User talk:Jerome Kohl/Archive 8

Another possibly dumb question: unless I'm confused, I had been under a general impression that the instrumentation called for or used in an orchestra is referred to as "forces", but I'm not finding that definition anywhere at all, either here or in any dictionary I've tried. Do I just have the wrong term? The Hovhaness Symphony No. 18, Op. 204a, is the same as Op. 204, but uses [2222 2231 plus celesta] as opposed to [1111 1111] (omitting celesta) in Op. 204. If I want to list only 204a, I had proposed to say (paraphrasing info at the website) "a slight reworking of a ballet with smaller forces, Op. 204, originally written for the Martha Graham Ballet Company".

However, I am now finding at least this sentence:

• "The so-called "standard complement" of double winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the forces called for by Ludwig van Beethoven."

If this is the appropriate term after all, the WP entry on Force (disambiguation) should probably be updated; also perhaps Wiktionary. Of course I do not have usable information for correcting this myself, especially absent any dictionary definition. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:50, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

And please do tell me if I'm providing so much detail that it's likely to get wiped out by someone - this is an awful lot of work to just turn around and find it later deleted. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:32, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

How extremely odd. I had expected to find the term "forces" defined this way in the OED, but it's not there in this sense—at least, not exactly. It does show an American usage of the singular form, "force", to refer to a body of labourers, and at a little greater distance, in the military and police sense. However, dictionary.com supplies this definition as sense 10: "any body of persons combined for joint action: a sales force." Other terms are also used for the makeup of an orchestra, such as "instrumentation" or "scoring", but I would say that "forces" is the better choice, regardless of the shortcomings of Wikipedia and the OED. As to whether you are including too much detail, I would say not, but opinions are bound to vary.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:47, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh, one other thought: you might wish to consult some of the extant "List of compositions by …" items on Wikipedia, to get a feel for what is likely to be regarded as an appropriate level of detail. See for example List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, List of compositions by George Frideric Handel, List of compositions by Béla Bartók, List of compositions by Heitor Villa-Lobos, and List of compositions by Arnold Schoenberg, to get some sense of the range of different styles that are found.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:56, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'll do that - thanks. In the meantime I've expanded the note I propose to put at the top of the talkpage for this discography, to include:

• Composition titles are given here exactly as shown at the Hovhaness website, including capitalization, in order to follow the composer's own specified titles, regardless of how they may be listed on various recordings. In a few cases these may be thought to conflict with Wikipedia's standard style guidelines for composition titles, but this is only one of many ways in which Hovhaness did not follow "standard" conventions in his compositions.
• Information found in the Subtitle, Instrumentation and Comments columns in his website is given either in square brackets or in parentheses, as seemed most appropriate, and may have been combined or rearranged from its presentation there, for clarity and consistency. Because Hovhaness chose unusual instrumentation in most of his works, this information is provided in detail for just that reason." Milkunderwood (talk) 21:31, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Very good examples - thank you for pointing them out. One thing I very definitely do not want to get involved in is constructing a table, which I had already tried struggling with for the Rubinstein discography (q.v. in a separate sandbox on my user page). Anyway, the Hovhaness website is already arranged as just the same kind of sortable table, and that would look entirely too much like copyright violation. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:27, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

It is only my opinion (and after all, you are the one putting in all the work), but I do not think it is such a good idea to slavishly follow the title formats on the Hovhaness website, for several reasons. First of all, genre titles should be consistent within the list. Secondly, why should we suppose that the website faithfully reflects the composer's preferences? And finally, capitalization is more often than not a matter of typographical design (or in manuscript, handwriting style), rather than of a standard practice. If the titles are taken from the cover of a published score, for example, they may be displayed in full caps, caps/small caps, or even all lowercase, purely as a matter of house style. It would be unreasonable to carry over such idiosyncrasies into an encyclopedia, just as it would be unreasonable to insist of the particular font, type size, and colour (e.g., Pantone 300, 26-point on 30 Helvetica Neue bold, reverse-out).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:05, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I understand the points you are making. This comes back to the question of his Op. 3, (supposedly) titled "Trio I". IMSLP doesn't even list his name, much less providing a scan of any scores, and I would have no idea where else to look. One, he probably just wrote in manuscript a vertical line that could be interpreted as a number "1", or a Roman capital i "I", or even a lowercase L "l". Second, we do know that the website abbreviated "cl" as "c1" in error. Still for all that, my own preference is to follow the website on the assumption that its builders know something that we do not; and we also do know that Hovhaness was not always very consistent in the titles he did assign. I'm guessing that most likely some wikipedian knowledgeable about classical music may come along and change or delete almost anything that I'm typing - perhaps you, if you're so inclined. I'm not at all trying to deliberately make more work for someone else to come clean up after me - I just feel better about constructing the list on the basis of the primary source available to me. I think you're right, though, that I ought to at least un-italicize and de-emphasize the "including capitalization" - or just omit that phrase.

Aside from this, I still have not entirely made up mind about all the extra work involved in typing out the instrumentation, which would bother me if it suddenly disappeared. And I'm quite unsure about what might be useful, and to whom, for me to create links. For instance I do know what

English horn; Bagatelles; Alleluia; Rhapsody; Divertimento; Cantata; celesta

; etc, etc? I don't know which of these possible links might be useful, or just eye clutter that someone would come along and delete. I do feel comfortable in linking to place names, or foreign terms or personages, etc, that he uses; but otherwise I have no idea where to draw a useful line. The thing is, I'm not a musician, and I feel like I should write this in a way that I would want to find it myself. I'm familiar with all those musical terms, but for the most part would not have known what they actually mean without looking them up.

So who is the reader? "The reader is the enemy", as has been said. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:45, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I had been wondering about that for a long time. Thanks for explaining who this "reader" person is! Getting back to the subject in hand, I hasten to clarify that my remarks about standardizing apply to genre titles more than idiosyncratic ones. Still, the usual rules of English title capitalization should be followed (supposing the title is in English, of course). Thus, "Concerto for the Night Before Christmas", and not "Concerto For The Night Before Christmas" (to take a hypothetical example). Concerning links, I think the rule should be "when in doubt, leave it out", and certainly don't link the same word over and over, or you will have the Sea of Blue Brigade come down on you like a ton of bricks. In a list of compositions, I think you may assume that terms like "string quartet", "sonata", and "concerto" are common terms that should not require links. Words like "bagatelle" or "alleluia" might be a different matter.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

:-) I thought you might enjoy that. And thank you (yet again) - your suggestion comports with my instincts. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:12, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the further down in this website I go, the less consistent it gets - as though someone (besides me) was running out of steam. So you were right all along. If I ever get finished I'll just post it as is, and then toy with it more later. But I'm trying to clean up some as I go. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:41, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Does this ref sound OK, or is it an invitation for trouble?

• Detailed information is largely from http://www.hovhaness.com/hovhaness_works.html, cross-checked where available against various recordings on LP and CD. This list omits short works (five minutes or less), and unpublished works.

Milkunderwood (talk) 08:03, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Tell you what: why don't we cross-check everything against the work list in New Grove? That way, you can cite it equally with the (possibly flaky) website. You may not have access to New Grove, but I do. The work list there is very compact, though that means care must be taken to read the abbreviations correctly.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Jerome, this would be a great suggestion. Right now, if you care to look, I've done through Op. 284, which is roughly somewhat more than half-way (out of 434 listed at the website). Does this mean you would be willing to to do the checking against New Grove? I don't see how I could do that work. You certainly don't want to post New Grove for me to check, which would be an even more horrendous task for you. (In the meantime I've reworked the notes at the top of the page a bit, and have found several more useful links to Armenian names he used.) Milkunderwood (talk) 20:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

If you are suggesting that you would do the cross-checking with Grove, you could start at any time, and just make your own edits to my sandbox. I'm still not sure this is really what you meant. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:29, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

That is one possibility, and it should not be too difficult. As I said, the New Grove worklist is very compact, and does not include things like details of orchestral forces. The other option would be to send you the list to check yourself, but "many hands make light work" (when it is not a case of "too many chefs spoil the broth", at least). I imagine that any edits I make to your sandbox file will be evident in the edit history, so keep an eye out over the next day or two.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:05, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, your kind offer is more than terrific. I'm tied up with work for the next couple of days, but will make an effort to get along through the rest of the list as quickly as I can after that. I'm feeling pretty excited about giving Hovhaness a good article on his compositions. You go ahead and do whatever you want in any part of the sandbox. :-) If anything looks questionable or fishy to you, you could also look back at that website as well. One specific question I had was with Op. 226, a "cantata" w/o voices?? Milkunderwood (talk) 21:20, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

That looks like a cut-and-paste error, meant for Op. 227. New Grove gives "Vibration Painting, op.226, 13 str".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:36, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Then that answers the the question - they have both 226 and 227 shown as cantatas. I'll fix that, but then have to run. Be back with you when I can. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:44, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I've done a quick re-do of my sandbox page, adding a "Discussion" section at the top. This discussion here on your talkpage is getting to be much too long. Let's end this, and move everything further over there. I'm hoping I'll be out of commission for only about the next 24 hours - end-of-the-month chores. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:43, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll see you over on your sandbox discussion page, then.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:19, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Jerome, my senile dementia is setting in. Will it be okay if I just abandon this Hovhaness project to you? I really appreciate all the advice you gave me. In the meantime I've forgotten everything that I was working on last autumn, but I had taken it as far as I was able to. And in any case I never knew the procedures involved in creating the list as a new article. The existing Hovhaness article will need cleaning up, and some decision made about the symphonies and other duplication there. I would have had to leave all these sorts of things to you anyway. (And you'll remember, I never really wanted to get involved in this project to start with.) Milkunderwood (talk) 02:57, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

For someone who didn't want to get involved in this, you certainly put in a lot of work. Perhaps you don't remember this fact. Setting it up as a separate list-article is easy, and at this point it is probably time to do so. In the few times lately that I have vetted portions of the list, there were few additions to make, so I think any further amendments can best be made after the list is posted. The Hovhaness article shouldn't require too much adjustment, and other editors will probably have their own ideas about what is appropriate to keep in the partial list there. So, I shall copy the list from you sandbox into a stand-alone article, and we shall see what happens.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Today I've done two things (the first edits I've made in months):

• I copied the entire sandbox, as is, onto its heretofore unused talkpage, for my own private record. If your thought is to simply "move" the sandbox to an article by renaming it, be sure not to take the talkpage with it, but leave it where it is. I'm not sure what this will do - can I even have a talkpage without it being attached to a main sandbox page? Anyway, I want to keep that record somewhere in my own userspace. (If my doing this only complicates what you were going to do to create the article, just revert - as long as I can still retain one copy of my entire draft somewhere.)
• Then on the main sandbox page I deleted all the discussion and questions from the top, so it's now more-or-less ready for publication.

There are still a couple of things that need to be done. There are two separate references to New Grove, the first in Cited sources and again in Notes that both still need to be properly formatted. And the References section is presently disabled with parentheses, as "(==)References(==)". Then there's also still a note at the top reminding of a See also note to attach to the main Hovhaness article. Besides these, I don't doubt there will still be some other minor cleanup to be done.

Once the list is published, I do want to delete the Symphonies entire "Partial list of compositions" section from the Hovhaness article, since it's not only incomplete but also wrong in a number of particulars. And the section preceding the Symphonies is arranged by date, which doesn't work because of all his revisions. Milkunderwood (talk) 16:14, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I noticed you had moved this text, and hesitated to proceed further until I was sure you had no immediate intentions to make further edits. I can fix the New Grove entries and enable the References when creating the list-article. I will not disturb the file on your page, but only copy it to the new article page. You may then delete or keep, as you see fit.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:26, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Again, thanks very much for your guidance through this snakepit. I think we came up with a pretty good and helpful result. :-) Milkunderwood (talk) 18:33, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

For George Enescu's "Piano Sonata No. 2" I found the information on the Society Enescu. Here's the link : http://patachonf.free.fr/musique/enesco/discographie.php?p=autres They indicate sketches for a "Piano Sonata No. 2 in E flat minor" op. 24 and precise : composition : 1926-31. But they don't indicate the precense of a manuscript. The indication of the tonality of E flat minor and of the dates of 1926-31 is also indicated on this site : http://www.oocities.org/enesco_georges/enescu_works.html But on this site, it's indicated this sonata is only a blueprint. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.243.236.99 (talk) 09:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the links but, as you say, there is no real information about the existence of any actual materials. On that second site, "blueprint" is a very odd word, especially because, up until about 30 years ago, blueprint process was often used to reproduce rental scores. I doubt that this is what is meant here. Rather, I suspect this is a poor translation of something like French or Romanian plan (meaning an "outline" or a "scheme", or even just a "forecast" or "intention"). I believe that Enescu mentioned several times that he carried this sonata "in his head", and he may even have stated the key, but without evidence that anything at all survives on paper, it must be regarded at best as "lost", and at worst as never having been written. If a preliminary sketch of some sort survives, then it must be regarded as "planned, but not realised". In either case, there does not appear to be a Second Sonata.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:30, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

This composer - so far unknown to me - was translated to German (user space), could you have a look at the English please, before spreading "him" further. (Stockhausen is mentioned.) The referencing looks mixed to me, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:52, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Harvey is the author of a well-known book on Stockhausen (which certainly ought to be mentioned, as should his writings outside the field of music, where he has a separate reputation). I have met him on two occasions—on two different continents!—and know at least some of his music rather well. You should at least get to know his best-known electronic work, Mortuos plango, vivos voco, which is a real stunner. That said, the English Wikipedia article about him is rather disappointing, especially considering his stature as a composer. I'm not sure in which sense you mean the referencing is "mixed". I might have said "scrappy", meaning that some references are much more respectable than others, and that the most obvious and perhaps most important one (the article by Arnold Whittall in New Grove) got left out. The article itself is barely more than stub-class, and looks suspiciously like the minimum excuse in order to list all of his compositions. The article on the Japanese Wikipedia looks much more respectable (from what I can tell—I don't read Japanese); the Dutch Wikipedia merely translates this rather shabby English version, which looks like another article that needs a lot of work.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:02, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, also for a new word, "scrappy". Now we look for someone to do a lot of work, right? Could you please add that most important ref, for a start? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:46, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, well, that word "scrappy" is a bit colloquial, but useful, I think. I shall add Harvey's book on Stockhausen, right away. Perhaps I should try translating the Japanese article into a useful European language, such as Catalan. Then it might be accessible for translation into German, Dutch, etc.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:51, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if "scrappy" in that sense might be a Britishism - in USEnglish I would think of "scrappy" as being ready for fisticuffs given any excuse. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:02, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, who knows? And this was the first definition from American Heritage. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:08, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for adding, I take it to de. Will have to find out how they say "Further reading" there, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:17, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Don't be too hasty. As they say, "You ain't seen nuthin' yet!"—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:44, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Interesting what you call "a few more", thanks! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:54, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I try not to exaggerate ;-)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:21, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for putting in the right tag. I had so much trouble finding the footnotes tag (why is that template called "footnotes" and other similar templates called "references" or "sources"?) that I didn't go the extra step to find the more instead of none version.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:16, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

You are very welcome. Those templates are sometimes infuriatingly difficult to find when you need them. I once came across another alternative using a word something like "inline", but I didn't make a note at the time, and have never been able to find it since.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:24, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

LOL, I was trying to do the same thing with "inline" and having no success, although I could swear I've seen it, and then I ran across the footnotes template. Well, the rest you know. Sometimes I think I should change my user page into documentation as to where things are so I can find them again - that includes policies, guidelines, essays, as well as templates.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:14, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I've been running around today making trouble everywhere instead of getting back to work on the discography, but you might want to take a peek at

In the meantime, I have added a redlink disambig to Force (disambiguation) (yes, I know it's against all the rules, but one does keep finding them) as a See also, viz.

• Forces (music), the orchestral instrumentation (and voices) used in a musical production

(In fact this breaks two other rules, because a disambig is not supposed to be used to provide a definition, and such a page in all likelihood will never be created. I stumbled across these three warnings at various places wandering around in MoS and other WP:how tos, and would never be able to find them again.) Anyway, my feeling was that regardless of all these rules, this was a useful addition to the page.

My first question is, lacking any dictionary definition, can you come up with any better phrasing than mine as a definition? And also, is the word "forces" always used in the plural like this, never as a force? I was thinking I might submit the word and definition to Wiktionary, together with the two examples found at Orchestra:

• Orchestra#Beethoven's influence: The so-called "standard complement" of double winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the forces called for by Ludwig van Beethoven, or
• Orchestra#20th century orchestra: ... Mahler pushes the furthest boundaries of orchestral size, employing huge forces.

Since Wiktionary presumably won't have any better luck than us in confirming the usage, they're likely to reject it, but I think it's worth a try. Might New Grove use the term by any chance? This would certainly be more authoritative than just quoting from a Wikipedia article.

(BTW, most of my wandering around was in search of the actual mechanism for creating a new article, and I never did find it. There's tons of info on writing an article, what to include or not, how to organize it, etc, but nothing at all that I could find on how to actually post it. This Hovhaness composition list is going to be too long to simply post on his page in place of the much shorter list there now. Would it work to finish cleaning up the sandbox page, delete the notes at the top, and then just "move" it to a new name?) I'm also not sure whether the separate numerical list of symphonies ought to stay as is on the Hovhaness page, or be moved together with the new List of compositions - my inclination would be to keep it together with the list, as a separate section beneath it as it is now. Any advice, on generalities, or specifics? Milkunderwood (talk) 20:23, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

The easy question to answer first: I've created at least a hundred articles by now, and have used two methods (though they really amount to practically the same thing). First, if there is already a redlink somewhere to the article name you want to create, just click on it. A page will open saying something like, "No article of that name exists; you may create this article but …" followed by a list of cautions. The second method is to enter your proposed title in the Search box at the top of any Wikipedia page. This should lead you to the same message. In either case, then you enter your new article in the edit window provided. Your initial edit summary should say something like "Created article".

The more difficult question concerns the use of the word "forces". New Grove has not got an article titled "Forces", but has probably hundreds of articles containing that word. Some examples of the sort for which you are looking:

• Raffaele Pozzi's article "Negri, Gino": "Negri composed almost exclusively for the theatre, particularly works for small forces, which he found most congenial"
• A. Dennis Sparger's article "Hakenberger, Andrzej (Andreas)": "While a few multi-voice works are for a single choir, Hakenberger clearly favoured antiphonal forces. These opposing choirs, which may consist of instruments as well as voices, usually have an equal number of parts, but contrast between a high and a low choir is preferred to equal forces."
• Gordana Lazarevich and Marie-Thérèse Bouquet-Boyer's article "Giay [Giai, Giaj], Giovanni Antonio": "After Fiorè died in 1732, Giay assumed the duties of maestro di cappella and was confirmed in the position by Carlo Emanuele III in a patent of 24 October 1738. In this capacity he directed the instrumental and vocal forces of the court and composed a large amount of church music."
• Stephen Banfield's article "Lutz, (Johann Baptist Wilhelm) Meyer": "he became deputy organist of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Birmingham, St Chad’s, before moving to St George’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Southwark (London) as its first organist and choirmaster, in which post (1848–74) he gave performances of numerous orchestral masses, including his own, with professional forces."
• Arthur Jacobs, Noël Goodwin, and Richard Wigmore's article "Maazel, Lorin (Varencove)": "His Covent Garden début was not until 1978 with Verdi's Luisa Miller, which he recorded the following year with Royal Opera House forces."

An example of the singular form, "force", in this context may be found in John Tyrrell's article, "Janáček, Leoš [Leo Eugen]", where he says, "After a few months he turned the male-voice Beseda choir into a mixed body, and, with help from the monastery choir and pupils from the institute, he mustered a force of 250 singers for large-scale choral works, Mozart’s Requiem (1878) and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis (1879)." This should be sufficient ammunition for your purposes.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:45, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Terrific - if you still have those handy, give me refs with page numbers [EDIT: also punctuation: Pozzi has [.] period. or [...] ellipsis?], and I'll post a recommendation to Wiktionary. But what about the definition? Just go with mine, or rephrase? Hm. I'm not coming up with something good for the singular yet. How about Occasionally used in the singular, as in [example]? Milkunderwood (talk) 23:50, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Encyclopedia and dictionary entries do not usually require page numbers (unless you are talking about Harold Powers's New Grove article on "Mode", which is practically a whole volume by itself). The Pozzi quotation ends with a period. I like your wording of the definition—I don't think I could improve on it. If it helps at all, the French equivalent for "forces" in this context is effectif, and the German is Besetzung.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:46, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Refs & pg numbers are not for the Wiktionary entry itself, but for submission for entry, since the editors won't find the usage in any other dictionary - so we need to authenticate.

(Another question coming right up, on bassoons). Milkunderwood (talk) 05:06, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

With all due respect, if the Wiktionary boffos require volume and page numbers to find alphabetically ordered entries in a dictionary, then perhaps they also would like a map to a convenient library where the book in question may be found, a taxi to take them there, and a seeing-eye dog to help them find the front desk.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:15, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

No, that's the whole problem - I, at least, have never found that usage in any dictionary at all. But I haven't searched a gazillion of them (yet). Milkunderwood (talk) 05:19, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Hold on a minute. Do you mean to say if I led you by the hand to the 24 volumes of New Grove on a shelf in the library, you would be unable to find an alphabetically ordered article on "Maazel, Lorin (Varencove)" without my telling you which volume to look in, and what page in that volume it was on?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:26, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

How many editors of Wiktionary do you suppose are going to have a full set of New Grove sitting on a shelf behind them? If it were me, and some stranger came up and said, "This isn't in any dictionary, but here's an accepted usage", somehow I doubt I would spend more than a few seconds dismissing him as a crank. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:32, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Approximately the same number that have a complete set of back issues of the Journal of the American Musicological Society. In the case of a reference to that august journal, a volume number and page reference would be absolutely necessary, of course, and in my case, I could go directly to my office shelf and pull that issue down and look at the indicated page (because I do happen to own a complete set of back issues). Now, if you were to say to me, "You will not find that on any page in JAMS", but it is true, then of course I wouldn't take you very seriously. But if you said, "You can find this under "Maazel" in The New Grove, I would go to the shelf where the dictionary is, run down the spines until I found vol. 15: "Liturgy to Martinu" (assuming it was the second edition of 2001—the first edition of 1980 would be vol. 11: "Lindeman-Mean-tone"), open it up and flip through the pages until I found the alphabetical listing "Maazel, Lorin (Varencove)". The page number would be more of an encumbrance than a help under these circumstances but, if your inquisitors demand it I can, as I said, go look it up. Or, if you prefer, you can let your electrons do the walking, and have them look up the online version. If on the other hand they require a print copy of the entire dictionary be delivered to their desk by courier, then they can go whistle. I haven't got that kind of money.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:01, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

• "New Grove has not got an article titled "Forces"" (JK, above)

Hmm. Perhaps I have been misunderstanding you. Are you asking me to find the page number in New Grove where this nonexistent article would have to be? I suppose I could do that, citing the titles of the two consecutive articles that would have to bracket it, alphabetically. I don't see the point of this, though.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:21, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Working on this assumption, New Grove second edition (2001), vol. 9, pages 84–85 has the consecutive entries "Forcer, Francis" and "Forcheim [Forchheim], Johann Wilhelm". If there were an article "Forces", it would have to fall between these two entries. Ergo: no article on that term in New Grove. On the other hand, the article on Maazel is in volume 15, on pages 443–44. The quotation cited above is split over these two pages, right in the middle of the title of Verdi's opera. The word "forces" therefore occurs on page 444. I hope this helps.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:38, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

:-) Not quite, but thank you. I'm adding a new section to your page, below. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:40, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

In most places where Hovhaness call for bassoon, it's given simply as "bsn"; but in several pieces (Opp. 107, 143, 213, 222, 236, 311, 312), he calls for "c bsn", and sometimes (Opp. 165, 178, & 312 again (my eyes are playing tricks now) & 377) this is shown as "Cbsn" - which may or may not be the same thing. The Bassoon article discusses ranges, but I didn't see distinctions between different instruments, unless my eyes are getting boggly. I'm thinking there was another similar situation that I'm not finding right now, but if so will add here. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:08, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

That must be contrabassoon. It is usually abbreviated "cbn", but "cbsn" seems a plausible alternative.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:18, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - hadn't thought of that. I'll fix these as cbn. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:21, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I'm going to need to go back and proofread everything, and fill in some "forces" that I had omitted; so I'd rather wait with that and first get all the pieces just listed. I'll probably have more of these questions as I go. One thing I hadn't bothered with so far is some instrument or other in B-flat or E-flat, I think. (Gotta go now) Milkunderwood (talk) 05:54, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

At his website, check out instrumentation for Op. 377, Sym #53. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:02, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, "Cbsn" = contrabassoon. You can tell this from the position in the score order, as well, since it follows "Bsn" = bassoon. It is also true that certain instruments (clarinets, saxophones, horns, trumpets) come in different transpositions, though these are not always specified in lists of "forces". It is usually sufficient in the case of saxophones, for example, to specify "soprano", "alto", "tenor", or "baritone", even though there is such a thing as soprano and tenor saxophones in C, as well as the more usual instrument in B♭.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:18, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Hovhaness website has a discrepancy that perhaps Grove can resolve: Op 123 #3 Cto #10 for 2 pianos "reclassified as Sym #45"; but then Op 342 Sym #45 "orig titled Cto #10, Op 123 #2". (There is no listing for Op 123 #2; it lists Op 123 "Vision from High Rock", w/o a number, then Op 123 #3, Cto #10.)

(I'm sure I'll be back later with more questions on abbreviations, but for now I'm just trying to get stuff listed as best I can. If OK with you I'll post back in this same section instead of creating new ones.) Milkunderwood (talk) 20:03, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, joy! Well, New Grove has got some discrepancies, as well, and guess what? One of the first ones I found is smack in the middle of your question. First, New Grove also has but one op. 123, Vision from High Rock, an orchestral work from 1954. However, the list of symphonies begins to disagree with the website list starting around Symphony No. 53. New Grove lists no symphonies at all with numbers 56 or 63, but assigns opus numbers slightly skewed with respect to the ones in the website list. I'll not go into detail right now, but I can say that Symphony no. 45 is op. 342 there, and scored for two pianos and large orchestra, composed in 1979. Concerto no. 10 is for piano and strings, bars the opus number 413, and was composed in 1988. I suppose it is entirely possible that Symphony no. 45 was originally thought of as a concerto, and may have been given a number subordinate to opus 123. The New Grove list probably reflects only Hovhaness's final decision, whereas the website documents the catalog's history in more detail, only with some mistakes or elisions (for example, perhaps Hovhaness at one point used op. 123 no. 2, and then revised the catalog making it op. 123 no. 3, and finally moved it to the list of symphonies as op. 342). Mopping this up could be a lot more trouble than it's worth.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:13, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I can think of another word for it besides "joy". Something to do with worms, snakes, centipedes, etc. Since the website is the best (and virtually only) source I have, I'll just have to follow it for now. In the meantime, does Grove agree that Op 356, Sym #49 "Christmas Symphony" exists only as unpublished manuscript? Since it's a numbered symphony I've listed it, but in parentheses with a note to that effect. But this probably also goes back to the problem you've uncovered. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:52, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe we can put "aka No. xx (New Grove)" Milkunderwood (talk) 22:52, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Also re your unfortunate find: I had assumed I would 1) completely supersede the existing list, and 2) move mine to a new article; but 3) move the existing list of symphonies only, along with the new article. But if the numbering of the symphonies is screwed up (and its formatting is already different), I now wonder if it ought to be abandoned instead. Something to consider later, when the time comes. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:01, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I've now saved through Op. 357. See if you approve my handling of Opp. 342 and 356 - thx. [Edit: I tend to think all of the numbering (and titling) discrepancies can be solved with "aka" notes - those internal to the website w/o attribution, otherwise as "aka [etc] (New Grove)".] Milkunderwood (talk) 23:10, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I keep forgetting that irony does not communicate well in text such as this. I think the actual quotation from Miss Mapp is "Such joy!", always uttered in response to infuriating and embarrassing events, usually perpetrated by her rival Lucia. FWIW, New Grove does not indicate (for this composer) which works are published and which remain in manuscript. For the symphony list, perhaps I should add the New Grove version to your sandbox, and then we can try to figure out why the discrepancies are there.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:16, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

No, it was my irony that went uncommunicated - yours was perfectly well understood. You're certainly more than welcome to play in my sandbox all you want, but I think we need to stay consistent with one schema or the other. What did you think of my suggestion to resolve discrepancies by leaving numbers and titles as given at the website, and adding "[aka [etc] (New Grove)]" at the end of the listing, somewhat similarly to my Op. 342 listing? Milkunderwood (talk) 00:31, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Having gotten as far as op. 321 in the list of symphonies (New Grove being organized by genre rather than opus number), it is plain that the website has more detail, and therefore should probably remain the basis of your list. I am finding an alarming number of actual discrepancies, though. I shall pass over cases where New Grove is perfectly consistent with the website information, even if less detailed (for example, "small orchestra" rather than a list of instruments showing that this is in fact the case), but nearly a third of the symphonies have at least a small conflict between the two sources. Another resource that may be tapped for the published works is the Library of Congress WorldCat, but that won't be quite so easy to sift, for a variety of reasons. I think the New Grove comparison should be finished first.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:50, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Need help from Grove: Op 415, a trio for violin, clarinet & piano: website gives "Lake Sammish" as title, but there is no such thing. There is a "Lake Samish", and a "Lake Sammamish", two different lakes in Washington state, often confused. I'm trying to link. What does Grove say? (Might well be composer's error rather than website.) Thx. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:25, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, what edition of Grove do you have? - need for ref. (Assumed 2001 - pls confirm. Should ref include the vol number for Hovhaness?)

• (I see B&N [7] has new hardcover 2001 full 29-vol set for $60 !!)

Milkunderwood (talk) 20:53, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I've now made major changes @ sandbox, mostly in top matter - please review & comment. Thx.

Also have now completed list, starting proofing. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:48, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

New Grove has "Trio ‘Lake Samish’, op.415, vn, cl, pf, 1988". By that time, Hovhaness had been a local boy here (I live in Seattle, not far from both lakes) for many years and was not liable to have made such an elementary mistake. This is obviously a typo on the website. As to the edition of Grove, it is the second (2001) unless otherwise noted. I do not own a copy of either, but have easy access to both in my local library. I also have web access to the online version. Sixty bucks for a complete copy of New Grove second edition?! Unbelievable! I'll bet the shipping is more than the price of the book(s)!! If I had room on my bookshelf, I might be tempted myself. As for references to the NG article on Hovhaness, I think I have already made it as clear as I can that dictionary and encyclopedia articles do not ordinarily include volume and page numbers, because the articles are comparatively short and, as alphabetic entries, are self-indexed.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:38, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, bn.com says "estimated shipping $3.99, total $63.99 (plus possible tax)". (EDIT: link is above.) How could you pass that up? I'm finished through Op 184 now, have made several corrections, additions, a few deletions in list; also major revisions to top matter as noted above, w/ some questions. Still going at it. So whenever you're ready to cross-check Grove ... Milkunderwood (talk) 04:26, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll try to find time to do this. I've been preoccupied lately with an article on one of our sister Wikipedias, here. I should be better able to attend to other things now.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:12, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Vishnu Symphony (#19), Op 217: what the dickens can "perc (6-4)" mean? Here I've been assuming all along that e.g. "perc (4)" meant "4 percussion", and have been writing it that way. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:30, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, "perc (6–4)" doesn't make any sense to me, either. If it had said "4–6" I might have guessed it meant percussion that required from 4 to 6 performers, but this does not read sensibly.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:49, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

(Butting in) I couldn't believe it either; sixty bucks is for one volume only. Heck, I was about to grab one of those sets! Antandrus (talk) 05:39, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Hold on there, Antandrus! I know you have been limping along with the 1980 first edition for all these years, but you really cannot take advantage of Milkunderwood's discovery here! Unless, of course, Milkunderwood gives up all claims to this bargain.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:49, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I laughed ... if you click on one of the 14 "sets" they have listed, they tell you which volume is for sale, though I wish they'd make it a little more obvious. If it sounds too good to be true, ...

Although I do have the 2001 again. (Not in hard copy, alas. A set would be nice. It's fun to browse.) (And Milkunderwood, I'm not sure about the perc(6-4) -- could be six parts playable by four people -- never seen a hyphen there before.) Antandrus (talk) 05:54, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Whoops! - that wasn't at all obvious from their listing. :-( Have to always read the fine print. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:08, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, for that matter, I've never understood exactly what the "4 percussion" means, especially as being distinct from "timpani", which never carries a number. It's all stuff that you bang on. (Please don't try to explain it to me - as I've said repeatedly, I'm not a musician, and my only instruments are a CD player and an antique turntable.) Milkunderwood (talk) 06:18, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Wash your mouth out with soap! Timpani are timpani, and would never be sullied by association with those "percussionist" people! Really!! (How exactly do you do a "nose in the air" emoticon?)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:24, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

The difference between drums vs tin cans and cow bells? Milkunderwood (talk) 06:35, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Something like that :-)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:59, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Does Grove give all instrumentation? Op 397, Sym #61, gives "13222 4331" - I assume there's an extra "2" in there? Milkunderwood (talk) 07:38, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Grove does not always give instrumentation, but in this case says "no.61, op.397, str, hp, timp, 4 perc, 1986". If we are to believe this, there are no winds at all, but this is the same instrumentation given for the preceding symphony no. 60, so it could be a mistake. I would imagine that it is mor likely that the initial "1" is the error, since it would be very unusual for an orchestra to have but a single flute, and yet three oboes. Unfortunately, this is one of the symphonies that has neither been published nor recorded. I have checked the WorldCat at the Library of Congress (which sometimes lists manuscripts if they are held in a library archive), and Eric Kunze's Discography at <http://web.uvic.ca/~kunze/hovdiscog.pdf>. No luck, I'm afraid.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:59, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for checking. My first inclination was to drop the 1, so it would look more like the others; but then in proofing I thought maybe it was an extra 2 instead. I'll change it back to 3222. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:12, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's only a guess, but it is quite common to have three flutes in the woodwind section, with two each of oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. The third flute usually doubles piccolo, and that might account for the mistaken extra number at the beginning. However, it would not explain why the second number was a 3. This is one of those places where a little evidence would be welcome, but none is forthcoming.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:16, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Somehow my trick eye skipped right over your reference to Eric Kunze. That's an excellent alternative source. He's obviously being very conscientious with his information, so I'll go back and see how he confirms or differs. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:33, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Huh. I'm not sure how much of an improvement this is. For Op. 3, which the Hovhaness website gives as

• "Trio I" [title], "Trio in e minor" [subtitle], "violin, cello & piano" [instrumentation] and "1935(?)",

Kunze in his opus listing gives this as

• "1935", "Piano Trio No. 1".

But then in his alphabetical listing he has Op. 3 as

• "Trio for piano, violin and cello, op. 3 (1935)",

immediately followed by

• "Trio No. 1 "Tumburu" for piano, violin and cello, op. 264, No. 1 (1973)".

So he's got that discrepancy in titling Op. 3 right there. Of course I understand the problem comes back to Hovhaness himself, getting his catalog mixed up, but that doesn't help the situation very much. I wonder how much Kunze is just going from data on recordings. In following the Hovhaness website I have

• "Op. 3: Trio I (in E Minor, for violin, cello, piano) (1935?)".

This isn't a head-scratcher, it's a hair-puller-outer. I'm going to leave mine alone. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Hey, how come your "B♭" [B((Music|flat))] looks different from my HTML "B♭" [(B)(&)(#)(9837)(;)]? Yours is closer, but faint - it darkens up some if bolded: "B♭". Milkunderwood (talk) 03:53, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

The quest of why they look different is too deep, philosophically, for me to face here, but I am using Wikipedia templates, whereas you are using HTML. A couple of years ago I used Unicode flats and sharps in some article or other, and got complaints that they didn't display correctly on somebody else's platform (probably browsing with Mosaic 1.1 running under CP/M on a steam-powered computer or something), where they were showing up as plain rectangles. I was very kindly steered to the Wikipedia templates, and have been using them ever since. In general, editors on Wikipedia are urged to use Wiki markup instead of HTML where possible. I'm not clear about the reasoning, but I suppose it might cause bubbles to form in your computer's bloodstream if you ascend too fast, or something. I'm sure they look different because they call up different algorithms to draw the figures, but how its all done, and why, I have no idea at all. If you are tempted to use the Wiki templates, you might want to know that {{Music|#}} and {{Music|b}} work the same as {{Music|sharp}} and {{Music|flat}}, in case you are lazy, in a hurry, or can't remember in which language you are currently working.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:35, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Damn! Pardon my language. Thanks for the abbreviations; I'll do that instead. And speaking of cussing, Kunze differs all over the place from the Hovh website. Good luck when you get around to checking Grove. In the meantime, check out my new footnotes - I'm now saving thru Op. 65 (!) Milkunderwood (talk) 05:40, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah, now chaos I can handle! It is only to be expected in the case of a composer as prolific and unsystematic as Hovhaness was, that there would be conflicting data. It will not be easy to reconcile all the differences, but a good first step would be to try and discover which of these various catalogs seem more reliable than the others. Despite the standing of New Grove, I'm not putting my money there just yet—there are too many internal discrepancies.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:56, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I sure am glad you can handle it. In the meantime since I don't have Grove, I'm just dealing with Kunze. Where he has more specific but not conflicting titles, I'm just incorporating those. By the way, I always thought CP/M was a much more intuitive language than DOS. (EDIT: And I still use Lotus 1-2-3 Release 1A, from I think around 1985, because it's completely different from - and more flexible than - Excel or its now copycat clone 1-2-3. I could go into great detail on its benefits.) Milkunderwood (talk) 06:06, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Double Dutch, badly translated into Greek and badly translated back again is more intuitive than DOS! I never worked with the old Lotus 1-2-3, but I have heard its praises sung before, and it is not difficult to imagine it is more flexible than Excel. But as we used to say in the 1960s; Consider the source.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:21, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course 1A doesn't work with Windows, so you need an old DOS 6.x machine. There are some small programs that allow you to see a spreadsheet and perform a few elementary processes, but if you've done anything at all sophisticated in Lotus' built-in programing language, you're SOL in Windows. Milkunderwood (talk) 07:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Who said anything about Windows? And a little less of the "old", please! I've not upgraded to DOS 6 yet—I'm still waiting for Microsoft to get the bugs out. In fact, I've not upgraded to DOS 5, for the same reason. I did finally manage to shake off WordStar, which is the counter-example to the proposition that all software just keeps getting worse and worse.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:13, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Are we to suppose that you are online on your pre-DOS 5 computer?? Or are you using a Lisa to communicate with the outside world? Me, I have to maintain two separate machines - what is your trick? Milkunderwood (talk) 20:37, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

My first machine is an abacus, but I've not been able to find a modem slow enough to connect it to the internet. I'd like a Lisa, but they are outrageously expensive (or were the last time I checked, twenty-some years ago). I make do with a ten-year-old G4 and a five-year-old iMac at home. They're still a little too shiny, but they are settling in nicely and in another ten years will probably be perfectly satisfactory. At least they don't have Intel Insides ;-) —Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:39, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't really get to choose what machines I have available for use, but I still hate the whole concept of GUIs, and am much more comfortable with plain text or ASCII. Otherwise I have nothing against Apple, other than avoiding their products. But I share every complaint imaginable concerning MicroSoft.

And Lotus' 1-2-3 1A allowed its internal programming language to be written in hex instead of English, with the little white and black faces, and various symbols, etc (after playing with it for a while one of the first things I did was to go back into the driver specifying display colors, and changed them all); but

Symphony removed that capability of writing within their programming language in hex. That's partly why I never upgraded - as soon as a publisher has something that works well, they go and screw it up. I do use 1-2-3 as a spreadsheet in a sense, but in fact each of my "spreadsheets" is actually a freestanding menu-driven program in itself. I've never bothered to learn HTML or, God forbid, Basic. Tighter and tinier is better - the entire 123.exe file is 89,984 bytes, and even it contains a lot of dead space. It uses a .cnf file and and 3 drivers, which together total less than 3000 bytes. How large is Apple's spreadsheet program? I've only looked at iTunes, which is not only humongous, but is nasty enough to scatter all its innumerable associated files throughout every conceivable directory. Milkunderwood (talk

) 04:05, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Heh-heh! Not to mention needlessly duplicating every sound file you import into it, which can quickly clog up a hard drive, especially if you care enough about listening to use a reasonably high-quality sound format. Old technology wins again: Edison cylinders are a much more efficient sound-storage medium—especially the original tin-foil format, though a little deficient in the durability department.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:17, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

? I've only seen Apple Lossless imports, and hadn't noticed duplicate sound files, unless they're being stored somewhere I hadn't thought to look. But that's also on another Windows machine; Macs may be different? Speaking of Edison cylinders, I once had a clerk at a record store searching for some of the old Schuppanzigh recordings. :-) Milkunderwood (talk) 05:05, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Schuppanzigh, eh? I'll bet finding those recordings took a good long while! The op. 70, no. 1 would be favourite ;-) The problem with iTunes crops up when you have already copied a sound file to your hard drive, and only afterward decide to import it into iTunes. It can't just open the file where it stands—it has to make its very own copy and hide it somewhere where you can't find it.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:18, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Now posted at Wiktionary, under their existing entry for forces:

• 3. (music) the orchestral instrumentation (and voices) used in a musical production (nearly always used in plural form only).

And on the Discussion page:
"forces as a musical term"

I have added an entry for ((context|music)). It may be important to understand that this usage is de facto - the term is not found in this context as a specific entry in any Merriam-Webster (

However, the term forces, nearly always but not exclusively in the plural form, is found throughout the literature concerning music. Rather than creating a new Citations page for the

• from the authoritative New Grove Dictionary:
  • "Giay [Giai, Giaj], Giovanni Antonio": "After Fiorè died in 1732, Giay assumed the duties of maestro di cappella and was confirmed in the position by Carlo Emanuele III in a patent of 24 October 1738. In this capacity he directed the instrumental and vocal forces of the court and composed a large amount of church music."
  • "Hakenberger, Andrzej (Andreas)": "While a few multi-voice works are for a single choir, Hakenberger clearly favoured antiphonal forces. These opposing choirs, which may consist of instruments as well as voices, usually have an equal number of parts, but contrast between a high and a low choir is preferred to equal forces."
  • "Lutz, (Johann Baptist Wilhelm) Meyer": "... he became deputy organist of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Birmingham, St Chad’s, before moving to St George’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Southwark (London) as its first organist and choirmaster, in which post (1848–74) he gave performances of numerous orchestral masses, including his own, with professional forces."
  • "Maazel, Lorin (Varencove)": "His Covent Garden début was not until 1978 with Verdi's Luisa Miller, which he recorded the following year with Royal Opera House forces."
  • "Negri, Gino": "Negri composed almost exclusively for the theatre, particularly works for small forces, which he found most congenial."
• from the Wikipedia article on Orchestra:
  • "Beethoven's influence": "The so-called "standard complement" of double winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the forces called for by Ludwig van Beethoven..."
  • "20th century orchestra": "... Mahler pushes the furthest boundaries of orchestral size, employing huge forces."
• in a use of the singular form, again from New Grove Dictionary:
  • "Janáček, Leoš [Leo Eugen]": "After a few months he turned the male-voice Beseda choir into a mixed body, and, with help from the monastery choir and pupils from the institute, he mustered a force of 250 singers for large-scale choral works, Mozart’s Requiem (1878) and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis (1879)."

Milkunderwood (talk) 03:40, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Excellent. Well done.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:49, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, you did all the work, which I very much appreciate. I had just thought that adding volume and page numbers for the Grove quotes would make it all the more unassailable, but I'm sure this will do. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:24, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Jerome, your talkpage may not be the best place for me to raise this question, but it seems that I keep encountering an attitude among wikipedians in general that references to Amazon appear to be discouraged. You yourself have said, above,

• "I think it is not a very good idea to provide links to Amazon, since that is fairly blatantly commercial. Why not links to Barnes & Noble, or ArkivMusic, or CD Baby, etc.?"

to which I had responded

• "The great advantage of Amazon is that you can find nearly anything, even long out of print, from resellers."

And again from you,

• "And I am very aware of the utility of Amazon's search engine, even if I do think that Wikipedia has no business being used to promote Amazon."

Then again from me,

• "It's not Amazon's search engine at issue, although it does perform much more efficiently than most others, but rather the fact that they have listings for so many OOP items. ArkivMusic isn't nearly as well known, but they are just as much in the business of selling CDs. I'm in no way shilling for Amazon, but you takes 'em as you finds 'em."

In response to all of this discussion, first I want to say that yours is by no means the first time I have encountered this general attitude toward Amazon in particular. Next, once Antandrus had found that the price I quoted for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians from Barnes & Noble was for single volumes only, my reaction was, and is, that their listing was not only deviously deceptive, but apparently deliberately so. I find that very distressing, and it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth concerning B&N's business practices.

Looking back now at Amazon's listings for the same set I find much the same sort of problem, but still not quite as blatantly deceptive. Personally, when I may be looking for a book to purchase, I tend to go first to BookFinder.com [8], which lists offers from Alibris and AbeBooks, as well as Amazon, B&N, and any number of small sellers and dealers. Even there I am now finding something of the same sort of problem in searching for New Grove, but less so than at either Amazon or especially B&N.

Unfortunately BookFinder doesn't concern itself with CDs or DVDs, only books. And I have no idea how "commercial" BookFinder should be considered, but obviously they must take a cut from either initial listings or sales transactions to be able to maintain their website and search engine. While any and every website (including Wikipedia) needs to sustain itself financially, for music and movies I have generally found that Amazon tends to have a much deeper and wider listing of obscure and out-of-print items on offer from not only large dealers but also small shops and individuals. Furthermore, since their "ASIN' cataloging system is very widely recognized worldwide, it's frequently helpful to Google the ASIN alone, and find many offers not listed directly at Amazon.com itself. I also frequently search at Amazon's sister sites - .co.uk, .fr, .de, .jp, .ca, etc.

I repeat that I'm in no way shilling for Amazon - I have many gripes and complaints about them, including their very frequent sloppiness in their descriptions, and in failing to distinguish between different - sometimes very different - editions. I just don't understand the general aversion concerning them that I seem to frequently find here at Wikipedia. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:40, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't have to explain to you that the problem is principally the fact that Amazon is a commercial enterprise, so that directing Wikipedia readers to their website could well amount to "shilling for Amazon". However, there are also the definitions at Wikipedia:Reliable sources to contend with. Remember that there is a difference between the tools you actually use to find things, and the way formal scholarly/encyclopedic sources work. By all means use Amazon (or B&N, or Alibris, etc.) to search for things, but at least try to find a less commercially charged source when citing a published book, audio recording, or DVD. Traditionally, one uses the publisher data, which is not usually that difficult to obtain (and, FWIW, Amazon consistently falls down in providing all of this information, since they almost never give the place of publication even for books). We have spoken before about open-to-the-public, online library catalogs, for example. Many, perhaps most publishers today have websites where you can search for publication details, and the same is true for record companies. DVDs remain a bit more problematic in this respect, but I imagine this will change over time.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:59, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Good point, and an important distinction that you're making. (And Amazon not only fails to provide place of publication, but date of initial publication, besides usually getting half of their descriptive information garbled.) So on this distinction, I concede your argument. :-) Milkunderwood (talk) 22:12, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Accordingly, I've changed the link to NG in the sandbox list from B&N to OUP. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Even others agree that Wikipedia is ambiguous on the matter: Help_talk:Footnotes#Multiple_footnote_styles_in_a_single_article -- kosboot (talk) 21:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure there can be no doubt that Wikipedia is ambiguous about this. All of this is dodging the issue, though: All I wanted to know was whether you really, really want to have conflicting formats in that article (and if so, why), or if you would be happy to have them resolved in favour of one or the other. If the latter, which of the two do you prefer?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:25, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

If you're talking about my preference: I'd prefer to do as in printed articles, i.e. the first mention is full, and successive mentions are short. (But I also see that can be a problem for WP in case someone switches order of sentences.) -- kosboot (talk) 21:30, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I think you are telling me one thing here, and another thing on the discussion page of the article in question, but one thing is certain: "printed articles" don't all adhere to the format you describe. It is also very true that, on Wikipedia, edits involving rearrangement of text can make a shambles out of the long-short reference style in footnotes, and this is also the reason why references using "ibid." and "loc cit." are simply invitations to disaster. Similarly, the use of 3-em dashes in lists of references (which I am old-fashioned enough to call "bibliographies") for succeeding items by the same author is asking for trouble.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:44, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Let's continue to follow the discussion at Help_talk:Footnotes#Multiple_footnote_styles_in_a_single_article and see where it leads before making a decision. -- kosboot (talk) 21:48, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

If we're talking about footnotes here, I sort of wish someone would take a quick look at mine at User:Milkunderwood/sandbox Hovhaness#List of compositions by Alan Hovhaness and let me know whether these are at all acceptable, please. RSVP either here, or preferably at the top of that page under Discussion. Thanks. [EDIT: In the meantime mine keep getting messier, and I have no idea whether my use of them, or my formatting, is appropriate here.] Milkunderwood (talk) 22:46, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

"Some of Dutilleux's trademarks include very refined orchestral textures; complex rhythms; a preference for

The DAB includes "In music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales known as musical modes (e.g., Ionian)", and the link was disambiguated to this sense. If this is not what was meant, then what was?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:37, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

If I knew what was meant I would not ask you. I don't know in which way this "modality" is preferred "over tonality", perhaps I have a language problem, thinking that the musical modes are still tonal? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:00, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it is a language problem. I believe the same distinction is made in German between Tonalität and Modalität (in fact I believe that these terms were originally developed by 19th-century German theorists such as Hugo Riemann, and were adopted from them into English music theory). It is also true in both languages that "tonality" has several different senses and can refer broadly to modal systems of pitch organisation as well as to those that are more narrowly defined as "tonal"—that is, the harmonic-melodic relations of the "functional tonality"of the so-called Common-Practice Period (ca. 1600–1800). When a distinction is made between "tonality" and "modality", it means that the former term is being used in this narrow sense and the latter term refers to the practices of the earlier stylistic periods of Antiquity the Middle Ages and Renaissance—practices also found in folk music and non-European musics throughout the period of "tonality", and which returned significantly to European art music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:49, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I think I understand that, but I didn't understand it in "mode (music)", --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:00, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean that the article "mode (music)" fails to explain what "modality" means? Yes, I concede that is a problem, and one which I have been struggling with for a long time now. The article on "tonality"—whatever its shortcomings may be—at least tries to explain its subject. The problem with "modes (music)" is that it really isn't about "modality", and the part on the modern modes, in particular, explains only that they are scales, not how they work in music. Of course, there is much more to it than just being scales, but attempts to explain what that is have been running up against that old Wikipedia problem: no reliable sources. The section on medieval modes is a little better (I would like to think that is because I have concentrated my energies there), in that it explains the polarity between final and cofinal, the differences between the authentic and plagal members of each modal pair, and the "variable" note in certain modes (Dorian, Hypodorian, Hypophrygian, Lydian, and Hypolydian), but even here it is necessary to have some experience of the literature in order to appreciate what all this means, and how it differs from the way "tonality" works in, for example, a Haydn String Quartet.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:34, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! I am tempted to link to this explanation rather than to the article, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:57, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jerome--

I've finally finished cross-checking Kunze, and I think my entries and refs look okay now. Still needs your New Grove check, and right above the List of compositions is a series of 6 questions that ought to be decided before posting. I've now entered my own thoughts, but am happy to defer to yours. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:32, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Updated per your later symphonies - thanks. See my response there. Milkunderwood (talk) 08:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I have been

bold and made my own decisions on the various questions I had left for you. The article is now ready to post, once the temporarily disabled References section is re-enabled. The only question now remaining is whether you still want to cross-check any works in New Grove in addition to the symphonies. Once the article is posted I will delete the sandbox. If you're thinking you still want to work on it, it's better to leave it in the sandbox until you're finished with it. There's certainly no particular rush for it. In the meantime, I'm trying to think of how many barnstars would be too many for me to post here on your user page. :-) Milkunderwood (talk

) 07:39, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Don't get carried away! I haven't been as quick with the NG comparison as I had hoped, but I think it might be better done in the sandbox than after the list is posted. I'll try to at least make some progress on this over the weekend.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:41, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

No, take your time - checking all this stuff against Grove will be a big project, and I know you've been very busy recently. I just wasn't sure what your plan was at this point. And if you disagree on anything I've done, or omitted, I'm happy to defer to your better judgment. Question: would it not be easier for you to just make edits directly to the list yourself as you find discrepancies, instead of typing out long descriptions for me to follow? Not that I mind either way; it just seems simpler and less work for you. Note that I've left the References section disabled for now as a separate section, so footnotes can easily be seen and checked in the same edit box together with the list itself. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:03, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, I will follow your suggestion and simply edit/annotate entries where they stand, rather than create a separate commentary (which merely creates more work for you, I think, rather than for me!).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:07, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

In the meantime, I'm back to the grindstone, adding all of the entries I had earlier omitted. You might as well wait - especially since I'm editing and saving. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:45, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

:-) I'm just about doubling the length of the list - going to take me a while. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:13, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Op. 37 is "Vijag" for two pianos. Entering this name in WP's searchbox takes me to "Did you mean: vizag", which seems perfectly reasonable, since there are many such instances of different spellings. This takes me to "Visakhapatnam", "a major sea port on the south east coast of India", which is still not unreasonable. However there's this hatnote:

• "Visag" redirects here. For the

  Victor Vlad Delamarina, Timiş. For the Romanian village of Vişagu, called Viság in Hungarian, see Săcuieu

  .

Romania would be just as reasonable as India. Now further, this article on the Indian city says "According to the history, the city was named after the god of Valor, Visakha." Ah, even better. (There's presently no link to the name "Visakha"). But looking there, it says:

• "Viśākhā, also referred to as Migara's mother (Migāramāta), was one of the chief female
  Savatthi
  ."

Now obviously this is not the Hindu god of Valor. Question: which of these, if any, would be useful to link to for the name Vijag? Usually in similar situations I've linked names to disambiguation pages if I couldn't decide what was intended - such as Jupiter - god? planet? But here there's no single place to send a reader to. Just forget trying to link this name? Google seems to think I'm trying to find the Indian city when I insist on spelling it with a "j" instead of a "z", so presumably this would be the best bet. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:33, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

• Hovhaness website gives for Symphony No. 28, Op. 286, "10(eh)00 0100". Now what can this mean, if the English horn is substituting for a zero instrument?

• Op. 136 says "2 pianos, 4 hands" - so that would be 4 hands at each of the 2 pianos, or 4 pianists total?

• There appears to be a WP confusion between
  E1 Music - I'm totally hands-off on that one. Looks like they need to be merged. (I stumbled across this looking for Koch.) Milkunderwood (talk
  ) 12:57, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

:-) Milkunderwood (talk) 01:19, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

• Hi Jerome-- I know you've been staying very busy with other more pressing projects, and there's certainly no rush to get the Hovhaness list of compositions posted. I just wanted to remind you that I've finished adding everything I had left off the list before, and checking everything with Kunze's list; so now it's just waiting for its New Grove check before posting, whenever you might be able to take the time for that. I had suggested that you could just make corrections or notes directly to the list yourself only because it would save you a bunch of unnecessary typing, but if you prefer to identify the problems and leave the updating to me, I'm fine with that too. And again, I very much appreciate all the help you've given me with this project. Milkunderwood (talk) 17:13, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, I was waiting for the dust to settle, since you had previously said there was no particular hurry and you had a lot of revising of your own to do. Just a couple of hours ago I had checked on your progress, and I can see you have gotten things into very good shape. I shall make an editorial pass through the material soon—probably later today—in order to bring any additional information from or conflicts with the New Grove work list.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Great! Thank you. The next thing I'm wondering about is I have no idea of the best procedure to take this sandbox list and post it as an article. If by chance you'd like to do that yourself I'd be much relieved. There's still the question of cleanup at the main Hovhaness article. Do you agree that not only the partial list that's there now, but also the separate list of symphonies, should be deleted, as not only redundant but also probably either wrong or at least misleading, with the confusing numbering? And I still don't know if the references need to be put into two columns - personally I think a single column works better since most of these are fairly long comments and explanations. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:42, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh wow! I'm glad you're doing all that typing instead of me. I'm not about to argue with you, but for just plain cites without comments or corrections, I would have put them all together as one, with the little lowercase letters. This is the way I handled other such situations. Anyway, the ref list is pretty long as it is, without all that duplication. Are you sure you want to do each one separately like that? Milkunderwood (talk) 06:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Especially I wouldn't have continued linking the authors' names - you must be doing a copy-&-paste? In fact, I'm not sure why you're bothering to cite individual pieces at all, if there are no corrections or comments. We've already cited New Grove as a primary source. Plus, it seems to me that it makes the important/significant refs harder to find and read. Even if it's required for some strange reason to cite everything, wouldn't op. cit. do? I could have cited both the H website and Kunze for each entry as well, but doing so would never have occurred to me. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, look at Op. 218. Normally where there's just a simple date conflict I only note this at the list entry itself, unfootnoted, putting the website in Roman, and the Kunze and Grove to follow, in italics, as, e.g., "(undated; Kunze 1967; New Grove 1965)". But this one is a conflicted mess that needs some explanation. so at the entry itself I have "(1965? 1967?)", footnoted to

• Op. 218: Booklet text notes to Koch International Classics 3-7289-2 written by Hohvaness specialist Marvin Rosen specifically say "The Holy City, Opus 218, was composed in 1965", but the front table of contents gives 1967. The text should normally be considered more trustworthy, because a contents listing is prepared later by clerical staff, which also listed tracks incorrectly on the back cover of the CD. The work is undated at Hovhaness.com; Kunze agrees with 1967 on the basis of 6 recordings in his possession. But also compare the footnote for Op. 40a.

(That footnote to Op. 40a says

• Op. 40a: Both Hovhaness.com and Kunze agree on the 1940 date for this work. However, Hovhaness specialist Marvin Rosen in his text notes to Koch International Classics 3-7289-2 states with self-contradiction: "Psalm and Fugue, Opus 40a, written in 1958 ... was often used to open concerts organized by the composer during World War II.")

So essentially I'm just demonstrating how Kunze and Rosen may be unreliable. Now you've come along and appended to the Op. 218 footnote, in what I think is a confusing format,

• Arnold Rosner and Vance Wolverton. "Hovhaness [Hovaness], Alan [Chakmakjian, Alan Hovhaness]". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers) claim 1965.

A reader's eye will have long since glazed over before getting to the "claim 1965." Instead I would have changed the footnote to read as follows:

• Op. 218: Booklet text notes to Koch International Classics 3-7289-2 written by Hohvaness specialist Marvin Rosen specifically say "The Holy City, Opus 218, was composed in 1965", but the front table of contents gives 1967. The text should normally be considered more trustworthy, because a contents listing is prepared later by clerical staff, which also listed tracks incorrectly on the back cover of the CD. The work is undated at Hovhaness.com; New Grove claims 1965 is correct; Kunze agrees with 1967 on the basis of 6 recordings in his possession. But also compare the footnote for Op. 40a.

We need to talk about footnoting in general. The more I look at what you're doing, and presumably intend to do further, the more boggle-headed I'm getting. Why "second edition", instead of "2d ed.", for instance, even once for the first ref, much less over and over again? Maybe I was brought up wrong? I had thought you were just going to append Grove dates at the list entries themselves, to follow Kunze's dates, per my footnote 2, and only where there's a conflict; and perhaps adding a footnote only where an explanation was required. I don't know the WP rules, but my honest impression is that this is turning into a fussy and unreadable mess. I already had too many footnotes, but they were nearly all useful for explanations, and these will just get lost in the jungle. This is also one of the reasons, though not the main one, that I was complaining about the Arthur Rubinstein discography, that each entry is separately footnoted, and they're all identical - so the refs take up as much space as the discography itself, and they're meaningless clutter. Which is just plain silly, and offputting to the reader. What that says to the reader is, "move along - nothing to see here." Milkunderwood (talk) 09:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with everything you say here: the references I've added are formatted about as awkwardly as they could be. They got that way because, in my hurry to get through as much of the list as possible before my eyes glazed over, I just used my "standard" New Grove template, without considering what it would look like, or how it might fit with the references you already have in place. Please change them as you see fit, and from here onward I will try to follow your model (I didn't even notice your footnote 2, I'm afraid). The only thing I would recommend against is using "op. cit.", which is treacherous enough in print media, but an open invitation to catastrophe on Wikipedia, where new references may be inserted or old ones removed at any time. Short-title or author-name citations or are much preferred—in the present case, "New Grove" or "Rosner and Wolverton", for example.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:14, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Previously I had just glanced through and gotten general impressions; right now I'm looking at your additions in detail, and using just strikeouts - no deletions. Let me work on this today before you continue. (I am very slow.) Then we can decide what we want the final thing to look like. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:41, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hell, I've changed my mind - all these strikeouts are just too complicated and messy. Since I already have your approval, I'm just going to fix them. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Question: Macmillan or Oxford? The copy I had found online and linked to is http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Music/Reference/?view=usa&ci=9780195170672. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

The half-title page of each volume has "Macmillan Publishers". The online edition is part of Oxford Music Online, and from that link you provided it appears that OUP may be the current distributor of the print edition, as well. However, it is standard bibliographic practice to list the publisher, not the distributor.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, neither Macmillan US nor Macmillan UK return anything at all on searches for "new grove". So if we're linking to a website, it will have to be to OUP. Should I use your biblio ref with Macmillan Publishers but then add "(Oxford University Press, distributor)" in parentheses following "Publishers" but before the period? I just think it seems strange to say Macmillan but link to OUP. Also, I assume you like your "second edition" better than my suggested "2d ed."? And what about the 2001 date - shouldn't that go in somewhere? (Oops - OUP actually says "Oct 2003".) I hate stuff like this. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:27, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll tell you what. The full reference to New Grove appears twice three times in my format of the list: first as the 3rd "Cited source", and then as the 3rd listed source in footnote [1], and finally at my footnote [4]. How about if you go back to that OUP link and integrate it as best you can with your Macmillan info, and post it back here. Then I'll copy your final version to both all of those places.

In the meantime, as you find more date discrepancies, the format I'm using is to put a semicolon following H.com's date (in Roman), then Kunze's date in italics, semicolon, then New Grove's date, again in italics, and close parentheses, with no ref given. After first introducing my sources, I'm then using a ref only for stuff that needs an explanation, such as conflicting opus numbers, titles, forces, etc, and other confusions. Also, I start each ref with the opus number and colon (and put a period at the end). Otherwise it's too easy to get lost and forget where you are supposed to be looking.

Where there are opus numbers in NG that seem to duplicate a number in H.com and Kunze but with a different title and info, instead of making a new entry in the list for it, I'm footnoting the existing entry and giving the NG info there only. I think it's much too confusing to have duplicate opus numbers in the list itself; and it seems that H.com and Kunze nearly always agree with each other, so it must be NG that's odd man out. H.com is going by printed scores, while Kunze is going primarily from recordings. There's no telling why NG keeps giving entirely different info.

Be sure to let me know if you think I'm wrong about any of this, please. I'm definitely not taking "ownership", just trying to be consistent and to make this godawful mess as clear as possible to the reader. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:26, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Question: If NG lists Ode to the Cascade Mountains (an excerpt from Op. 278, No. 1, with the same instrumentation and date) as being Op. 279 instead of Op. 278, No. 2, then what did they do with The Way of Jesus (oratorio for STB soli, SATB chorus, baritone chorus in unison, orchestra [3222 4331, timpani, 4 percussion, harp, 3 guitars, strings]) (1975), listed by H.com and Kunze as being Op. 279? Milkunderwood (talk) 06:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

New Grove has "The Way of Jesus, folk mass, op.278, SATB, unison vv, 3 gui, orch, 1974".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:23, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - in other words the opus numbers are just reversed. I'm just now winding up my fixes, will put this in. I found several of my own errors in this last proofing.

Two unanswered questions from earlier, above:

• Hovhaness website gives for Symphony No. 28, Op. 286, "10(eh)00 0100". Now what can this mean, if the English horn is substituting for a zero instrument?

This has got to mean there is an English horn, but no oboes.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:37, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

• Op. 136 says "2 pianos, 4 hands" - so that would be 4 hands at each of the 2 pianos, or 4 pianists total?

Milkunderwood (talk) 07:57, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Just two pianists, one at each intrument. FWIW, NG has got a separate category for two-piano compositions, and they are: "Vijag, op.37, 1946; Mihr, op.60/1, 1945; Ko-Ola-U, op.136, 1962; O Lord, Bless thy Mountains, op.276, 2 pf tuned ¼tone apart, 1974".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:37, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Finally finished and saved. Do whatever is easiest for you in checking NG for the rest of the stuff - but save yourself a lot of unneeded typing, unless you really want to. So either you can put in differing NG dates yourself, or give them to me and I'll do it. Same with problems, like the Cascade Mountains / Way of Jesus mix-up (which I have now footnoted). Milkunderwood (talk) 08:20, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, will do.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:37, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jerome-- Just a quick nudge; it's been a couple of weeks. There's no rush, if you'd prefer to wait until after New Year's. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:54, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Nudge appreciated. I've been busy with other things. I shall try to get to this soon. I hope before the new year!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 08:57, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Since you've done such a wonderful job on the retrograde article - and if that stuff interests you - you might want to join the

Now you tell me! All those PhD theorists swarming like bees around a designated target, and yet only thee and me have actually done any editing? Your task force needs new recruits, all right! Well, thank you for the kind words, and I'll consider signing up, if you think it will make a difference.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:40, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

At least you said bees, and not roaches. ;-) -- kosboot (talk) 12:41, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

LOL! Checking the project page, I see that it is not that large a swarm, either. In consideration of the fact that 13 is an unlucky number, I have added my name to the swarm to bring it to 14.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I came across Reinhard Febel and added a bit to the stub it is in German. I would like to add a few words on his music - and what I find is this. I could not summarize this mixture of triviality ("moves between generations, cultures, styles and boundaries") and a language I don't speak ("... he rejected as arbitrary, along with its socio-philosophical legitimation; instead, he advocated a universal opening-up of narrow avant-garde concepts of history and material"). Opera says: "He distinguished himself from his contemporaries and their seemingly casual adoption of traditional methods in his ‘lucid construction, his sensitive, brilliant yet reserved and cool sensuality, his technical precision and his alert practice of reflection’ (H. Lachenmann)." Helmut Lachenmann probably said it in German. - Febel wrote on Stockhausen, so I thought you might be interested. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:49, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jerome, would you mind taking a quick look at Talk:Trance_music#Rename_Trance_.28music.29 and if you have time, offer some feedback on my talk page. Does the line of reasoning provided make sense? based on the sources provided in my second comment? thanks -- Semitransgenic _talk. 01:10, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for asking my opinion (it's always nice to know that someone values it!). I've read the discussion, and I have some idea of the two views: sub-category of EDM vs. a broader category encompassing non-EDM. Plainly the term "trance music" is used in contexts outside of EDM, but I am going to have to think about the syntax of the competing titles. I'll add my two-cents' worth, if I can manage to come to a conclusion.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:17, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jerome--

Since you list yourself as having sehr gute Deutschkenntnisse, and also have access to New Grove, I wonder if you'd mind taking a quick look at my two posts from earlier today at Talk:Lyric Pieces#Piece Listing, and see if you have any thoughts on either question. Thanks for any help. (That second question is more for my own cataloging than for any thought of "fixing" the article, unless of course it would be appropriate. But it seems to me the first one is a problem.) Milkunderwood (talk) 04:32, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and posted a footnote to address the first of those; I'm still rather curious about the second. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:24, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Electronic_music&diff=prev&oldid=465183430

You wrote first impulse was correct--the 1970s are now in the past, but see, my thinking was, the stresses of touring remain today, even though the 70s are in the past :) Doceddi (talk) 11:02, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

It may well be true that these stresses remain today, assuming anyone still tries to tour with those "early machines" which "were not designed for" touring. There are undoubtedly also stresses associated with more modern equipment, and stresses that will exist with no equipment at all. However, the cited source says nothing about this, and all the other verbs in that sentence and the associated quotation are in the past tense: "pioneered", "they were subject to", "were not designed for", "I used" "until I went", "Then I used", "because I couldn't use", "It was". "we transported", "I knew", "I started". It was being a matter of grammar, as much as anything, didn't you agree? ;-)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:24, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

But do you say "ayv-zez" Second? I don't.
I say "ayvz" Second.
Do you say "brahmzez"?
If an apostrophe-'s' is used, then the 's' is pronounced as another syllable.
Varlaam (talk) 23:37, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I do say "ayv-zez" and "brahmzez", yes, as a matter of fact. I also say "Glass-ez" and "Williams-ez". Some authorities hold (e.g., the Chicago Manual of Style offers this as one option) that all monosyllabic names ending in an S sound should add apostrophe-S, even when polysyllabic names are not treated this way. The Wikipedia Manual of Style does not include this rule which even Chicago admits makes things convoluted, but rather gives three different styles, all of which are acceptable. Pronunciation aside, the usual rule is to keep an acceptable style unless there is a good reason to change it, and consensus is obtained.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:54, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

The key is a trailing zed sound. So Glass's is fine; no zed.

But a list format convention does not override the spelling rules for English; it is not about having an attractive list.

I personally say Rafe Von Williams' London Symphony, without a "zez".

But, for certain, there is a large degree of accent and even personal preference involved in this.

So, to my mind, if you are policing the page, and you personally are a "zez" man, then that is good enough for me.

Bizet over. Ivanovs' CD is up next. Cheers, Varlaam (talk) 00:12, 20 December 2011 (UTC) (Toronto)

I always thought everyone pronounced the possessive "s", regardless of whether it was printed s' or s's. There's an interesting theory about language evolution, that spelling influences pronunciation at least as much as pronunciation influences spelling. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:20, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

And about zed, I recently saw in a British journal, in a discussion of language learning, the sound-alike letters b, c, d, e, g, p, t, v, and z, to my surprise. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:37, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

It's really minor, but I think "pp" to denote multiple pages hasn't been used for many years. -- kosboot (talk) 05:01, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it is partly a US/UK thing (though I believe you are on the same side of the pond as I am), though I have never noticed the plural abbreviation has fallen out of fashion—except inasmuch as abbreviating the words "page" and "pages" at all has fallen out of use. The main thing in the case of the article Retrograde (music), however, is that the established citation style seems to make the distinction between the singular and plural abbreviations.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:11, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Having never before looked at the article Retrograde (music), much less at its References section, what strikes me is that seemingly roughly half the refs use "pp." and the other half give bare numbers with neither abbreviation nor word to indicate pages:

• Jalowetz, Heinrich. "On the Spontaneity of Schoenberg's Music". Musical Quarterly 30, no. 4 (October 1944), pp. 385–408.
• Jarman, Douglas. "Some Rhythmic and Metric Techniques in Alban Berg's Lulu". Musical Quarterly 56, no. 3 (July 1970): 349–66.

I'm not sure I've ever seen the singular "p." to indicate a range of pages. Kosboot, can you give an example reference?
BTW I also note that "cancrizans" is bolded but undefined (i.e. crab-wise, or in crab motion - which itself is a misnomer since crabs move sideways rather than backwards).
All this reminds me somewhat of the situation with "OP" as opposed to "OOP" to indicate "out of print". Booksellers going back to at least 1900 if not earlier have used OP (or sometimes O.P. or o.p.) to indicate this. Apparently without awareness of this long-established tradition, "OOP" seems to have sprung up spontaneously as applied to CDs and DVDs. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:05, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, looking again at Retrograde (music), I am confused by the distinction between what is called "References", which are not footnotes, and "Notes", which are, and are numbered. I would have expected the numbered footnotes (however labeled, but presumably "References") to appear first, and unnumbered "Bibliography" or "Further reading" to follow. I now see at Wikipedia:Citing sources#How to create the list of citations that the terminology used is approved, but

• If an article contains a list of general references, this is placed in a separate section, titled (for example) "References". This usually comes immediately after the section(s) listing footnotes, if any. (If the general references section is called "References", then the citations section is usually called "Notes".)

I think simply reversing the sequence of these two sections would be clearer. (Edit: Because I think of the "References" section as containing the footnotes - this was the "WP rule" I had assumed just from looking at other articles, rather than at

WP:REF

.)

Also, I'm not sure what "Dominus" in retrograde (Ms. Florence Pluteo 29). can possibly mean. Is "Ms." here "Manuscript", and "page 29"? Or is there a Miss/Mrs./Ms. Florence Pluteo who is or was at age 29? Or might this have to do somehow with a parapet in Firenze? A footnote might be handy here. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:17, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

For people who use libraries, Ms. Florence Pluteo 29 means a manuscript with the call number Pluteo 29 in Florence. That's a very typical way that manuscript are identified - by their call number and library. -- kosboot (talk) 03:18, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. (Google Translate renders "Pluteo" as "parapet".) Would you care to footnote this? Perhaps even better, and simpler, would be to remove the ref from the text, and move it just as is down to either the "References" or "Notes" sections. This way it wouldn't confuse the flow of the text, and would not need this sort of explication that you've provided.

Let me quote a brief bit from my own userpage:

• "I want to add that I've gradually developed a philosophy of Wikipedia, which is that not everyone coming here looking for information is an expert in editors' various fields. More, and clearer, information is better than less. Don't assume that your terminology is universally comprehended. Don't make people have to struggle to find what they're looking for. Why make it hard for them? Here's a delicious bit of irony that I've stolen from a post by User:Ravpapa: Remember, the reader is the enemy. It's just something for each of us to think about."

Milkunderwood (talk) 04:09, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Back to "p. vs. pp." I've looked through several sources:

• Chicago Manual of Style: "unless ambiguity would result, p. and pp. may be omitted"
• Holoman, Writing about Music: omit p. and pp.
• Bellman, A Short Guide to Writing About Music: omit p. and pp.
• Turabian online: omits p. and pp.
• Denmar Irvine, Writing about Music - proscribes p. and pp. (although I've never heard of this author and never seen him cited).

I'd say most journals ("guide for contributors") lean on Chicago or the Holoman book. -- kosboot (talk) 16:05, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I did come across

[above left unfinished???]

In that case I have three suggestions - 1) reverse the sequence of the "Notes" and "References" sections; 2) remove the confusing "(Ms. Florence Pluteo 29)" from the text and move it down into "Notes", leaving a ref in its place in the text; and 3) standardize the sources by deleting the "p." and "pp." where they appear, to conform with all the other the entries that give numbers only. Wouldn't these make sense? Milkunderwood (talk) 20:40, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

First, to Kosboot: I believe you will find that is "Demar" Irvine, who was for a long time Professor of Music at the University of Washington, where I did my doctorate (although he retired just about the time I came to Seattle). One of his specialties was the "Bibliography" class, required for all incoming graduate students unless, like myself, they had already taken the equivalent course elsewhere. He was by all accounts a stickler for bibliographical details, so I would imagine his textbook would be reliable, if now a little out of date. It is interesting how unanimous these sources seem to be about not using the abbreviations "p." and "pp.".

Now, to Milkunderwood: Yes, I think the Notes and References sections should probably be reversed, since that is the normal layout sequence generally, and more specifically is the one in the Wikipedia Manual of Style. The manuscript abbreviation, on the other hand, may be confusing to some, but to others would be odd shoved into a footnote, since the Apel reference should be attached to the entire description, including the manuscript source, and it really will not do to be having footnotes to footnotes. As to dropping the abbreviations for "page" and "pages", I am in perfect agreement with this (and this has been my habit in bibliographies for over twenty years), but Kosboot may have a different point of view and he has been a major contributor to the Retrograde article.

Finally, to both of you: While I enjoy conducting cozy chats like this on my talk page, doesn't it seem that this whole discussion really belongs on Talk:Retrograde (music), instead?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:15, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course you're right - but the discussion started here. Does anyone ever even look at talkpages?

I see your point about the Ms., but it's the "Ms. Florence ..." that the eye stumbles on. Who the hell is she? If for instance it said "Ms. Firenze ..." instead, that problem wouldn't exist. You both have to remember that not everyone looking at this page is familiar with your librarianship and its conventions, and this is truly puzzling to the unfamiliar reader.

One additional thing that I think would be useful would be to add a footnote for the first occurrence of the term cancrizans, as "Medieval Latin: moving backwards, from cancrizāre to move crabwise" [9]. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:40, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I do of course see your point about "Ms. Florence". Sometimes this abbreviation is given in full caps, and with a colon before the shelf number: "MS Florence: Pluteo 59". Do you think that might help? A note explaining cancrizans would be a very good idea, though I think it really belongs in the texts as a parenthetical remark, rather than being relegated to a footnote. And, yes, people do sometimes look at Talk pages, and when they are the ones attached to an article (rather than to an editor's namepage), people interested in editing that article will stand a better chance of seeing the discussion!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:49, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Perfect solutions, all around. Thank you. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:54, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

In fact, with Wikipedia being a general readership publication, I suggest a formal proposal be made for Mss, as always to be given in full caps, and with a colon before the shelf number. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:11, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Library scholarship obviously has precedence for Ms., but just as obviously the abbreviation has since been co-opted to the extent that it automatically means to the unpracticed eye "a woman of indeterminate marital status". It would be much easier and less confusing all around for Wikipedia to incorporate the "MS ...: ..." format as a guideline. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:41, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.