Template talk:Music

Per the discussion on Wikipedia:Manual of style (music), I've put what was at Accidental here; moved the user box to Template:User Instruments List (discuss at Template talk:User Instruments List) and moved the newly created "Music portal" navigation box to Template:Music portal. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 15:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

alternate notation for sharps and flats

What do you think about supporting {{music|#}} and {{music|b}} (using the number sign "#" and letter "b") as alternatives to {{music|sharp}} and {{music|flat}}?--Dbolton 21:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a great idea. The only thing we have to be concerned about is whether we might want to reserve "b" for the note--I know I've had that issue with building little music grammars before. But I think that it's fine to give it up, since if we are going to do notes, we'll probably do "note|b" or something like that. Myke

I decided to hold back on the {{music|#}} and {{music|b}}, but added support for Unicode flats and sharps, i.e. {{music|♯}} and {{music|♭}}. This should make it more convenient if you are converting a page of Unicode sharps and flats.--Dbolton 17:02, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I'd say let's go with # and b for now, so I can convert some pages which use that notation also. I doubt the double-flat, double-sharp notation will ever be used, but bb and ## perhaps? Reminds me to start getting the ^1 to ^8 working as well as some Roman numerals. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 17:47, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Protection?

Perhaps page protection would be appropriate for this page if most important changes have been made now? I'm sure it will have very extensive usage at some point in the near future. ck lostsword•T•C 14:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree with semi-protection, but at present full protection would probably be counter productive. The template isn't yet used in that many places and hasn't had any vandalism (knock on wood). Most importantly, it's not close to finished and the major contributors to the template aren't administrators, so it would prevent further contributions. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 22:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No problem for now - just an option for in the future :). ck lostsword•T•C 22:24, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Example

This is a very cool template and I applaud your efforts. My only problem is in the "sample text" under the heading "Notes and rests". That looks like a clear place where prose should be used, not characters. It's bad style to write in that way, even if one can. Can someone please think of a better example of their use? I'll ponder it as well, but nothing is immediately coming to mind. Mak (talk) 16:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to find a piece of text that would be a better demonstration that we can agree on--I just put something quickly that came to mind. If I were actually writing, I would spell out "whole note." However, there is a movement to use symbols more often within text--Edward Tufte devotes a chapter to it in both his first (?) and fourth books on design. I don't think that there's any better way to convey the syncopated rhythm in the second half of the sentence. Saying "eighth rest, half note, quarter note, eighth note" is far too bulky and would slow down a musically literate reader, while the figure is too small to justify using an external figure. The Bach font encourages such uses [1]. Looking at the book next to me, Allen Atlas's Renaissance Music, I see these uses on pp. 50 & 51. Christopher Hasty also embeds metrical examples in text in his Meter as Rhythm (Oxford; first usage, coincidentally, also on pp. 50&51). And the first theory book I looked at (Clendinning and Marvin) does also. I'm more finding these examples to satisfy my curiosity than to refute you--I've embedded rhythms within text in just about every article I've published, and wanted to make sure that I wasn't alone. In double-spaced contexts I've also embedded whole staves of music within text, but it just doesn't look right in single-spaced writing. Best, -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 22:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, when I looked at it again I realised that the latter rhythm would be awkward as prose, but the use of the whole note symbol definitely threw me off, and feels like bad style. Perhaps just change the whole note to text? I'm glad to know of other inline uses of rhythmic notation, though. Mak (talk) 22:42, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I modified the sample sentence per Mak's suggestion.--Dbolton 02:51, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox change?

Has anyone else noticed a change in behavior on Firefox? Now all the music symbols that don't use this template are displaying as "?" on my system instead of the proper flats and sharps. Is it just my system? I certainly didn't uninstall any fonts. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 04:02, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Odd. I haven't noticed this myself. Does the behavior continue after a system restart?--Dbolton (talk) 05:34, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to come and go; a restart seems to help -- and actually, if I leave the page open for a few minutes, after awhile the flats appear. Maybe it's a memory leak in determining which glyphs are present and which are missing in the font. I notice that some of the ja:xxxxx links appear as ja:??????? at first and then resolve themselves into the proper characters. So it's probably not a pan-firefox problem. Phew! I did change a few articles to use the template anyhow, so that's probably a good thing. :) -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 05:51, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Flats and Sharps

Are rendering squares in Internet Explorer 6.0. OK in Mozilla 3.0 Fefogomez (talk) 13:52, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Flats and sharps appear as empty squares in Internet Explorer 6 and 7. Flats and sharps appear in Firefox 2.0 but are sub-standard. Firefox 3.0 has a lot of font rendering and graphics improvements so flats and sharps appear fine without the template. --Dbolton (talk) 21:02, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure? It works perfectly in my Internet Explorer 7 so long as this template is used. (Actually my system renders it fine either way, but I know I have the Vista fonts installed on XP so it's an odd system). But the main point of the template at first was to get proper IE rendering of flats and sharps. If it doesn't work, we should change the output of the template to produce an image for flat, sharp, and natural, as it does for double-sharp and double-flat. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 19:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for being unclear. My comment above referred to the status of sharps and flats without the use of the template. I am not aware of any display issues when the template is used.--Dbolton (talk) 06:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! That makes things clearer. I was worried for a minute. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 17:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Diminished symbol

I suggest we add support for the diminished symbols (°) and (^ø).

I believe this would require adding the following lines to the code, but I am afraid of breaking it.

 | dim = &#176;
 | dimslash = <sup>&#248;</sup>

Jake the Editor Man _(talk) 17:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reluctant to add this unless there is a significant viewing problem that prevents the use of ° and <sup>ø</sup>. Plain Unicode text is clearer for editors to read and understand. --Dbolton (talk) 16:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, I missed that there were any objections and went ahead and added it -- it can be removed if it's a problem. I wouldn't have added dim alone, but since ø needs a <sup> tag to make it display properly, it seemed worth it. But I can be persuaded to remove them.

I also noticed that someone has created svg symbols for whole, half, and 16th rests; symbols which were missing before. So I went ahead and added them. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 15:14, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Text size as EM

The SVG images don't scale with different font sizes. I suggest that EM be used instead of PX as the unit of measurement. SharkD (talk) 19:12, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just tested the em measurement to see if it would work but the syntax is ignored. It is not possible to use em measurements on a image (see WP:Extended image syntax#Size). --dbolton (talk) 22:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We'll just have to wait until inline SVG images are supported by Wikipedia/browsers. SharkD (talk) 06:04, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Symbols for cut time and common time

Perhaps a more realistic request: can we get symbols for common time and cut time? Something along the lines of {{Music|Cut}}? I was looking at Marty's book on Mozart's tempo indications and he uses those symbols within the text a lot. James470 (talk) 04:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Symbols for half-flat and -sharp

Can someone add the Arabic half-flat and -sharp symbols ( and )? The addition would be

| halfb
| halfflat = [[File:Arabic music notation half flat.svg|9px]]
| half#
| halfsharp = [[File:Arabic music notation half sharp.svg]]

151.203.246.40 (talk) 19:56, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure those are standard beyond the Middle East? I think Bartok and Penderecki used slightly different symbols. James470 (talk) 00:11, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I have no idea. I just saw them mentioned in MoS:MUSIC and thought that, if they deserved mention there, they should have a place here. 151.203.246.40 (talk) 23:15, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Before there are any edit wars over this (and there have been for much less), we need to be certain that: a) these are the symbols most often used for the purpose, and b) there is a real need to use these symbols within the text, as opposed to within music notation excerpts. James470 (talk) 02:19, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The half sharp (sometimes confusingly also called quarter-sharp because it's a quarter-tone accidental) is becoming pretty standard; I could support going with this file; but the half flat is more commonly a reversed-♭ in contemporary classical and music theory texts. I don't know the Arabic music world well enough to know if the half-flat is totally standardized there. Other symbols exist and are commonly used for both sharp and flat. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 19:24, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music) both symbols are mentioned. At least the following articles refer to them: Quarter tone, Flat (music), Sharp (music), Accidental (music), Enharmonic genus, Microtonal music, 31 equal temperament, Arabic maqam, Arabic music, Arab tone system, Arab culture, Rast (maqam). So I think there is a reason to add the symbols to the template. The half sharp seems to be rather uniform, the half flat appears in two forms as a backward or a slashed flat. So we might want to include both (named bstroke and bbackward?). −Woodstone (talk) 22:29, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, note that File:QuartertoneMaqams.png actually uses the reversed flat sign instead of the flat sign with stroke. James470 (talk) 23:57, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen more of the "d" (reversed flat) in western music that uses quartertones than I have any other symbol. On a side note, Unicode uses flags to show half-flats (U+1D132, U+1D133), LilyPond uses the reversed flat (and even has a "there is no standard for quartertones" disclaimer!), and the Melakartas that I have seen uses the slash. Not sure what laTEX uses though.

As for standardization at Wikipedia, I would recommend going with the western style reversed flat as "default" ({{music|halfflat}} =

), but allowing someone the option to choose the other symbols depending on the context ({{music|halfflat-arabic}} =

, or something like that) and ({{music|halfflat-flag}}). Can't say I know what the 'perfect' nomenclature should be for this kind of use, but at least it leaves the option available for all the different styles until the music world standardizes on some symbol. - NDCompuGeek (talk) 14:30, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have put them in as proposed (named halfsharp, halfflat and flatstroke). They look rather larger than the other signs. I tried to adjust, but no effect. How do they look to you? −Woodstone (talk) 15:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Um, yeah, wow. They do seem a bit big as compared to the other signs.... maybe use the "x12px" height syntax instead of the "12px" width syntax? I'm not real good with image syntax, so YMMV and take with a HUGE grain of salt and other miscellaneous disclaimers....

Also, what about having the options for "demisharp" and "demiflat" included? - NDCompuGeek (talk) 20:46, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Additional quarter-tone accidentals

If we include the demiflat and demisharp symbols, shouldn't the sesquiflat (, [[Image:Llpd+1½.svg|x16px]]) and sesquisharp (, [[Image:Llpd-1½.svg|x16px]]) symbols be represented also? As with the demiflat, there is an alternative version of the flat sign with slashes (, [[Image:Llpd-1½_var.svg|x16px]]). - NDCompuGeek (talk) 20:46, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]