Category talk:Voicing

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The voicing category should only contain links to categories which actually contain scores; we don't want to have listings for voicing categories that don't have any scores in them, which will only make the page longer and more complicated.

I also am changing the sorting rules so that these are a little more logical - S, A, T, B are not sorted alphabetically, and so the sorting under each number of voices is haphazard. Here's a first attempt to re-order the category:

I'll start with 10 or more voices: first part of the schema, increasing number of voices: 10vv, then 11vv, then 12vv... thus we're still increasing voices one by one from 10 upwards, but now sorted only under the one entry: ~ [[Category:Voicing|~10...
[[Category:Voicing|~11...
[[Category:Voicing|~12...

Second part of the schema: list all of the categories with single choir, then double, triple, finally four or more:
[[Category:Voicing|~12,1choir...
[[Category:Voicing|~12,2choirs...
[[Category:Voicing|~12,3choirs...
[[Category:Voicing|~40,4+choirs]]

Third part of the schema: alphabetically an AATB choir would come before a normal SATB choir, I think most people will want the list ordered from high voices down to low voices. So I'm going to use numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 in place of S, A, T, B. So SATB, or 1234, will then sort before AATB, or 2234. Unison or equal voices sort as 0.

So the first entry in the 10 or more voices will be 10 equal voices:
[[Category:Voicing|~10,1choir,0000000000]]
probably followed next by SSSAATTTBB:
[[Category:Voicing|~10,1choir,1112233344]]

--Pml 17:59:39, 2006-03-15 (PST)

Solo vocal vs Choral solo

We seem to have a hierarchy of solo vocal and Choral solo categories. Ave maris stella (Josep Navarro i Solves) belongs more logically in the uncreated Choral solo STB than in solo STB, doesnt it? Richard Mix 22:16, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Hyphen in category titles

I just discovered that these voicing categories originally had a hyphen in the title (e.g. Category:2-part choral music). The reason for replacing them with a hyphen-less version seems to have been technical (some issue with the way they were handled by the wiki system). Is it possible that this issue is now solved with the upgrade to a newer version of the MediaWiki? If so, what about going back to the original titles? —Carlos Email.gif 20:54, 23 August 2012 (CDT)

I would not change back to the hyphenated titles, because (1) it would involve changing all the categorizations (okay, I know that can be handled by templates and ReplaceText maneuvers, but that is just making more work); (2) the unhyphenated titles have been around for 5 years, and people are used to them. – Chucktalk Giffen 18:46, 28 August 2012 (CDT)
Thanks for your feedback, Chuck. Just one last doubt: on a strictly grammatical basis, is is correct/acceptable to write those titles without a hyphen? —Carlos Email.gif 19:27, 28 August 2012 (CDT)
Hi Carlos. As far as I know, and from considerable googling various "2-part harmony", "3-part harmonly", etc., it seems that both "2 part harmony" and "2-part harmony" are acceptable. – Chucktalk Giffen 21:23, 28 August 2012 (CDT)
That's fine, thanks! —Carlos Email.gif 00:18, 29 August 2012 (CDT)
If you Google recieve, you'll find hits for that too, but that doesn't make it correct. :) I think I remember that it is grammatically incorrect to omit the hyphen in one-part music (since one-part modifies music), but no hyphen should be used in "music in one part" (where "one part" does not modify something that follows). I am traveling and won't have access to my stylebook for about 2 weeks, but can check what it says after I get home. I've asked a copy editor friend if they can cite the relevant Stylebook excerpt in the meanwhile. --Vaarky (talk) 04:28, 7 September 2012 (CDT)
Compound adjectives take a hyphen, as in "that was a well-written essay" - pretty standard grammar rule. My students don't usually omit the hyphen twice. :) Jkelecom (talk) 01:00, 11 September 2012 (CDT)

Reply by: Chucktalk Giffen 11:41, 11 September 2012 (CDT)

 Help 

I've added the proper hyphens everywhere, in line with preferred style conventions.

How fine to slice...

In a cleanup note Vaarky suggested creating Category:TTBarB. It seems to me there is a tradeoff of nuance for simplicity, and another problem is that we don't even have definitions of the existing SATB ranges: anyone seeking SAA repertory would want to be sure to check SSA as well, and having to worry about MMM, SMA, MMA, MAA, SMM… as well makes life harder instead of easier, unless we can come up with a different search for women's voices. Richard Mix (talk) 22:57, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Category renaming

Not knowing whether I've miscapitalized or put words in the wrong order to produce a redlink has occasioned a lot of cursing at the computer at my end, and on Chuck's Talkpage I've proposed renaming the pages at Category:Solo vocal music. Besides applying CPDL capitalization conventions we seem to agree that Category:Soprano solo is the most elegant target for the present Category:Solo Soprano and this would also harmonize with the word order convention at Category:Choral solo music. Since this might annoy those who are now used to the way things are and involves a lot of find-replace work, I'd like to invite comments before proceeding!

Btw, I hope at some point 'Choral solo music' will get reconsidered; it's a fuzzy concept to me: the multi-category searches "SATB + Solo SATB" and "SATB + Choral soli SATB" should be describing the same thing but give quite different results. Richard Mix (talk) 04:53, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Richard. Regarding the Choral solo music categories, I fully agree with you; I never quite understood the difference between a choral soloist and a soloist proper. Perhaps the intention with Solo vocal music was to set apart works for solo voice not accompanied by a choir, such as Lieder and Art songs, but this distinction was never really enforced.
As for the capitalization issue: the Solo template cited by me on Chuck's talk page can handle this for us, too, if desired. Hence, 'Soprano solo', 'Solo Soprano' or 'Solo soprano' would all be acceptable formats. But again, I'm not opposed to renaming the categories, either. Just trying to avoid the extra work involved ;)
For multiple voices, what would be better in your opinion: 'SATB solo', 'SATB soli' or 'SATB quartet'? —Carlos Email.gif 14:35, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Less work sounds very good! I'd vote for "soli" so we don't have to make trio vs terzetto decisions (and are they in fact a quartet as in Missa solemnis or 4 soloists as in Messiah?). It's maybe still a question whether to spell out voice types: 1|S (without "solo") seemed intuitive to many contributors, but I like the way "Soprano" (Mezzosoprano, Contralto) emphasizes the traditional 3 fold classification of solo voice types. I guess it's better not to try distinguishing SMABar soli from MCtTBar soli though! Richard Mix (talk) 20:42, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
I'd like to bring up one other aspect, regarding the impression "Solo Soprano" versus "Soprano solo" create in users who think more casually (or not at all) about CPDL schema: "Solo Soprano" implies a work for lone soprano, while "Soprano solo" sounds as though a soprano solo is included within a choral work. It's the issue of "Solo vocal vs Choral solo" raised higher up on this page. Vaarky (talk) 07:35, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
I have to question how many users might think solo sop. and sop. solo are non-interchangeable (and whether they then agree on which is which). Isn't it better to use existing terminology than cpdl-specific coinages? I could be wrong, but "choral solo" is not something I recall in any other context. What it seems to mean is "choir with soloists" i.e. neither SATB nor Solo vv, but a category that doesn't yet exist for the combined forces. Richard Mix (talk) 19:22, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
I defer to others on this. I think the distinction will make a difference in very few cases. Vaarky (talk) 19:45, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Polychoral categories: yikes

I've noticed that SATB.SSATB sorts differently than SSATB.SATB and that the bigger choir is listed first about half the time. Also inexplicable is why we have ATTB.SSST but SSST.ATBB. Shall I just leave SSST.ATTB as is? Richard Mix (talk) 20:27, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

This is worth posting in forums.cpdl.org so others have a higher chance of seeing your excellent question. Perhaps there is a way to define equivalents systemically and merge the results (the way symlinks work under Unix)? Vaarky (talk) 01:14, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Hi Richard, what about creating a few general rules to cover these situations? We could define that choirs be sorted by size, from biggest to smallest; and for those that are the same size, by vocal range, from higher to lower. That way, we'd have just SSATB.SATB; and ATTB.SSST would become SSST.ATTB. —Carlos (talk) 15:44, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I like this idea, but we should sort from fewest voices upward. People are more likely to have forces for satb.satb.satb than for SATBarBx8. Vaarky (talk) 16:57, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
If I understand Vaarky (and I might not), that concern is with sorting order ("upward" meaning fewest vv. at "top" of a list?) and doesn't affect the question of whether SATB.SSATB should be deprecated in favor of SSATB.SATB. Bigger first seems one of two workable conventions, but there might be questions about whether SSTBBB.SAATTB has the higher choir on the left or the right. Richard Mix (talk) 02:09, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
I meant comment #2 in this thread to convey that I support deduping; sorry I wasn't clear (I did get wires cross in my comment #4). For SSTBBB.SAATTB vs SAATTB.SSTBBB, I'd like to see lexicographical (dictionary sort) in which S comes first, A, then T, then Bar, then B, such that a word starting with SS always comes before same-length a word starting with SA. If sorting this way, I'm thinking putting the shorter "word" on the left up to the dot makes more sense instead of the word with more letters, but I'm not sure. Vaarky (talk) 03:27, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, that's unambiguous and you've convinced me about small first. No work to do up through 5-part choral music; 6-part choral music is another story. Richard Mix (talk) 04:57, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Extra eyes won't hurt, but I think it's now done, except for wording instructions for making new categories. Richard Mix (talk) 23:44, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Way to go, Richard! Glad to see that a new standard was agreed upon and implemented so quickly :D —Carlos (talk) 19:31, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

What voicing for monophone Gregorian chants?

In theory it might be choral solo tenor, but perhaps we should create a voicing for monophonic plainchant?--StJohnsAnnapolis (talk) 16:37, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

OK, I see at least one chant is categorized as Unison, which seems apt. --StJohnsAnnapolis (talk) 18:28, 20 March 2019 (UTC)