Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Music

Jazz/pop roman numeral notation

Hello. I have noticed that the roman numeral notation for chords in various Wikipedia articles is very inconsistent. The guidlines given here leave much to the discretion of individual editors. Is it possible that the concerned editors involved could agree upon a clear and universal standard?

• I am familiar with several systems for notating jazz harmony, each with varying degrees of similarity to the standard Classical figured bass notation. However, actual figured bass notation obviously can't be used for jazz and popular styles, because of chords such as I7 and IV7 (dominant, not major 7) and I6 (major 6, not tonic in first inversion), and because there is generally no need for the notation of inversions. Also, the inconsistencies throughout the Wikipedia music pages over use of upper or lower case numerals creates a great deal of ambiguity.
• For the preceding reasons, I would like to suggest that different guidelines be given for classical topics and jazz/popular topics.
• Further, what is the policy for notation of secondary dominants? Since there is really no such thing as VI7, shouldn't this be notated as V7/II (or V7/ii)?
• Lastly, can anyone contribute to this page, or is it solely up to admin or select editors to create these guidelines?

Thanks for reading.BassHistory (talk) 08:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• • I think jazz uses superscript for V7 etc. The secondary dominant is notated in a number of ways in the literature. V⁷/ii is just one way—not a bad one if the reader knows what it means throughout the article. Tony (talk) 08:45, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

RFC regarding use of succession boxes in song and album articles

An RFC is taking place at WT:CHARTS#Request for comment: Use of succession boxes to discuss the merits of their use on articles for songs and albums that reached number one on various music charts. It is hoped that the outcome could result in policy placed on the MOS for music or other appropriate location. Interested parties are encouraged to participate. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 10:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

ABACAB or A–B–A–C–A–B?

For describing the order of recurring themes within a musical work, do we write ABACAB (no separation), A-B-A-C-A-B (hyphen separation) or A–B–A–C–A–B (en dash separation)? En dashes would be the same as harmonic progressions: I–IV–V–I.

There is no coherent Wikipedia style in use as far as I can tell. The article Piano Quintet No. 2 (Dvořák) uses hyphens to describe "A-B-A-C-A-B-A" while the article Magnetic Rag uses no separation to describe "AABBCCDDAA". The article about Dorian mode says that Milestones (composition) was written as "aabba". Note that articles about poetry rhyme scheme are similarly non-uniform: Sicilian octave tells the reader its rhyme scheme is "A-B-A-B-A-B-A-B" (hyphens) while Limerick (poetry) says "aabba" (lower case and no separation). The article Rhyme scheme uses commas sometimes, and otherwise uses unseparated letters to signify a stanza and a space between stanzas: Cinquain is "A,B,A,B,B" and Shakespearean sonnet is "ABAB CDCD EFEF GG". In the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (2003), the poetry rhyme scheme is described as lower case letters separated only by stanza, making Shakespearean sonnet into "abab cdcd efef gg". Chicago offers no advice regarding recurring themes in a piece of music.

Whatever the consensus, let's put this into the MOS under hyphens or dashes, even if consensus is to use no separation at all. Binksternet (talk) 01:09, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello there Binksternet what you say sounds good to me ..however should take a look and see if Composers, Classical, Opera and Jazz have interest in this - as they may have some project guidelines already for this.

Perhaps someone can check Grove online? I've looked in (unsearchable) print but I can't find a good example. --Kleinzach 06:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

En dashes are the obvious choice, because they express a relationship, range or movement between the items. The effect is much clearer to the reader in visual terms, too. Tony (talk) 08:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Musical note sequences

We have unspaced en dashes indicated for harmonic sequences but what about individual note sequences? Should we use spaces, commas, hyphens, or en dashes between the notes?

• Spaces: G F E B♭ E
• Commas and spaces: G, F, E, B♭, E
• Hyphens: G-F-E-B♭-E
• En dashes: G–F–E–B♭–E

In the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (2003), the sequence of musical notes is separated by unspaced en dashes, the same as a sequence of harmonic progressions. Binksternet (talk) 01:09, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Usually we follow Grove. This uses spaces, though big ones (ems?), e.g. entry for Theinred of Dover. If you want another opinion you can try JackofOz who has worked on music editing style. --Kleinzach 06:19, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

En dashes are consistent with WP:MOSDASH. Is there a way of avoiding the gap between the B and the flat symbol? At least on my browser, it's obstructive. Tony (talk) 08:43, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Tony1. Aside: the template {{Music}} renders the accidentals better: G–F–E–B♭–E. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip about better-looking flats. Binksternet (talk) 20:07, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that templated flat symbol is much nicer: smaller and closer. Tony (talk) 02:34, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• Someone at WP once showed me how to do 7/4/2, etc, vertically, as figured bass, but it was a long time ago and I haven't yet hunted it down. There's no mention of how to do it here. Anyone know? Tony (talk) 11:21, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

You mean something like:
<math>\begin{matrix} 7 \\ 4 \\ 2 \end{matrix}</math> which yields ${\begin{matrix}7\\4\\2\end{matrix}}$ (which is a bit rare, compared to ${\begin{matrix}6\\4\\2\end{matrix}}$ (which, I believe, may also be written as ${\begin{matrix}4\\2\end{matrix}}$)).
For the coding details, see Help:Displaying a formula#Fractions, matrices, multilines; for the syntax of figured bass, you're on your own. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:07, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Bad notation graphic

• It is huge. Why?
• The alto and soprano are in parallel fifths, a basic grammatical error. Why?
• The figure "6" should be superscript, not as large as "IV".

I intend to remove this embarrassing graphic soon unless these issues can be fixed. Tony (talk) 01:33, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

capitalization in titles of ballets and operas

I'm afraid I'm lost, trying to find the style guide for titles of ballets and operas. I've seen occasional mention in edits of there being such a guide, but I'm wandering around unable to find it.

Specifically, I wonder why there appears to be a rule that only the first word may be capitalized in a title, even when it is an article. I had long been under the impression that standard capitalization rules require the first significant word following the article to also be capitalized. This came to my attention looking for Stravinsky's Le baiser de la fée and Les noces, which look very wrong to me.

Whatever the rule is supposed to be, it is not being followed consistently. For instance, under List of compositions by Igor Stravinsky I find for example Histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale); Oedipus rex; The Rake's Progress; The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps).

Or, for instance, under List of compositions by Sergei Prokofiev I find Le pas d'acier but The Tale of the Stone Flower.

Or is the language somehow supposed to be determinative? If we do not capitalize in French, then apparently Le Sacre du printemps will be wrong. I haven't tried looking for any German titles. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:18, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit: For that matter, I'm curious about the rule that gives us Histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale), but The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps). As far as I'm aware, both of these were originally titled in French rather than English. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Someone from the Composers or Opera projects will likely respond with a better answer. But in the meantime there is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (operas) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music) you can look at see if they explain better.Moxy (talk) 06:34, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I believe there may be language issues involved. In French only the leading words is capitalized (for proper names in general), where in English, all important words are. I think this is the case anyway. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 07:10, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Melodiya. That's sort of what it looked like, but it's still surprising that they would capitalize only the article. And thanks, Moxy - "Naming conventions" is what I was trying to remember, and find. Milkunderwood (talk) 07:17, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Between these two responses, I think nearly all of the apparent discrepancies are resolved. Thanks again. Milkunderwood (talk) 07:23, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

First of all the Opera Project guideline is here. English, French and German all have different capitalization rules and we follow English rules for English, French rules for French etc. English and German are fairly simple, but in the case of French there are competing systems so it can be confusing. (According to the system adopted here) Le Sacre du printemps (above) is incorrect. It should be Le sacre du printemps. If you look at the article The Rite of Spring you will see it is correct there. Does that clarify everything? I've done some work on this in the past, so please ask if anything is still unclear and I'll try to explain. Best. --Kleinzach 08:18, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Article titles: should we specify Roman type?

My understanding is that all music article titles are in Roman (not italic) type. Should we include this is the MoS? I've had a look and I can't find this covered at present. The MoS refers to titles, but not article titles (i.e. the top text above the line). What do people think? --Kleinzach 02:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I fear this is correct from my vast experience (sic) in linking to featured content file and article names (at The Signpost). I've gotta say, italic face doesn't look so nice in the large bold form article titles are in. But we have the problem of inconsistency with the article text. I'm pretty sure Opera articles are meant to be italicised, and the titles of numbers within them in double quotes. I'm going to ask User:Noetica. Tony (talk) 11:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure of your exact meaning, Kleinzach. Could you give a couple of contrasting examples? I'll then follow it up tomorrow. (It's late here in Australia.) Could turn out to be a question for WT:MOS.–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 11:44, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Compare these two versions of La bohème: with {{italic title}} – without.

Regarding numbers in operas: MOS:TEXT#Foreign terms prescribes "Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages …"; doesn't that require Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix to be italicised? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:07, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Musical numbers/arias/songs have always been put in Roman, to distinguish them from (italicized) works - but that's not really the issue here anyway. --Kleinzach 12:21, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's very simple, here is an article in the usual style: Calto (opera). And here is one with italics: Riders to the Sea (opera). There is a now a discussion about this in the Opera Project here, referring to an Rfc held last year. Apparently some biologists wanted to use italics to refer to species. . . . --Kleinzach 12:14, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Exact form for names of articles causes SUCH problems, as we see here. That's taking up a lot of my time. I have no expertise in precisely this matter of style on Wikipedia; but I favour not using using italics for the titles of articles, even when they are constituted by titles of works that are normally italicised: titles of books, operas, etc. (Before we proceed, note how precise one has to be in stating these things! I could not work out what the question was at first, and needed examples.) Things to think about:

1. By Wikipedia precedent, the styling used for a name in the text of an article is not adopted in the title. Clear examples:

* The famous short poem "Ozymandias" is correctly styled with quotes in the article about it: Ozymandias. But that article's title has no quotes in it. It would look strange with quotes, and might be hard to search for using Wikipedia's internal search engine, whose capabilities seem to change in ways that are not well advertised. Consider also a citation of the article if it had quotes ("Ozymandias"), in work outside of Wikipedia. It would have to go something like this:
   See " 'Ozymandias' ", on Wikipedia.
That's bizarre, especially with its editorial change to styling of quotes when they must serve as inner quotes.

* Similarly for the article Hey Jude, which would look weird as "Hey Jude".

2. Then again, look at the listings at the DAB article Stardust. Such variety of styling! Not all match the current forms of the articles that are linked there. Several have the styling that is appropriate for use in the text. But when a title appears on its own, like Hey Jude (not Hey Jude (song) for example, it seems rarely to have such styling imposed.

3. On that evidence, much work needs to done to bring order to these articles. Beyond that, I can say nothing right now.

I hope that helps.

Good to see you here, Kleinzach. I remember: we worked together a little before. I've been away, but am back on WP now. (For how long? No one can say.)

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 12:01, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Then again, doesn't this settle the matter Wikipedia:Article_titles#Italics_and_other_formatting?–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 12:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks indeed for looking at this. Since I posed the question I've actually found the Rfc here and begun to understand the controversy a bit more. I've referred it to the Classical music project (and also the Music project). I'm waiting for comments. Best. --Kleinzach 03:39, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Upcoming proposal

Please take a look at and discuss WP:SHEETMUSIC, which has some overlapping material with this page. Adabow (talk · contribs) 10:55, 15 April 2011 (UTC)