 (talk) 03:25, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know but possibly your best bet for such specialized info would be at GameFAQs.com. Dismas |(talk) 06:22, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If you enter it through the back between the hours of 6 and 10 p.m., there should be a lever on your right you can activate with the A button. 207.118.2.115 (talk) 23:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Music
Can a professional musician explain to me what constitute as good music? I find this piece http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hVGWdvTgMo&playnext=1&list=PL48D4F446CDFC484E one of the greatest masterpieces of all time, it sounds so nice, yet the composer doesn't even have a wikipedia page. Furthermore, I have extreme difficulty in enjoying many classical masterpieces, especially the slow ones. I do not like modern music much (I say this because apparently most modern listeners don't like classical). I like the fusion of classical and epic like the one in the link. If someone can explain to me my strange taste I would really appreciate it. Thanks. Money is tight (talk) 10:51, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Musical tastes are very individual and do not require any explanation or defence. You like what you like and you dislike what you dislike.  Rather than getting hung up on what's "good" and "bad" music, just say "I like it" or "I don't like it".  Nobody can ever argue with that.  As for music you don't like, sometimes it's possible to be trained to hear what others hear, and to then start to appreciate the music they think is fabulous but which you can't quite get, at the moment.  But sometimes a lifetime of training will never work; for example, I know I will never learn to like heavy metal, and others will never learn to like opera.  Horses for courses.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  11:16, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Then why do some composers achieve so much fame and others don't? Like I said, the guy that wrote the piece in my link doesn't even have a wikipedia page. I respect people like Franz Schubert and John Williams but I only like a small part of their music, and yet they are so famous. Furthermore, Mozart is widely regard as an opera writer (and I believe that's where he wrote his best pieces?), yet I hate all his operas and really enjoy his symphonies and piano concertos (and for that matter the ones I do enjoy seem to be the "non famous" ones, like piano concerto no 25). Also Hans Zimmer definitely deserves a lot more recognition than what he has. I know that most people like listening to rock / hiphop / modern music and nothing else, so how do some composers get so famous when the majority of people don't even like them? Money is tight (talk) 14:52, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Modern "classical" composers may get famous by writing movie music (Dmitri Shostakovich), video games (sometimes performed in concert Symphonic Game Music Concerts, for example), or being just weird (John Cage's 4'33"). 75.41.110.200 (talk) 19:20, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You seem to be trying to make a connection between the number of people who like a particular composer's music, how much of their oeuvre is likeable and by whom, and whether or not they're famous. These are all different things.  Some composers are now famous for exactly one piece yet they wrote many other works.  There were classical "one-hit wonders" long before the term was used in popular music.  I might mention Henry Charles Litolff and the Scherzo from his Concerto Symphonique No. 4, for example.  The Scherzo is righly famous, but very few people know even the rest of the Concerto, let alone a single other work by Litolff.  Why is that single excerpt enough to keep Litolff's name alive?  People like it, that's all.  When I say the name Albinoni, what do most people think of?  That's right, Albinoni's Adagio - a work of which Albinoni wrote not a single note .  He wrote a lot of other stuff, but he's world-famous for a work written centuries after his death by someone else (Remo Giazotto) and misattributed to Albinoni.  Who knows anything he actually did write?  He has a tiny following, at best, for these authentic works.  The classical CD catalogue has been greatly expanded of recent years with works by composers that very few modern-day people have ever heard of; they maybe had a level of fame in their day, then sank into obscurity; but someone has rediscovered them and is sharing their works again.  Some of these people would have WP articles, others wouldn't.  Not yet, anyway.  Schubert wrote a vast amount of music - just under 1,000 separate compositions, from simple 2-minute songs to 4-movement sonatas to 4-act operas - but almost nobody knows it all.  People who like Schubert will generally know a handful or two of pieces, and listen to them regularly.  That might represent only 2 per cent of his total output, but it still qualifies the listener to call themselves "a Schubert lover".  You picked a bad example, in a way, because Schubert's quality was amazingly uniform, which is true for very few other composers.  I love Mozart and Beethoven, but there are some pieces by both these guys that I cannot abide.  For me it's not about opera vs. concertos vs. symphonies - there are examples of all of these that I love, but other examples of each type that I'm not so cracked on.  When it comes to the Hans Zimmers of the world, the establishment tends to look down their noses at composers who write film music; no matter how popular and successful it may be, it will never be up there with the Mahlers and Brahmses.  Look at Erich Wolfgang Korngold - a fantastic genius who put Mozart in the shade for precocity, and had a burgeoning career as a "serious composer", then went to Hollywood where his fame shot to even greater heights, while his reputation sank like a stone among academicians.  Why?  Because he was writing film music that people immediately liked, and did not have to "struggle" over.  Therefore it was obviously of little consequence and it - and he - were not to be taken seriously anymore.  Thank God these "experts" don't get to decide what people actually like and actually buy.  Is it "good music"?  Abandon this paradigm, it will get you nowhere.  If it's good enough for you to like, that's all that matters.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  19:49, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Right, so these "academicians" are the problem. Well I really think they should get off their ass and actually do something useful. I guess my misunderstanding was due to that in mathematics we don't have this kind of "academician problem". If you're good and publish revolutionary ideas solving open problems you will get recognized by everyone in your field (unlike the natural science math can be verified by human hand, not super expensive particle accelerators). Money is tight (talk) 20:48, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Other factors include cultural stereotypes, historical hypocrisy, snobbishness et al. They're relaxing somewhat, with the rise of the crossover culture.  Purists hate it, but ordinary people don't seem to mind in the slightest.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  20:56, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Robert Wyatt/Julian Glover
On Julian Glover's page it claims he is the half brother of Robert Wyatt. This claim does not appear on Wyatt's page. The links given don't mention it either. I wonder if anyone out there can confirm it? If so I'll do the necessary editing. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:11, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Discogs has "Born: Robert Wyatt, January 28, 1945 in Bristol, England to Honor Wyatt a teacher and BBC journalist. Wyatt became Robert Ellidge [or Robert Wyatt Ellidge] and moved with his mother and father, George Ellidge an industrial psychologist, to West Dulwich, England in 1950. The family included three other children from previous relationships: George's son Mark Ellidge [later a renowned photographer and a pianist on Wyatt recordings] and Honor's daughter Prudence and son Julian Glover [later to become a renowned actor]." ---Sluzzelin talk  17:31, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Sluzzelin. I've added Glover to the family section, but can't quite remember how to insert the reference! Blast! Can someone oblige please? I've got to go and make tea! --TammyMoet (talk) 18:10, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:08, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * A community edited website should probably not be used as a reference in a biography.  meltBanana  05:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've replaced it with Sluzzelin's Theatre Record one. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:52, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Clarityfiend. MB, surely any reference is better than none, which is what was there before? Maybe the reference needs to be added to Glover's page as well? --TammyMoet (talk) 10:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * After a lot of Googling I can't find any reliable sources. Neither Debrett's People of Today nor BFI Screenonline mention anything in Glover's bio.  Glover certainly comes from a family of Wyatts, though I'm not convinced Robert is a relative. --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:14, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Google books has some indirect references. "Any reference is better than none" is a poor idea as a bad reference conceals the fact that a better reference needs to be given. Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_48 pronounces it unreliable, if it was merely about Wyatt's discography then it might not matter but as it is about family then a higher standard should probably be upheld per Biographies_of_living_persons  meltBanana  13:30, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I checked some old copies of The Wire, which have often featured Wyatt, but found nothing. One of the indirect references mentioned by MeltBanana is viewable on their own site: Theatre Record, Issue 15 - 2004. It doesn't mention the parents or other siblings, but it confirms that Wyatt is Glover's "younger half-brother". ---Sluzzelin talk  13:47, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The suggestion appears to be that Wyatt's mother Honor Wyatt was a BBC journalist and producer once married to fellow journalist Gordon Glover. She had two boys, Julian Glover and Robert Wyatt, by different fathers, as well as a daughter named Prudence.  Wyatt's father George Ellidge joined Honor's household when Wyatt was about six (see Wyatt's statement in this Guardian interview), bringing with him his own son Mark Ellidge. Wyatt mentions this in the interview ("Then my big brother turned up, his other son"). This doesn't seem to be an independent reliable source, but gives a clear explanation of what is supposed to have happened. I can't find any authoritative single source that confirms it.This is Glover's birth record at ancestry.co.uk, and this is Wyatt's.  Both give the mother's name as Wyatt.  This source says Glover is the son of the Honor Wyatt who was married to Gordon Glover and was a friend of Robert Graves who visited him in Majorca, and that Prue Glover was his sister.  This one says that Wyatt's mother was the Honor Wyatt who was a BBC producer.  I think it's pretty clear the statement is true, but the only way I can find to reference it is an unsatisfactory synthesis of sources.   Ka renjc 16:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)