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Scott Joplin

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because this is a page which has been worked on by a large number of Wikipedians and it has got to the stage where there is a wealth of information which reflects this composer's life. While there are certainly areas which need development I think it has reached a level where the eye of an outsider would help. Is it within reach of a GAN (which is the obvious next stage)? Is there any area which needs further development or explanation for the general reader?

Many thanks in advance, Ben (Major Bloodnok) (talk) 21:43, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

General
Texas (c. 1867–1880s)
  • "After moving to Texarkana a few years after Joplin was born, Giles began working as a common laborer for the railroad." – I would change it to "After moving to Texarkana a few years following Joplin's birth, Giles began working as a common laborer for the railroad."
  • ""He did not have to play anybody else's music. He made up his own, and it was beautiful; he just got his music out of the air."[7]" ndash; it would be nice to name the author of this quote in the text
Southern states and Chicago (1880s–1894)
  • "By the early 1890s, Ragtime had become popular among African-Americans in the cities of St. Louis and Chicago." – link the cities. I don't think they are common enough; there are still many who don't know these cities. As opposed to this, linking "Los Angeles", for example, would be overlinking.
  • "The Exposition was attended by 27 million Americans and had a profound effect on many areas of American cultural life, including ragtime." – any reason to have "Exposition" capitalicized?
Missouri (1894–1907)
  • "In the 1890s, the town had a population of approximately 14,000 and was the centre of commerce and transport for the region[21] with the town's saloons and brothels of the red-light district on Main St, nicknamed "Battle Row", provided employment for musicians, and it is likely that Joplin worked in this area." – first, change "centre" to "center". He is an American, so should be the grammar. Second, rewrite the sentence and split it, if needed. It is a typical multi-clause sentence, difficult to read.
  • "Also, he performed in the Queen City Cornet Band, and his own six-piece dance orchestra." – Remove "Also". It is redundant and doesn't improve anything.
  • "A tour with his own singing group, the Texas Medley Quartet, gave him his first opportunity to publish his own compositions and it is known that he went to Syracuse, New York and Texas." – delink "Texas". Overlinking
  • "After several unsuccessful approaches to publishers, Joplin signed a contract with John Stillwell Stark a retailer of musical instruments who later became his most important publisher, on 10 August 1899 for a 1% royalty on all sales of the rag, with a minimum sales price of 25c.[32]" – comma missing: "After several unsuccessful approaches to publishers, Joplin signed a contract with John Stillwell Stark, a retailer of musical instruments who later became his most important publisher, on 10 August 1899 for a 1% royalty on all sales of the rag, with a minimum sales price of 25c.[32]
  • "...and under the terms of Joplin's contract with a 1% royalty would have given Joplin an income of $4, or approximately $105 in current value)." – check the end of the sentence.
  • "Joplin could not meet the company’s payroll or pay for the company’s lodgings at a theatrical boarding house. " – replace second appearance of "company's" with "its". Also, per MOS:PUNCT, a curvy apostrophe is not recommended; you used "’" instead of "'"
New York (1907–1917)
  • "In 1914, Joplin and Lottie self-published his "Magnetic Rag". using the name the "Scott Joplin Music Company" which had been formed the previous December.[45]" – remove the period after "Magnetic Rag"
  • "She noted that he "plunged feverishly into the task of orchestrating his opera, day and night, with his friend Sam Patterson standing by to copy out the parts, page by page, as each page of the full score was completed.[46]" – close this quote
  • "By 1916, Joplin was suffering from tertiary syphilis and a resulting descent into madness[47][48]" – period
  • "After Joplin's death at the age of just 49, from advanced syphilis, he was buried in a pauper's grave that remained unmarked for 57 years. His grave at Saint Michaels Cemetery, in East Elmhurst, was finally honored in 1974." – needs in-line citations
  • I am a little bit disappointed about this section. The mention of his dead was so unexpected
Works
  • "...which blended both African-American musical styles with European forms and melodies, and which first became celebrated in the 1890s; ragtime.[7]" – the semicolon should be replaced with a colon
  • "This new art form, the classic rag, combined Afro-American folk music's syncopation and nineteenth-century European romanticism, with its harmonic schemes and its march-like tempos.[40][52]" – link "romanticism"
  • "Joplin wrote his rags as "classical" music in miniature form in order to raise ragtime above its "cheap bordello" origins and produced work which Opera historian Elise Kirk described as "...more tuneful, contrapuntal, infectious, and harmonically colorful than any others of his era."[11]" – "Opera" shouldn't be capitalicized
Treemonisha
  • "and to celebrate the music of his childhood at the end of the 19th Century." – "Century" shouldn't be capitalicized
  • "Curtis's conclusion is similar: "In the end, Treemonisha offered a celebration of literacy, learning, hard work, and community solidarity as the best formula for advancing the race."." – remove the last period
  • "Berlin describes it as a "fine opera, certainly more interesting than most operas then being written in the United States", but then states that Joplin's own libretto showed the composer "was not a competent dramatist" with the book not up to the same quality as the music.[64]" – too many "than"s and "then"s in one sentence; what about "but later states that Joplin's own libretto showed the composer "was not a competent dramatist" with the book not up to the same quality as the music.[64]"?
Performance skills
  • "The second roll recording of "Maple Leaf Rag", on the UniRecord label from June 1916 was described by biographer Blesh as "... shocking... disorganized and completely distressing to hear."[70]" – remove the comma
Legacy
  • "Just over thirty years later he was recognized, and later historian Rudi Blesh would write a large book about ragtime, which he dedicated to the memory of Scott Joplin.[51]" – deitalicize "was"
  • "And when he died, notes jazz historian Floyd Levin, "those few who realized his greatness bowed their heads in sorrow. This was the passing of the king of all ragtime writers, the man who gave America a genuine native music."[77]" – "After his dead, jazz historian Floyd Levin noted: "those....""
Revival
  • "Billboard" should be italicized, as magazine
  • "The Billboard "Best-Selling Classical LPs" chart for 28 September 1974 has the record at #5, with the follow-up "Volume 2" at #4, and a combined set of both volumes at #3. Separately both volumes had been on the chart for 64 weeks. In the top 7 spots on that chart, 6 of the entries were recordings of Joplin's work, three of which were Rifkin's.[82]" do not use "#", instead write it out, eg "at number..."
  • "Rifkin did a tour in 1974, which included appearances on BBC Television and a sell-out concert at London's Royal Festival Hall.[84] " – replace "Rifkin" with "he"
  • "In 1979 Alan Rich in the New York Magazine wrote that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on record Nonesuch Records "created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival."[85]" – delink "Nonesuch Records" and remove "record" before it.
  • "In January 1971, Harold C. Schonberg, music critic at the New York Times, having just heard the Rifkin album, wrote a featured Sunday edition article entitled "Scholars, Get Busy on Scott Joplin!"[86]" – "New York Times" should be "The New York Times" and italicized, as newspaper. See also MOS:ITALICS
  • "His version of "The Entertainer" reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the American Top 40 music chart on May 18, 1974,[89][90]" – replace the number sign with "at number 3"; we mostly do not use it on Wikipedia.
  • "Thanks to the film and its score, Joplin's work became appreciated in both the popular music world and in the classical music world, becoming (in the words of music magazine Record World), the "classical phenomenon of the decade".[91]"
Other awards and recognition
  • Needs in-line citations
References
Notes
  • Ref 12: Publisher is "Dictionary.com, LLC" and work "dictionary.com"
  • Ref 16: a space missing between "p." and the number; check other references
  • Ref 38 and 41: The same website
  • Ref 48: Link Time
  • Ref 68: "31 July 2010" should be "2010-07-31"; be consistent
  • Ref 94: same
Bibliography
  • same here: be consistent in date formats
  • isbn needed for several books
  • Only use the {{cite book}} template
External links
  • Ok
Recordings and sheet music
  • same
Lead

Ok, now to your questions: Yes it can pass the GAN. The article is comprehensive and informative. You can add a section about Joplin's influences and the other way around, but that is not mandatory. But all in all this article is impressively great! --♫Greatorangepumpkin♫Heyit's meI am dynamite 12:10, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for all these comments. I (or any other editor) will work through these suggestions. Great work! Ben (Major Bloodnok) (talk) 20:08, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Done almost all of the above, except for fleshing out the New York section, adding some of the additional awards refs, and fixing some of the referencing so its all in the bibliography rather than the text.Ben (Major Bloodnok) (talk) 22:37, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for mentioning that; it was on my mental list of things to do! Ben (Major Bloodnok) (talk) 07:55, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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