Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Music

Capitalization

MOS:MUSIC says:

Titles that include parentheses should be capitalized as follows: the part outside the parentheses should be capitalized as if the parenthetical words are not present; the part inside the parentheses should be capitalized as if there were no parentheses at all.

While MOS:CT says:

Capitalize parenthetical phrases in titles as if they were separate titles (e.g. "(Don't Fear) The Reaper").

I ask this because "It Takes a Little Rain (To Make Love Grow)" has gone back and forth on capitalizing the "to" several times. MOS:CT says capitalize it; MOS:MUSIC says don't. If two policies are contradicting each other, then it's obvious that one should be fixed. I believe that MOS:CT should be the "parent" guideline here, with the capitalization section written to match it — since generalized policies almost always outweigh genre-specific ones. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:23, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I tried to get a discussion about this going at WT:MOSCAPS#Apparent conflict of guidelines, but there was insufficient particpation to generate any useful consensus. Except for one, all the commenters seemed, however, to agree that the way to go is to bring the MOS:CT guideline into line with the MOS:MUSIC one (i.e., the opposite of what TPH recommends above). That tends to be my opinion as well: The parenthetical elements in titles like "It Takes a Little Rain (to Make Love Grow)" function not as subtitles or alternative titles but as extensions of titles, so that although the "real" title is "It Takes a Little Rain", many people may refer to the song as "It Takes a Little Rain to Make Love Grow"; and I think that inserting parentheses around the extension phrase shouldn't affect the capitalization within the phrase. Nevertheless, I recommend that others at least glance at the WT:MOSCAPS discussion I cited above to familiarize themselves with some of the ramifications of either choice. Deor (talk) 12:06, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

• MOSCAPS' way seems to be more established, though, as many other pages capitalize parentheticals. And I can't find any style guidelines that say anything either way. Furthermore, the lowercase "to" looks wrong to me. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 12:18, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment — I think "It Takes a Little Rain (To Make Love Grow)" is preferable to "It Takes a Little Rain (to Make Love Grow)".

  Besides, does it really matter? But if somebody were to put a gun to my head and ask me for a straight answer I would go for MOS:MUSIC. But that's just me. I hope it helps.  Brendon is here 07:01, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I would add to this the following question: should the word "the" in the band name "The Beatles" be capitalized if the word "the" is in the middle of a sentence? I mean, I always see the word "the" in "the United States" capitalized only when the country name begins a sentence, but left lowercase otherwise. --Marceki111 (talk) 20:32, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

No, you're right, it should not. Rothorpe (talk) 20:37, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

This has been discussed extensively; see Wikipedia talk:Requests_for_mediation/The_Beatles#Episode_IV:_A_New_Poll --hulmem (talk) 01:10, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. This guideline directly contradicts MOS:CT and we should not have a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS MoS which defers to MOS:CT for further explanation. This lack of uniformity is misleading and confusing. I've been WP:BOLD and updated the project page to show the same rules and example as MOS:CT, although I don't expect it to stay without discussion! --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:36, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd also suggest that any further discussion on this should be at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters as we shouldn't really be diverging from the main guideline on this, and any reasons for divergence here would most likely also have cause for change on a wider scale. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:56, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay, as suspected, my edit was reverted. Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Contradiction and divergence at MOS:MUSIC --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:54, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Roman font?

In §Classical music titles this sentence:

Generic movement titles (such as tempo markings or terms like minuet and trio) are capitalized with a single initial capital—that is, only the first word is capitalized—and in roman type.

Really? So this, from the Korngold Symphony in F sharp major article, should look like this:

1. Moderato, ma energico -- intense and stormy, with a jagged main theme
2. Scherzo
3. Adagio -- long, profound and meditative, in the tradition of Anton Bruckner. A memorial to Roosevelt.
4. Finale -- optimistic; listeners will recognize references to film music and the song, "Over There".

I got here because roman font is mentioned for tempo markings at MOS:Ety. But, looking further through MOS:Music, roman font is mentioned a lot. Can this really be true? The normal Wikipedia font is sans serif. Is it really necessary to use a different font face?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:39, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

"Roman" in this case simply means "not italic", so the MOS is saying that it should be "Scherzo" rather than "Scherzo" or "scherzo", etc. Deor (talk) 19:52, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Right, I'll change it so that a font different from the normal Wikipedia font is not explicitly specified. And I'll fix the Korngold and MOS:Ety as well.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:29, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

In §Classical music titles this:

There are five acceptable methods for specifying the nickname after the generic title:

1. in parentheses: Symphony No. 9 (From the New World)
2. ...

If one is to believe the image of the title page of the autograph score, From the New World is a true title and not a nickname. The nickname would be New World Symphony. If this is true, then that set of examples may not be as good it should be.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:50, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. (Z nového světa = From the New World) -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:33, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Naming conventions for list articles (as relates to songs)

There is a discussion regarding the naming of list articles as it applies to songs at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs. Interested parties may like to have a look and comment. This is message is also posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lists. --Richhoncho (talk) 10:13, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Beatles RfC

You are invited to participate in an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/The Beatles on the issue of capitalising the definite article when mentioning that band's name in running prose. This long-standing dispute is the subject of an open mediation case and we are requesting your help with determining the current community consensus. Thank you for your time. For the mediators. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:45, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

No spaces in band/artist names

What is the relation of the following guideline to the stylization of band or artist names without spaces, such as 65daysofstatic, Sleepmakeswaves, Alexisonfire, etc.

"Standard English text formatting and capitalization rules apply to the names of bands and individual artists" (Wikipedia:MUSTARD#Capitalization)

It seems to me that these should then be 65 Days of Static, Sleep Makes Waves, and Alexis on Fire.

To write these without spaces feels to me to be simply reproducing stylizations and trademarks (MOS:TM).

But, if so, why should bands such as Coldplay, Slowdive or Deerhunter not be Cold Play, Slow Dive and Deer Hunter?

Is there a distinction to be made on the grounds that the former bands have names that are more grammatical? Wetdogmeat (talk) 02:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

MOSstyle relates to capitalizations and designs, so if the name of the band is 65daysofstatic then that's the name and how it should be shown. OTOH if the name was 65DaysOfStatic, then WP should still render as 65daysofstatic. As per my signature, I am not Rich Honcho, or Rich honcho, but I am --Richhoncho (talk) 23:34, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Replace the word "acts" in infoboxes with either "bands" or "artists"

I suggest that editors replace the word "acts" in infoboxes with either "bands" or "artists", depending on if the article talks about a band or a solo artist. This change must be done, as the word "act" leads to confusion since it is used to also mean a number at a circus or a division of a theatrical play.--Marceki111 (talk) 19:48, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization of abbreviations

My attention has just been called to the fact that this style sheet specifies the capitalization of the abbreviations for "opus" and "number". While this was standard practice in English writing through the 1940s, since that time it has increasingly become the norm to render these abbreviations lowercase (as, indeed, the words are always treated when spelled out). In fact, by 1982 the Chicago Manual of Style (13th edition) specified: "The abbreviation op. (opus; pl. opp. or opera) and no. (number; pl. nos.) are usually lowercased, but both are sometimes capitalized; either style is acceptable if consistently observed". By the 16th edition (2010), the option of capitalization has been dropped, though the word "usually" is still present. Of course, the CMS is only one authority among many, but I believe most if not all such sources agree on this point, and certainly the practice of scholarly journals is overwhelmingly in favor of lowercase. Is there an explanation somewhere for the deviation in this guideline from normal practice in music literature?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:39, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I see a lot of upper-case, too. Looking at my books, Heartz, AP Brown, Winter & Martin, Steinberg, Berger, Caplin, Rushton, Sutcliffe, Drabkin, Webster all use upper case. Rosen, R.Will, R.L. Marshall use lower-case. This is just a quick unscientific survey but I don't see a unanimous move of the scholarly types towards lowercase. Academic Journals likely have fixed formatting style sheets for these types of things. I don't know what sides they fall on. As for wikipedia, I think a reasonably large group of editors reached a consensus on it and then standardized. The important thing was to be consistent. Its more awkward seeing a mix from page to page or even paragraph to paragraph.DavidRF (talk) 01:43, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

And one has to consider that the extreme majority of published music uses upper case. That I would think should be just as important. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:07, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

What have the cover-design choices of publishers to do with it (not to mention the fact that a large number of editions still in print date back a hundred years or more)? I must protest to DavidRF that I did not use the word "unanimous", and that ten books can easily be found to counter those ten, and ten more in the face of the next ten offered. However, this would be a waste of all our time. Style guides are not unanimous among themselves either, of course. Demar Irvine, for example, has stuck to the older preference through several posthumous editions, and the New York Times style sheet also prefers capitals. However, D. Kern Holoman's Writing about Music stands alongside the Chicago Manual as the most authoritative reference on the subject in America, and Holoman does not even suggest the possibility of capitalizing "op." (or "no.", when the latter is a subdivision of the former). In the UK, the New Oxford Style Manual (incorporating New Hart's Rules) is equally unambiguous. Having said this, I should make it clear that I am not suggesting that the present guideline on this matter should be overturned. It merely seems to me that, in light of the weight of these authorities, the lowercase option should at least be allowed, so long as a consistent style in maintained within any one article.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:22, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I said my survey was "quick and unscientific", but I think it was enough to refute your claim of "overwhelmingly in favor of lowercase". I don't understand how a style guide can be considered so authoritative when so many famous musicologists ignore it. Yes, many publications do use the lowercase conventions too but I've looked more and I'm still finding that uppercase outnumbers lowercase around two to one or so -- even among recent publications. Most single publications pick one and stick with it. We just happened to pick the uppercase one here. We're not going to get into an edit war over something like this. If you've recently written an article using lowercase, then no one is going to sweep through and change it (unless its in the page title). A lot of these fussy details get overlooked if the content is good. I'd rather not change the specifications here though, because then there will be a push for thousands of page moves which I think would too disruptive. I'm just one voice, of course. If you want to discuss this with the larger group we can post a note at WP:CM and get more opinions.DavidRF (talk) 05:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you read different publications than I do. I can tell you, however, that my investigation here was prompted by a threat to do exactly what you say no one is going to do, and I have had to revert exactly this change in a number of articles in the past, where one editor or another has claimed, "It is wrong to use lowercase". This is the first time someone has tried to tell me where this authority lies. I have to say that, while the idea of uniformity across all of Wikipedia is an attractive idea, there are areas where this matters a lot more than the present question. Referencing formats, for a start, where there is a de facto policy of non-uniformity. My original question actually was "Is there an explanation somewhere for the deviation in this guideline from normal practice in music literature?" I might rephrase this now, "Who is this 'We' who 'just happened to pick uppercase', and where did 'We' make this decision?"—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:38, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I thought I had answered your question on "normal practice" with a dozen contradictions. If Sisman, Heartz, Brown, Webster and the Cambridge Guides do it one way and Rosen, New Grove and Oxford do it another how can one say there's a "normal practice" which can be deviated from? You can check the archives on this page (archives 2 & 3) and at WP:CM (archives 17 & 18) as well as Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music) and its talk page to see how the naming conventions were discussed. These discussions were in 2007 and 2008 or so. I was only peripherally involved. I believe [[User::JackofOz]] was leading some of it and he's still around. I didn't personally agree with everything myself (not a big fan of the hyphen between the key letter and flat/sharp but I got used to it). I see now the concern raised on your recent article by a good editor pointing to the WP:OPUS guideline. But, I've also seen cases in the Handel and Bach areas where an editor puts his foot down and won't change some things and people look the other way because his content is so good. Post a note at the talk page at [{WP:CM]] if you want more feedback. I think more people watch that page.DavidRF (talk) 08:02, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

To describe my edit summary at Jacobo Ficher ("'op. xx' ought to be capitalised (WP:OPUS) – later") as a "threat" seems overly sensitive. I simply wanted to point to Wikipedia's style guide in this matter. This one, like almost all other Wikipedia style guides, has been picked by consensus from a variety of different usage patterns in the established literature; this is similar to the Opera Project's treatment of foreign language, particularly French, titles. The number of editors coming to this conclusion was smallish (some prefer not to make a "me too" contribution if they agree with the likely result), and a different set of editors might have reached a different consensus. Having now such a guideline and the resulting consistency is a good thing. Whether is must be enforced in every article ought to be a judgement call; in the edit mentioned above I chose not to. On the other hand, I think it's impractical and unnecessary to change the guideline. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:58, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Coming from a European background, where to my observation everything from Beethoven to Reger was written lowercase and published like that, I was surprised to see here the capital "Op." that looks overly stately to me. The consensus mentioned had been reached before I came. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:20, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

First of all, I owe Michael Bednarek an apology for having used the word "threat" without qualification. Michael is one of the most reliable and vigilant editors I have encountered on Wikipedia, and I always take his points seriously. Nevertheless, I read the edit summary: "op. xx" ought to be capitalised (WP:OPUS) – later" as a promise (a better word, I think) to return and change this transgression of mine at some later date. Second, I should probably also make plain that another editor whom I have reverted on this subject more than once is JackofOz. I think I may owe him an apology, too, now that I know there is an official Wikipedia format. Third, it should be abundantly clear by now that "normal practice" does not mean "always lowercase", but neither does it mean "always capitalized". I also stand by my former position that lowercase is increasingly the predominant usage—at least in the academy, where I have been observing this trend since the mid-1960s.

Fourth, and finally, I think it necessary to answer a question from DavidRF left open earlier, namely "how a style guide can be considered so authoritative when so many famous musicologists ignore it". The answer is that authors seldom if ever have the authority to override the house style of their publishers, which are established in their style sheets. A few of these style sheets are published, and the most respected ones are used by many other publishers as the basis of their own house style. In America, the Chicago Manual is one of the most prominent of these, and one of the few comprehensive enough to extend to musicological subjects. It is still somewhat sketchy in this area, which is why D. Kern Holoman's book (originally the style sheet for 19th Century Music) has become so useful. In the UK, the Cambridge and Oxford style guides have a similar position. It is usually possible to determine which of these style guides a publisher uses by consulting their online instructions to authors. In other cases, the publisher supplies a style sheet to author's on request, or upon acceptance of their work for publication. More often than not, this in-house style sheet will refer to one of the published guides, and indicate any significant deviations. Wikipedia editors ought to be aware of how such styles are developed in the publishing trade, which is very different from the consensus method used on Wikipedia.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:53, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure. I've published papers before. It was in science and not in music but its still a field where there are lots of symbols and abbreviations. In my field, what was usually done is that some sort of macro is used and the journal applies their style sheet interpreting the macros. If the paper is sent to a different journal then subtle things (like Op. vs op.) will look different. We were usually just happy that the paper was published and spreading publications to different journals provided better visibility for the group. I'm checking as many recent and scholarly music publications as I can. I do see many op.'s and no.'s but at least as many Op.'s and No.'s. That's my general beef with these types of style guides. They aren't as followed in practice as they sound when reading them. So, I don't think invoking Holoman is enough to overrule the preferences here. Maybe I just don't want the disruption of thousands of page moves, but setting the "Op." and "No." preferences on this page are not unreasonable choices for wikipedia.DavidRF (talk) 17:54, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Song lyrics disambiguation and hatnotes

Other users and I have gotten into discussions in which it was declared that potential confusion is not a sufficient reason to include a song lyric excerpt in a disambiguation entry or hatnote; the confusion must be a significant topic in reliable sources.

Where is this guideline documented? I assume WP:V/WP:RS/WP:N are meant to cover this, but they aren't clear what the standard of verifiability is for disambiguations and hatnotes. Should we make it more explicit in the MoS? Or am I misreading the consensus?

(I am not sure whether this is the best venue. Related pages: WP:MOSDAB, WP:Hatnote, WP:Wikipedia is not Google) --SoledadKabocha (talk) 04:22, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

changing main MOS to match MOS:MUSIC

MOS:MUSIC differs from the main MOS on caps, and many of us feel this is the superior version. (See discussion over there on this.) However, your rule, while better, has its problems. I found Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American) where, IMO, the "capitalize as if the parentheses did not exist" rule does not work, because removing the parentheses would result in gibberish. I think in cases like this, where the parentheses indicate an alternative title rather than the full title, that the parenthetical part needs to be capitalized as if it stood alone. Consider Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker), which in the info box is Tear the Roof off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk). Okay, in this case it makes no difference, but obviously treating that as a single line w/o parentheses wouldn't work. — kwami (talk) 00:40, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Addition to MOS: names of organizations and institutions

Names of organizations and institutions are not currently covered by the MOS. I propose adding the following section (It's already been discussed by WP:CM.) :

Organisations and institutions

Names of organisations and institutions (e.g. orchestras, musical ensembles and groups, concert halls, festivals, schools etc.) should follow official usage (i.e. the spelling, punctuation etc. used by the organisation’s own publications). In the case of non-English names, we use official English versions if and when they have been established by the organisation itself. If not, we use the native name. Original English names, translated from other languages, should not be created.

Please suggest improvements. --Kleinzach 07:26, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

 DoneKleinzach 05:26, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Nationality

From this guideline:

• "Nationality should refer to national identity, in other words the national group with which the person identified, not the state of which the person was a citizen or subject."

This appears to contradict MOS:BIO:

• "In most modern-day cases this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen, national or permanent resident, or if notable mainly for past events, the country where the person was a citizen, national or permanent resident when the person became notable."

Comments are welcome. Thanks, Toccata quarta (talk) 07:03, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

In my view, the guideline here is better drafted. If there is a problem, it's at MOS:BIO. --Kleinzach 08:02, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Huh? If an American citizen says "I'm a Japanese citizen", Wikipedia should do the same? That violates WP:PSTS, as well as common sense. Toccata quarta (talk) 08:17, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Names with a definitive article, i.e. The

This article states: "Mid-sentence, per the MoS, the word "the" should in general not be capitalized in continuous prose" While WP:MoS states: "However there are some conventional exceptions," One of these exceptions is the title of artistic works, but why does this exception not extend to the title of bands? Is The Beatles not the full, entire name? Does that not make The Beatles a proper noun? And do we not capitalize all proper nouns, even if that proper noun starts with the? Rip-Saw (talk) 03:25, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

And what about "The The"?  ;) --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:08, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Cover songs layout

Shouldn't there be a section on here specifying when and how notable cover versions of songs would need new sections on the existing article of the original song? Raykyogrou0 (Talk) 16:26, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Prominent notational example contains grammatical blooper

This example displays a grammatical error that an eight-year-old music student should see straight away: parallel fifths, between soprano and alto voices. Can someone correct it? Otherwise, it should be pulled, I think.

. And less important is the problem that the "6" is not smaller and superscript, after the roman numeral IV. I can live with that. Tony (talk) 10:51, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Why do the parallel fifths matter in this case? The example is illustrating neither correct nor incorrect compositional usage, and is not referenced to any particular musical style (in many of which parallel fifths are perfectly acceptable).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:21, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

It's an example of pure four-part homophony, which is almost universally a texture used to illustrate the technical aspects of tonal harmony and voice-leading. Blatant parallel fifths ... especially between the top two parts, will sound weird, and are universally known to be a bad grammatical fault. It's clearly not Debussyan parallel fifths for a textural or extra-musical effect (e.g. Images). And last time I looked, this example made no allusion to non- or semi-tonal styles, including certain types of pop and jazz, where this might be used as an effect.

So why would you illustrate an architectural style of brick facade with a picture of a wall that has been smeared with faeces? Tony (talk) 03:39, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Very colourful language, but the analogy does not hold. If you will look at the context in which the example is found, you will discover that it is not illustrating "pure four-part homophony" or "the technical aspects of tonal harmony and voice-leading". Instead, it is being used as an "Example of large image size with little space between notes", showing how to "keep the score as large as possible" so as "not [to] contain large spaces between the notes". It makes no difference for what this example might or might not be used elsewhere (perhaps an example of truly dreadful parallel fifths, to be avoided at all costs). The only question here should be, is it a good illustration for the point being made? —Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:51, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Tony1, you complained about this image at least once before – see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Music/Archive 6#Deary me: parallel 5ths in example (27 July 2011). I responded at the time: "Apparently, that example is a transcription from a book (see File:D'Indy Tristan chord IV6-V small.PNG, although from which is not clear to me from that description)." Which other image would you like to see to illustrate point 3.2 of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music#Images and notation? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:22, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Yep, again. It's a flashing light suggesting that WP is ignorant. If someone could put the soprano voice under the alto, it would be just fine. Also, it's not a Tristan chord, so the filename is very misleading. Tony (talk) 07:22, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Your response baffles me: Applying "ignorant" not to a sentient being but to a publication strikes me as odd; even odder coming from an editor with almost 100,000 contributions since 2005 to this publication. And "ignorant" of what? As Jerome pointed out above, it's not used to illustrate four-part homophony or any other aspect of tonal harmony – and parallel fifths are not universally verboten. You must be aware that this is an image and changing the notation there is not possible. Why don't you provide a better example? However, I can't see the point of that subsection and suggest that it be wholly removed. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:57, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

OK. Yeah ... "Example of large image size with little space between notes:" ... Maybe I'm thick, but it's unclear to me. To go back to the original point: the acceptability of parallel fifths in some contexts is widely known, and I alluded to it above. But not in four-part vocal style to illustrate, in such an exposed way, a traditional point. It's rather like using bad grammar to illustrate a linguistic point ... it's unnecessary and undesirable. Tony (talk) 15:41, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, I have made the nearly superhuman effort to actually examine the example in situ. It is an analytic reduction, by which d'Indy attempts to explain the underlying, simpler construction upon which the Tristan chord and its resolution are based. Such diagrams are often used (by theorists of such opposed camps as Schenker and Schoenberg, for example) to illustrate how parallel fifths or octaves in a more background structure are avoided or disguised by voice-leading embellishments at a more foreground level. D'Indy's purpose here seems to be the reverse: to reveal an underlying case of parallel-fifth construction by stripping away the surface voice leading. The citation is at second-hand, however, from a book by Jean-Jacques Nattiez, where it is given as an example of one amongst several very diverse ways of explaining the Tristan chord. As Michael points out, it would be wholly inappropriate to change d'Indy's analysis for the sake of an ignorant assumption of what the musical content is meant to represent. Perhaps Tony has got a good point, however. If he can jump to this mistaken conclusion, then so might many other Wikipedia readers who lack either the technical expertise or the desire to make the two mouse clicks necessary to track down the context of the example. If an equivalent example of the technical requirements of music typesetting (without the seemingly offensive parallel fifths) can be found, then of course it should be substituted. Unless, of course, the whole section is deleted, as Michael suggests.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:13, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

As the paragraph that has this image is about using off-wiki score notation software it should be scrapped. We now have the Score extension, which produces scores at a set size. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 03:43, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Score extension

It would probably be helpful to mention the score extension in the manual and encourage people to use it instead of creating scores in other programs: mw:Extension:Score. --WS (talk) 14:28, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Coding accidentals

The section Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music#Accidentals seems very plain, that the templates of the form {{Music|symbolname}} are preferred for accidentals. However, an issue arose today over the article Oboe, when an editor replaced three of these templates with what look to me like XML markup, justifying the change on grounds that "they symbol itself" is preferable to these templates. Upon checking the MOS/Music more carefully, I discovered a mention of these codes much further down the list, at Images and notation, subhead 6, which seems either to flatly contradict the earlier section, or at least to offer an alternative way of marking up text. It does look as if this reference to XML code may be meant to apply to musical examples inserted in articles, rather than to article text, but this is not entirely clear. Can the guideline be amended in some way, either to indicate both of thesese methods are equally acceptable, or to plainly indicate which is preferred?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:04, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I can see no reason to use HTML character entities instead of the template {{Music}}; I suggest to remove the inconsistent subheading 6 you mentioned. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:12, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

It appears from further discussion on my talk page that the template merely calls the HTML code spelled out in subheading 6. Does this make any difference to your opinion? I do not myself understand why templates should be preferred to plain, honest code for which they are only surrogates.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:19, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

It's true that the template merely emits those HTML codes, although that may have been different over that template's lifetime. Anyway, almost all templates can be written in plain Wiki markup – their point is to make Wiki text easier to write and read. It also provides the small benefit of being able to see where such things are being used. I still think the guideline is correct in its advice to use the template, and the inconsistent line should be removed. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:44, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I can see the logic in that. Certainly it is easier for me to remember the music-template calls than the seemingly arbitrary HTML codes for the characters, and they are more transparent when working in the edit window.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:19, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

No-one has to remember the codes as the three characters ♭♯♮ are in the Symbols drop-down menu underneath the edit window here on WP. I only used the unicode codes because I know them, but they are functionally equivalent ♭ ♯ ♮.

I believe the music template should be deprecated for inline accidentals, which will reduce template calls on music-related pages. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 03:54, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

That drop-down box and those symbols may be available in your environment, but I'm not sure they are present in every skin and on every Wikipedia editing platform (mobile devices), and I suspect they are not easily accessible to editors with various impairments. Anyway, the proper place to discuss this is probably Template talk:Music. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:40, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Names (definite article)

Regarding: "For bands, capitalized "The" is optional in wikilinks and may be preferred when listing: A number of groups increasingly showed blues influences, among them The Rolling Stones, The Animals and The Yardbirds."

Why? This passage runs counter to the rest of our MoS:

The Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music#Capitalization states:

• "Standard English text formatting and capitalization rules apply to the names of bands and individual artists".

The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music) states that a lower-case definite article should be used in band names:

• "Mid-sentence, per the MoS, the word 'the' should in general not be capitalized in continuous prose, e.g. 'Wings featured Paul McCartney from the Beatles and Denny Laine from the Moody Blues.'"

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music)#Capitalization states:

• In band names, and titles of songs or albums, capitalize all words except:

• articles (an, a, the)

The Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters says:

• "Generally do not capitalize the definite article in the middle of a sentence."

 ... and it only serves as a bone of contention during these minutia-based debates. I suggest that the passage be removed. Any thoughts? GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:31, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes. This is utter nonsense; a manipulative ploy to ensure that you retain ownership of "your" articles, down to the finest detail. Joefromrandb (talk) 01:46, 12 August 2013 (UTC)