Talk:Common practice period

Refers to

If you must say "refers to", then you're writing about the phrase rather than using the phrase to write about what it refers to. In that case, italicize it. But "refers to" is usually better avoided, since "is" is much simpler. Michael Hardy 23:55, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I appreciate your advice on grammar, but I feel uncomfortable uncritically stating that, "the Common Practice Period is," well, anything. Unlike the moon, which is, "the largest satellite of the Earth," the Common Practice Period is made up. Anyway to address this without horrid grammar? Hyacinth 01:41, 28 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How about "The common practice period in music history is the era 1600-1900" (or whatever) or "is an amalgam formed from the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods" ? --Tdent 21:35, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Don't forget the Galant style or Impressionism. Also, do forget the Renaissance. The Common Practice is from 1650-1900ish and the Renaissance was from 1400-1600. 71.34.93.226 (talk) 00:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Anacrustic

'Anacrustic' is indeed a valid word, appearing in the Oxford Dictionary which cites Gerard Manley Hopkins' use of it in 1878 in a letter to Robert Bridges; deriving directly from ανακρουστικος its invention cannot properly be called a 'barbarous'. Stumps 08:49, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes Stumps: it is precisely because of that august dictionary's acceptance of the word, and its impeccable classical pedigree, that I retracted my animadversion in the very next edit summary (qv). All the same, the article plunges very suddenly into obscurity after some very lucid lead material, don't you think? It could certainly be made more friendly to non-expert readers. – Noetica 11:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Uh, what lucid beginning was that? Sorry, my initial impression was total incomprehension of the entire piece. It's "defined" as a time period with no reference to the hallmarks of the music it supposedly encompasses. It goes downhill from there. Dlw20070716 (talk) 21:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Confusing

This concept of cpp is irrelevant and misleading

How so? Hyacinth (talk) 00:20, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

It is irrelevant and misleading because it is obviously absurd. Is there anybody (except perhaps Walter Piston) who can actually believe, composers of European art music from Monteverdi to Debussy and Strauss (1600-1900) had for 300 years done nothing more than restricting themselves to using diatonic scales (Since the late 1500s there were chromatic and enharmonic scales besides.) and repeating conventional patterns like the cadence I IV V I? In fact, your article may be taken as description of most trivial styles of pop music, but the approach of composers of art music was absolutely different. In order to verify this, it should be sufficient to take some scores and look into them. You will find that the chord sequence I V IV I was frequently used and much, much more besides. By the way, the "19th century", as period of music history, is most commonly presumed as to have ended with world war I.80.144.74.112 (talk) 08:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The "common practice" of this period did not begin or end overnight, so it is not surprising to find exceptions at both the beginning and the end. Nevertheless, with very rare exceptions the basic vocabulary of chords and the rules of voice leading do not differ much, if at all, for all composers for at least two and a half centuries. However I agree that the examples in the text are weak; they could well be omitted without harm to the article. Fenneck (talk) 15:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Even this position is adventurous enough. In order to verify it, it would be your task to give a precise uniform theory for the music of 1600 to 1900, i.e. for the music of composers such as Monteverdi, Schütz, Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Wagner, Debussy and many others besides. In current musicology nobody who wants to be taken seriously dares to claim that he had found such kind of a uniform music theory. (If someone did it and then came with nothing more than the chord sequence I-IV-V-I, the only reaction would be a hell of laughing.) So, if you’d create a uniform music theory, it would be original research. From my own impression the connotation "common practice period" has much resemblance with the claim, mice and crocodiles must be regarded as same kinds of animals since both have two eyes, four legs and a tail. From the perspective of the Wikipedia rules, the term "common practice period" is just a peacock term.

When in 1941 Walter Piston created the term "common practice period" he apparently meant, a new period with a new kind of practice had begun. Calling prior styles "common practice" was then polemical, since no creative artists wants to be regarded as "common". Should the connotation "common practice period" have been meant with meaning of making use of tonality, the situation would be even worse, since in the 20th century there were of course huge quantities of tonal art music by Strauss, Mahler, Reger, Debussy, Ravel, Bartók, Schoenberg, Berg, Hindemith, Britten, Schostakowitch, Prokoview and many others. Besides there were tonal styles of jazz and pop. Then claiming, the music of the 20th century was as main part atonal, would be an absurdity.

In comparison with Walter Piston we are in a better position since his future is our past. So, we can look back. During the 1950s there were the experiments of the "Serialists" who with very big words claimed that from now on all music had to be of serial style. All this was gone when around 1960 the period of the "Chaotists" had begun. Since "composing" with "aleatoric" and "fluxus" is a thing that without any education everybody can do (Just go to a piano and sit down on the keys.), this was not a higlight, but the deepest point ever reached in European music history. In the second half of the 1970s there were new approaches of tonality. Most prominent representative of this development was Karlheinz Stockhausen. While in the 1960s he had "improvised" with hammers and nails, in his later years he admitted that most of the rules of older tonal styles were still valid. So, the "common practice period", if one existed, had actually never ended.

In our presence the best works of J. S. Bach still give the impression of the most perfect and deepest music ever composed. The works of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and all further ones of the well known "classical" masters are still alive as ever, and even works of masters of a second rank, such as Johann Strauss and Josef Lanner, are still in use. In contrast to this, the "works" of the "Serialists"and the "Chaotists", works of Walter Piston's future, are now a matter of merely historical interest. As music they are practically dead. Doesn't this show that there must have been an error in Walter Piston's view? Persons who still want to claim, "Atonality is progressive, hence good, while tonality is conservative, hence bad." (There are some.) are in fact the true conservatives of our days. They still adore ideas of a past which, a long time ago, already died.80.144.109.136 (talk) 10:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Those are some very, very good points. I couldn't agree more. 69.19.14.30 (talk) 05:47, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

"Common practice harmony is almost always derived from diatonic scales" This sentence is quite misleading and incorrect. Composers as early as the renaissance period were using chromatic alterations. In the Baroque period, the idea of a 'scale' was both unreal and non-practical. Minor keys frequently blended all three forms of the minor scale, modes, chromatic alterations and borrowed chords. Likewise, Major keys borrowed from minor and often had chromatic alterations to create stronger leading to the dominant and eventual rest on the tonic.

It would be much more sensible to say that Common practice harmony is almost always derived from a single tonal center.

As for the I IV V I/ I V IV I sequence, it was much more common to see I II V I as the II acts like a dominant to the dominant, I VI+ V I or second inversion of I(6/4) followed by dominant. I don't think the progressions are neccessary but more attractive and real cadences should be used if they must be included. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.21.226.228 (talk) 23:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

References and Links

The subject matter of this article is supposed to be a period in European art music which "lasted from about 1600 until about 1900"; so why do all three of the References and the only External Link refer to sources whose primary subject matter is Twentieth-century Music? Fenneck (talk) 15:42, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Duration

What is the general reaction to the section called "Duration"? Specifically, can anyone present a reasonable argument why the whole thing should not be deleted as being pseudo-intellectual musicological technobabble largely irrelevant to the subject of the article? Or should it be translated into decent English first and THEN deleted as irrelevant? Fenneck (talk) 19:03, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

So it sounds like you're saying you don't understand it. Hyacinth (talk) 12:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Since each "duration pattern" in the list uses terms such as rhythmic units, rhythmic gestures, pulse, trills, and composite rhythms, I'd have to guess that there is actually no difference between duration and rhythm. Anything of substance in this section could be said better in the section on rhythm. Dlw20070716 (talk) 21:49, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Needs a lot of work!

I don't know much more about the "Common Practice Period" after reading this article than before, and furthermore I don't see any inline references that might enlighten me on the subject. References, please, preferably inline. And rewrite this article explaining the basics for those of us who come to the page without any musical training whatsoever. Why is it named the "common practice period"? What do the words "common" and "practice" refer to? (I gather from the article that "period" means a historical period of 300 years 1600-1900.) Who named it, and what did they think was the distinguishing characteristic (hallmark) of work in this period. I take it that it basically covers at least part of the period when classical music was in vogue. What distinguishes common practice music from classical music? Is one a subset of the other? Why is this period not called the classical period or the early modern period? I would guess that this would be the first 300 year period when even temperament would be the norm, something we all but take for granted today. But I don't see the term even temperament in your article. Surely it would have been a big deal and should be made mention of.

If you must use a lot of musical terminology like chord progression numbers and contrapuntal norms and parallel fifths and tonal vs modal, please explain yourself inline as much as possible, and not just include references to other wikipedia articles where such terms are explained. Sorry I'm being a tough critic here, but my first impression of this page was total lack of communication due to overuse of jargon and too high of an expectation of prior knowledge from the reader. Dlw20070716 (talk) 21:03, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

era / period

I've attempted to make the opening sentence correspond to the infoboxes in terms of the use of the words era and period. Overall, if there is agreement that musical periods make up an era then the article needs to be renamed accordingly (or, if it is the other way around, then the infoboxes need reheading).

Another consistency question is whether or not to hyphenate common practice: at the moment we have, for example, common practice music but common-practice harmony. (I favour hyphenization throughout, but am open to persuasion).

In consideration of the above points, I propose moving the article to Common-practice era, and would appreciate other users' comments. -- Picapica (talk) 04:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

A quick check of GoogleBooks suggests that "Common Practice Period" is the overwhelming preference of authors in the field. Only a very few books use "Era" instead. According to WP:COMMONNAME, the current title is clearly the preference. Interestingly, neither New Grove nor the Harvard Dictionary of Music seem to have entries for "Common Practice" at all, either as "Period" or "Era", or on its own.

The argument that "eras" are larger than "periods" runs into a serious problem in this case, since the "Common Practice [Thingy]" is usually defined as running from some point in the 17th century to about 1850. While there are a few important sources that define the Romantic Era as ending in 1850, Wikipedia continues to define it as continuing until about 1910. Few sources in my experience claim that the Common Practice [Thingy] extends so late. At the other end of the scale, there is also a problem with asserting that the onset of the CP[T} coincides with the beginning of the Baroque style, ... oops, era ... oops, period (should this one be changed also, since the current article says it is either a style or an era, not a period?), which according to most sources is well underway before tonal common practice is established. I would say that this is a much larger question than merely the title of this article. I have not checked all the other period/era/style articles, but at least Baroque and Romantic are currently styled as eras, not periods, never mind what terms the navbox uses.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:25, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

According to differencebetween.net, an era is generally longer than a period, but it becoming "common practice" (pun neither intended nor avoided!) to use the words interchangeably so that eras can now refer to relatively short periods of time. However, it gives no examples of periods actually being divided in to eras, and I've never come across that particlar usage in all the years of my own life. In the sciences, eras are always divided into periods whenever the two are used together in a hierarchy of time, in much the same way that centuries are divided into decades, never the other way around. Is music enough of a science that the same hierarchy should be used? That said, it seems that the English and Anglo-American vernaculars have become sufficiently sloppy and inconsistent that maybe the larger blocks of time in music history should be referred as eras OR periods, and the shorter blocks should be referred to as styles (i.e. baroque style, romantic style etc.). If nothing else, this approach dodges the inconsistencies of era vs period. Additionally, I believe it's easier to speak or write about overlapping styles in music than it is to discuss overlapping periods or eras, although the latter is certainly not impossible. So I cast my vote for a common practice era OR period divided into baroque, classical, and romantic styles. I've provided the URL for the source I'm citing in this discussion: http://www.differencebetween.net/language/words-language/difference-between-era-and-period/ ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31(talk) 13:15, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Musicians (being people, for the most part) tend to be a bit inconsistent with terminology like this. Personally, I don't care one way or the other about this subject, but I must reiterate that the Common Practice Whatchamacallit is not an historical chunk of time divided into Baroque, Classical, and Romantic time blocs. Functional tonality only gradually assumes force during the early Baroque period, and is largely spent by the middle of what is usually delimited as the Romantic thingamabob. Any interrelationship between these two ways of looking at music history is at least a dubious proposition. The real issue here is what words are usual to describe these things, not what semantics say the terms ought to be. By the way, you have raised another word: "style," which may be appropriate to describe the Classical whatsis, but is not really accurate for either the Baroque doohickey or the Romantic gizmo, both of which encompass multiple styles. This is an even bigger problem for the navigation template, which describes (for example) "contemporary music" as a "style period". Ludicrous.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:00, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I've done a survey of some articles about this subject (basically those I could pull up in a limited amount of time using Google), and so far my finding is that 'Common practice period' is used in some blogs, non-university books, and a few "educational" web sites that appear to have no declared authorship or university affiliation. However, 'Common practice era' turns up in the majority of scholarly articles by accredited university experts I was able to find in a relatively short period of time. Of the 5 accredited URL's provided below, only the first article from the University of Dayton uses the term 'Common practice period', but it doesn't appear to make reference to any shorter periods of time. The other 4 use the term 'era'. Of those, article 2 from the University of California clearly divides the era into baroque, classical, and romantic 'periods' in much the same way that eras are divided into periods in geology (albeit on a much different time scale, but I'm suggesting it's the hierarchy in relative time rather than absolute time that is important here). Article 3 from Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina refers to the Classical period as a component time-span within the Common practice era, and additionally uses 'period' in quotation marks to denote even shorter periods of time withing the Classical period, in particular the periods of Beethoven's life. Articles 4 and 5 refer to the Common prectice era in very specific contexts that don't involve subdividing it into periods.

1. http://academic.udayton.edu/PhillipMagnuson/soundpatterns/diatonicI/transition.html

2. https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/36604/1/EMR000064b_Konecni.pdf

3. http://cdm16324.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15170coll2/id/3392

4. http://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/36604

5. http://www.d.umn.edu/~jrubin1/JHR%20Theory%20Scales.htm

So the question now seems to be whether we go with the vernacular that seems to prefer 'Common practice period' while using 'era' to denote shorter periods of time? Or do we go with 'Common practice era' that appears to be majority preference among accredited scholars; with 'periods' denoting shorter time spans? Everything I understand about Wikipedia, particularly with the types of sources that are to be used for inline citations, tells me that scholarly opinion should take precedence over popular usage. I don't know if the samples I was able to find of popular and scholarly articles were large enough to be statistically significant, but I only had limited time to do the resarch. I can try to find more examples of both usages if that's needed to make any imformed decisions, but it may take awhile. ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31(talk) 12:55, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

These are very interesting results, Chris, and I would like to think you are right about Wikipedia preferring scholarly to popular usage, though this might seem to contradict WP:COMMONNAME. I notice two things about your examples, however. First, nos. 2 and 4 are actually the same article by Konečni. This is not as important as the fact that these are all from American universities. Is it possible that we are looking at a difference between American and UK English here? When I did a Google Books search (as mentioned above), I got about 2,500 hits for "Common Practice Period", but only about 450 for "Era". It may be, as you suggest, that this has to do with a difference between popular and scholarly usage, but equally Google does not discriminate between national varieties of English, and I did not examine those hits as closely as you have done here. Neither have I gone to RILM or JSTOR to see what the statistics show for the practice of scholarly journals such as the Journal of Music Theory, JAMS, or Music Theory Spectrum, but I shall do so now. As a music academic myself, I cannot recall ever having heard "era" during my time in school, only "period" and, very often, the abbreviation CPP. But times change, and my university training happened quite a long time ago now. I did try doing a search for the two abbreviations CPP and CPE, but the latter of course turned up thousands of hits for C. P. E. Bach!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:47, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

I've found another website, http://arthistory.about.com/od/movements/f/eramoveperiod.htm , that tries to explain the difference between era and period. It's geared to art rather than music history, but I think the same principles of periodization apply to both, as well as to geology. Like the other site, http://www.differencebetween.net/language/words-language/difference-between-era-and-period/, it says that eras are generally or traditionally longer than periods, but recent usage has seen the terms used more interchangeabley. What I still haven't been able to find yet is any disambiguation page that makes the very oppposite claim that periods are longer than eras. I checked with WP:COMMONMAME which seems to suggest that popular useage may be preferable to scholary useage if backed by other reliable English sources, but not if the popular useage leads to other semantical difficulties like dividing a period into eras instead of the more common practice of dividing eras into periods.

You may be on to something with the idea that CPP vs CPE may be at least partly a matter of national dialect. The Encyclopedia Britannica uses CPP, but I haven't seen an online version of the World Book Encyclopedia which I believe is either American or more inclined towards American useage. If the WBE uses Common practice era, then it may that old classic split between Britain and America; two countries that are sometimes said to be "divided by a common language"!

On a more personal note, I'm a Canadian of British parentage, and I often therefore find myself leaning more towards British usage, especially whever it seems to make more grammatical sense. However, I sometimes run into terminologies where the American varient makes more sense to me. CPE vs CPP is one of those cases where, if the semantical split is largely along national lines, I prefer the American version. However, if your latest additional research confirms your preference for CPP (which in Canada, also means Canada Pension Plan!) divided into eras, I will defer in light of your university level background in music. I'm well read on the subject, but my profession is meteorology, the subject where I have been most active on Wikipedia. ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31(talk) 00:35, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I am back from my jaunt to check RILM, and the results are very interesting, though not quite what I expected. There appears to be no national division, and even the same journal will use either term, apparently at the author's discretion. Numerically, the result are heavily in favo(u)r of CPP (about three to one), though both are clearly in use. As for the duration of the Common Practice thing, the first two items in the following list give 1700–1900 (thus beginning only very late in the Baroque) and 1680–1850 (also beginning late in the Baroque but petering out long before the end of the Romantic (unless of course you follow Dahlhaus and a number of other more recent musicologists and make the Romantic conform to art and literature by ending around 1850). None of the other items bother to set boundary dates. These are two very long lists but, for the sake of discussion, I think they need to be presented. First, the ones using "Common Practice Period":

1. London, Justin. 2013. "Building a Representative Corpus of Classical Music". Music Perception 31, no. 1 (September): 68–90.
2. Tymoczko, Dmitri. 2011. A Geometry of Music: Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533667-2.
3. McLachlan, Heather. 2011. "Teaching Traditional Music Theory with Popular Songs: Pitch Structures". In Pop-culture Pedagogy in the Music Classroom: Teaching Tools from American Idol to YouTube, edited by Nicole Biamonte, 73–89. Lanham, MD, USA: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-7736-8.
4. Woolhouse, Matthew. 2010. "Modes on the Move: Interval Cycles and the Emergence of Major-Minor Tonality". Empirical Musicology Review 5, no. 3 (July) 62–83.
5. Check, John D. 2010. "Compound Melody and Jazz Improvisations: A Reconsideration". Gamut: The Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic 3, no. 1 (A Music-Theoretical Matrix: Essays in Honor of Allen Forte II): 69–90.
6. Morgan, Robert P. 2010. "Two Early Schoenberg Songs: Monotonality, Multitonality, and schwebende Tonalität". In The Cambridge companion to Schoenberg, edited by Jennifer Shaw and Joseph Auner, 53–67. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-69086-7 (Cambridge); ISBN 978-0-521-87049-8 (New York).
7. Denham, A. E. 2009. "The Future of Tonality". The British Journal of Aesthetics 49, no. 4 (October): 427–50.
8. Eng, Clare Sher Ling. 2009. "'Writ in Remembrance More Than Things Long Past': Cadential Relationships in Fauré's Mirages, Op. 113". Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 23:135–52.
9. Franck, Peter Jocelyn. 2007. "The Role of Invertible Counterpoint within Schenkerian Theory". PhD diss. Rochester: Eastman School of Music, the University of Rochester.
10. Bazemore, Michael. 2006. "Types of Musical Value in Music of the Common Practice Period". PhD diss. Emory University. ISBN 978-0-542-98415-0.
11. Clarke, Eric F., Nicholas Cook, Bryn Harrison, and Philip Thomas. 2005. "Interpretation and Performance in Bryn Harrison's être-temps". Musicæ Scientiæ: The Journal of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music 9, no. 1: (Spring) 31–74.
12. Durrani, Aaminah. 2005. "Chorale and Canon in Alfred Schnittke’s Fourth String Quartet". Ph.D. diss. Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College.
13. Virtanen, Timo. 2005. "Jean Sibelius: Symphony no. 3—Manuscript Study and Analysis". Studia Musica no. 26. Helsinki: Sibelius-Akatemia. ISBN 978-952-5531-19-0.
14. Beuerman, Eric Gilbert. 2003. "The Evolution of the Twenty-Four Prelude Set for Piano". DMA thesis. University of Arizona.
15. Chong, Eddy Kwong Mei. 2002. Extending Schenker's Neue musikalische Theorien und Phantasien: Towards a Schenkerian model for the analysis of Ravel's music. PhD diss. Rochester: Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester.
16. Jemian, Rebecca Ann. 2001. "Rhythmic Organization in Works by Elliott Carter, George Crumb, and John Adams: Rhythmic Frameworks, Timepoints, Periodicity, and Alignment". PhD diss. Bloomington: Indiana University.
17. Malloy, Christopher Gardner. 1998. "Cadential Procedures in Mario Davidovsky's Divertimento for Cello and Orchestra". PhD diss. Brandeis University.
18. Cavanagh, Lynn Marie. 1996. "Tonal Multiplicity in Schoenberg's First String Quartet, Op. 7". PhD diss. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Publisher.
19. Dutilleux, Henri. 1995. "Quelques feuillets". International Journal of Musicology 4 (A Birthday Offering for George Perle): 335–38.
20. Bennett, John Scott. 1994. "William Albright's Organbook III, Volume I: An Investigation into Multiple Analytical Approaches". DMA thesis. Memphis: University of Memphis.
21. Sadai, Yizhak. 1992. "De certains paradigmes pre-compositionnels dans la musique tonale". In Secondo Convegno Europeo di Analisi Musicale, vol. 1, edited by Rossana Dalmonte and Mario Baroni, 123–38. Studi e testi, no. 1 Trento: Università degli Studi (Dipartimento di Storia della Civiltà). ISBN 88-86135-09-2.
22. Johnston, Ben. 1991. "On Extended Just Intonation". 1/1: The Journal of the Just Intonation Network 7, no. 1 (September): 6–7.
23. Huron, David. 1989. "Characterizing Musical Textures". Proceedings: 1989 International Computer Music Conference, 131–34.. San Francisco: Computer Music Association.
24. Kissler, John Michael. 1988. "Harmony and Tonality in Selected Late Works of Richard Strauss, 1940–1948". PhD diss. University of Arizona.
25. Jacob, Elizabeth. 1984. "The Musical Possibilities of Chomsky's Deep Structure: A Search for Parallel Structures in Music Analysis". MM thesis. University of Alberta.
26. Lewin, David. 1982. "Transformational Techniques in Atonal and Other Music Theories". Perspectives of New Music 21, nos. 1–2 (Fall–Winter/Spring-Summer): 312–71.
27. Stolz, Rosa Florence Goldshine. 1982. "Temporal Incongruence in Selected Compositions of Peter Il'ich Tchaikovsky". PhD diss. Columbus: Ohio State University.
28. Phillips, Edward R. 1981. "Pitch Structures in a Selected Repertoire of Early German Chorale Melodies". Music Theory Spectrum 3: 98–116.
29. Proctor, Gregory Michael. 1978. "Technical Bases of Nineteenth-Century Chromatic Tonality: A Study in Chromaticism". PhD diss. Princeton: Princeton University.
30. Block, Adrienne Fried. 1973. "And Now We Begin: A Survey of Recent Theory Texts". College Music Symposium 13 (Fall): 97–105.
31. Fitch, John R. 1973. "Twentieth-Century Students Should Start with Twentieth-Century Techniques". Music Educators Journal 59, no. 8 (April): 46–47.

And now, the ones who prefer "Era":

1. Bazayev, Inessa. 2014. "The Expansion of the Concept of Mode in Twentieth-Century Russian Music Theory". Music Theory Online 20, no. 3 (September: Perspectives on Twentieth-Century Russian Theory): 7 pages.
2. Konečni, Vladimir J. 2009. "Mode and Tempo in Western Classical Music of the Common-Practice Era: My Grandmother Was Largely Right—But No One Knows Why". Empirical Musicology Review 4, no. 1: 23–26.
3. Elshoff, Denise Louise. 2008. "Melody, Counterpoint, and Tonality in Shostakovich's String Quartets Nos. 1–8". PhD diss. New Haven: Yale University.
4. Smith, Peter H. 2006. You Reap What You Sow: Some Instances of Rhythmic and Harmonic Ambiguity in Brahms. Music Theory Spectrum 28, no. 1 (Spring): 57–97.
5. Stell, Jason Travis. 2006. "The Flat-7th Scale Degree in Tonal Music". PhD diss. Princeton: Princeton University.
6. Thomas, Robert E. 2004. "Composition with Layered Structures". PhD diss. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
7. Bryden, Kristy A. 2001. Musical Conclusions: Exploring Closural Processes in Five Late Twentieth-Century Chamber Works. PhD diss. Madison: University of Wisconsin.
8. Gahntz, Dietrich. 1997. "Darstellen und Gestalten von alter und neuer Musik". 'Musik und Bildung: Praxis Musikunterricht' 29, no. 2 (March–April): 19–21.
9. Waldbauer, Iván F. 1990. "Polymodal Chromaticism and Tonal Plan in the First of Bartók's 'Six dances in Bulgarian Rhythm'". Studia musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 32, nos. 1–4:241–62 .
10. Kirchner, Leon. 1961. "The Lag of Theory Behind Practice". College Music Symposium 1 (Fall):23–25.

The mix of nationalities and subjects is quite diverse, and so I think fairly representative. Although the question of national differences is plainly quashed, I might respond to your personal observation by saying that although I am an American, trained in American universities, I have lived near enough to the Canadian border for long enough to have picked up enough Canadian speech patterns to be mistaken abroad for a Canadian, and I did teach for a semester at UBC in Vancouver back in the late 1980s. However, my speech patterns are probably more strongly influenced by having watched way too much British television over the years (and almost nothing of American origin) so that I often mystify Americans by using idioms which I do not even realize are Briticisms. This does make me a rather unreliable editor when it comes to distinguishing UK and US styles.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:13, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, I have to say I'm impressed with your research Jerome, and I'm now convinced to go with CPP and Baroque/Classical/Romantic "eras". My only suggestion now is that any Wikipedia article about "serious" music that uses this terminology should include a caveat or disclaimer stating that 'period' and 'era' are used interchangeably by some authorities, and that some use CPE comprising Baroque/Classica/Romantic periods. The disclaimer should include a citation referenceing at least one authority who uses the two terms in reverse rank to the Wikipedia articles. Do you agree with that idea? BTW, it looks like we're almost neighbours/neighbors! I live just across the water from you on Vancouver Island, in a small town called Chemainus, known for its outdoor murals. Also I'm wondering if you've heard of an early 20th. century musical historian by the name of Adam Carse (an alternative spelling of Carss). He might be a distant relative of mine. ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31(talk 23:30, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Research is made easier when the right tools are available. I am fortunate to have access to RILM, which provides a comprehensive search of academic publications in music. Certainly the alternative usages of "era" and "period" should be noted. Advising readers of such usages is standard practice all over Wikipedia, and in respectable reference sources generally. I would imagine the way to place a caveat about the sloppy use of "era" vs "period" would be to link the terms to Era#Colloquial use and something that offers a similar discussion of the word "period", if one can be found. The disambiguation page for "period" currently defines the sense we are discussing as "a length or era of time". I am beginning to suspect that the stricter distinction you are familiar with may apply only to certain disciplines, such as geology. Certainly the CPP does not include the Baroque (especially) or Romantic periods/eras in their entirety—at least not according to Justin London or Dmitri Tymoczko. You may not be aware that periodization of the history of music from after the end of the 18th century has been a hotly debated subject for over a hundred years now, with a brief lull of complacency between the Second World War and about 1970. The Romantic era/period/length/timespan has been a special focus of criticism (as I have mentioned already), but the entire 20th century is a fuzzy mess in the history books, and for good reason.

I am of course familiar with the work of Adam Carse, whose book Musical Wind Instruments remains a standard reference nearly a century after its first publication. I return to it frequently whenever I wish to learn more about the history of woodwinds or brass. Chamainus, on the other hand, is not familiar to me. I have only occasionally visited Vancouver Island, mainly on day trips to Victoria.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:16, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I've added the caveat regarding period vs era and included a citation which appears to be the first and only such type of reference provided in this article. No wonder the article hasn't been given a rating! BTW, good to know Adam Carse is still being referenced by musicologists. ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31(talk 12:00, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Looks good, though you overlooked three inline citations in a format different to the one you used. I have corrected this to conform, and also tweaked the capitalization of title and added the missing caron to the author's name. Still, you are right about the sorry state of the article generally, which could do with more inline citations and an expanded discussion in any number of areas. A rating of "stub" does not usually require any distinction at all, and in fact implies that the article has none, apart from scraping past the bare minimum requirement for notability. Adam Carse is still being referenced because he did brilliant work, and in a readable style. There have been few enough scholars of his calibre, and that is as true today as it was a hundred or three hundred years ago.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:13, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The parenthetical referencing is something I've never seen before. If it's faster and more concise than the type of referencing I've done with other articles, I'll definitely want to learn how to do it and use it where appropriate. I'll check out the link you've provided. I was in a hurry when I did that previous edit and got a bit sloppy with the syntax; my apologies for that! There is in infobox with this article that uses 'era' in connection with the prehistoric, early, common practice, and contemporary 'periods'. I think it should be brought into conformity with the rest of the article and other related articles by reversing the era and period terminologies, but I don't see an edit function of any kind to make the correction. ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31(talk 13:00, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

There are five main types of referencing used on Wikipedia, with hundreds or even thousands of sub-species. Information can be found at Wikipedia:Citing sources, with subsections at WP:INCITE and WP:CITESTYLE. Parenthetical referencing is found less often than full-footnote and short-footnote (SFN) styles, but has distinct advantages over both. (The other two styles are less common still. One, the "general reference" does not involve inline citations, and the other, numeric citations, is only used in certain scientific disciplines.)

The reason you cannot find an edit function for the "era"/"period" stuff is that this is set within two templates that can be used on any number of different articles. In this article, these appear as template calls, enclosed in double braces: {{History of Western art music}} and {{Music eras}}. Changing the internal workings will of course change their appearance on all the articles where they appear. An explanation of each, possibly with useful explanation of the rationale for some terms, can be found at Template:Music eras and Template:History of Western art music. As a general rule, I don't mess with such things, but I would suggest that you start by putting a notice on the Talk pages for these templates, explaining your reasoning and asking for consensus, especially because, no matter which terms are used, some of the articles involved are going to clash with the choice (e.g., "Romantic era" is almost universally used, whereas "Classical period" is equally the standard form).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:31, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

There are two template infoboxes included with the article. One has the letters V T E at the bottom right that allows the template to be edited even though it displays on multiple music-related articles. I have made some modifications to the title and subtitles on the template over the past few weeks to try and establish some consistency regarding the uses of 'period' and 'era'. I initially explained my changes in the edit history and have now followed your advice to include an explanation on the template's talk page lest I be accused or suspected of disruptive editing. So far, nobody has tagged or reverted my edits so I'm assuming that some degree of editorial concensus exists. The other template infobox has no V T E and therefore can't be edited so easily, if at all. It is this second infobox that uses 'era' where the other one uses 'period'. I can see that there may be variences in general usage of such terms, but to have 2 infoboxes in direct conflict with each other on the same page makes it a free-for-all. The contrary infobox contains no date information that isn't already in the larger and more conformist infobox, so I think the two should be merged or the contrary infobox should be deleted. Additionally, the contrary infobox doesn't appear to have a talk page, so the only place I can see to express my concerns about it is right here on this page as I'm now doing.

Re: George Perle. If only he expressed himself as clearly as Adam Carse! I've removed my clumsy and misguided attempt to clarify his dense academic jargon. However, I've left the 'clarification needed' tag (minus the references to my own erstwhile edit) in place because I think the remark attributed to him still needs to be clarified in some way for lay readers, or maybe replaced by a comparable quote from a more readable expert. ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31(talk 11:42, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia often can be a "free-for-all". I'm not sure where to send you for a discussion of that other template, sorry. Perhaps a merge discussion could be placed on the talk page of the one infobox that is accessible?

Perle's "jargon" is to some extent unavoidable, since he was venturing into relatively unexplored territory in the 1960s when he first started publishing his theories, and his terminology has in large measure remained standard in English. I can explain the marked phrase, "harmonic equivalence of inversionally symmetrical pitch-class relations," but only by defining for you "harmonic equivalence" (chords with the same function or sound), "inversion" (literal reflection of vertical intervals, not traditonal "chord inversion"), and "pitch class" (pitches without reference to their registral position). The latter ought to have a link to the article Pitch class, and the current link to Inversion (music) does not make plain which definition of "inversion" is intended, which only adds to the confusion. I think the latter problem can be fixed with a more specific redirect to a point within that article. I shall see what I can do.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:01, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Inversionally symmetrical pitch-class relations

I think the problem with this section is it doesn't explicitly tie in the idea of these pitch class relations with atonality and serialism, even though the latter seem to be the most obvious manifestations of this suposed new common practice period. I initially gathered the symmetries and pitch class relations referred to were about atonality and serialism when I attempted my own edit to that effect, but it seems maybe they're not connected since my edit didn't stand. The section also makes no mention of minimalism and post-minimalism. Are composers like John Adams a part of this new common practice, or do they mark the beginning another new "period" that has developed it's own "common practice"? Confusion reigns supreme in this section of the article!! ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31(talk 12:30, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any confusion. This section, as it stands, is about George Perle's contention (a rather dubious one in my opinion, but then I am not a reliable source, am I?) that inversional pitch-class symmetry is the "new common practice". He names Edgard Varèse, Alban Berg, Béla Bartók, Arnold Schoenberg, Alexander Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern, and himself as exemplars. While all of these composers might be associated in one way or another with atonality (depending on just how you define this nebulous term), by no means are all or even any of them tied to serialism (again, depending a little on how you define this word). This is why your edit didn't stand. Perle is not clear when he speaks of Scriabin, for example, whether he has in mind symmetrical structures found in the Op. 11 Preludes, the Poem of Ecstasy, or the "Black Mass" Sonata, but none of these are serial and (arguably) neither are any of them strictly speaking atonal. Neither do atonality or serialism necessarily have anything to do with later manifestations of some common practice (different from or even unrelated to that of the CPP), though claims to this effect were at one time made by some people.

The real problem with this section, in my opinion, is that it confines itself to this bare statement about Perle. In fact, it looks more like an advertising plug than a considered discussion of "later trends". The section title is misleading, since no evidence is presented at all that Perle's (possibly eccentric) contention represents any kind of "trend" at all. It is also potentially misleading because it suggests that CP tonality continues in some way to be a "common practice" after the CPP is over (a confusing notion, to be sure). Of course, functional tonality does continue to be found after say, 1850, though no longer as a "common practice".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:33, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

If find this section more confusing than some others, it's probably because I"m not a professional expert in this field. We seem to find many of the same shortcomings in the section that needs to be fixed. I think this scetion requires the attention of an acredited expert. As for myself, I think I can add some badly needed citations for some of the previous text, but can't do much with Perle's theories. ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31(talk 13:00, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, as I said, the real issue doesn't have that much to do with Perle, but with whether there is anything at all that can be described as a "common practice" in music after the late 19th century, let alone a specific period defined by it. I agree that Perle's contention (and Harbison's) that inversional relations constitute a "common practice" in the 20th century is puzzling. Perhaps this should be qualified as "relatively common"? Or maybe this whole section should just be deleted on grounds that it is unhelpful to the reader.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:28, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Once again I think we have concurrence regarding possible ways to deal with the section "later trends". Once again though, I don't think I'm the once to make any changes or deletions. I'll leave that to accredited experts in the field of musicology. ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31(talk 11:48, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I should hastily add that this is also intimately tied in with Perle's concept of "Twelve-toneTonality", where he makes a distinction between diatonic systems, in which inversional equivalence does not hold, and chromatic or other "symmetrical" pitch systems (e.g., diminished seventh chords, whole-tone scales) where such equivalence is regarded as essential. This in turn leads to which of two definitions of "inversion" is meant, and on, and on. In the end, it is not as complicated as it sounds, but does involve a number of terms with multiple senses which must be correctly understood in order to follow the discussion. This level of complexity does not seem to me appropriate for an article on the subject of the common-practice period.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:36, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Dissolution

To mince words with Jerome Kohl and other interested editors: I take issue with "dissolution" because it implies that the tonal system no longer exists, which is naturally false. Words like "abandonment" and "departure" seem to be more accurate. Can we look for consensus on a better term? Ibadibam (talk) 19:10, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I do see your point about "dissolution". However, "abandonment" and "departure" also would seem to suggest it is not used any longer and, worse, as part of a deliberate program of action. It seems to me that what is really meant is the hegemony of common-practice harmony, rather than common-practice harmony per se, is ... what? "Lost"? "Broken"? "Displaced"? "Weakened"? "Overthrown"? "Rejected"? "Dispelled"? "Dissolved"? "Abandoned"?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:10, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

What about the "decline of the tonal system"? Ibadibam (talk) 01:40, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Better, but how does this differ from "dissolution"? Does it seem less final somehow?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:47, 30 March 2018 (UTC)