Art Song category

[Operalala]

Steltz, yes, it will be replaced with "Art Song". And the same with mis-named "Chansons". If the word "Lied" is in the title, it of course will stay.

[Operalala]

Davydov, no reason to "hey" me. The only opposition you have made is your own non-"consensus", and you have presented no constructive suggestions for improvement.
I am working on this little corner of the IMSLP, and now is the time to get this section straightened out.

Operalala

And yes, I objected categorically to a proposal you made to to mix Operas and Ballets together in a single category. So now every move I make, I get your categorical opposition. Please stop it.

[steltz]

Operalala, with all due respect, you seem to think that the only suggestions that are constructive are ones you agree with.

You admitted in the first set of discussions that you came into it late, and then objected so strongly to everything you didn't like that it's no wonder Davydov quit the project.

I find it absurd that people will not be able to search for Schubert Lieder under the word "Lieder" and I don't appreciate being treated as if it's not a legitimate concern just because you don't feel it's legitimate.

I also feel like you are being completely disrespectful to Davydov for saying he has presented no constructive suggestions for improvement. He presented a whole system that was a very constructive attempt to solve some problems. You can't say it wasn't constructive just because you didn't like it.

Since when is "collaborative" to be taken as "my way or the highway"?

[Operalala]

Steltz,
What we need a specific term, that if you search it, it will bring up all the Lieder/Art Songs/Melodies that you are looking for. I also habitually call these "Lieder", but in actually going through and trying to sort out the Lieder on the IMSLP, I can see clearly that this term causes confusion in two areas: 1) many people don't realize that this word is plural, or know what the singular is, and 2) some people do think this applies only to German songs, and simply don't think to use it for anything non-German, so now for instance, if you do try to do a search for "Lieder" your search will bring up virtually no French Lieder.
And for God's sake, please do not take people to task for speaking up in a discussion.
Operalala

[steltz]

Yes, there are people that don't understand singular vs. plural, but that's not everybody, and I don't think we can delete words that are in common usage.

For example, I went to Sibley and searched "Lieder". I definitely didn't get only those works that had "Lieder" in the title. And my university is the same. If major institutions allow a search under a particular term, then I believe we have to accept that it is internationally accepted as a search term. And, I believe people will use it to search whether they understand that it is plural or not.

I'm not sure we can sort this corner out without sorting the whole system out. For instance, I liked the fact that Davydov's system was hierarchical in the sense that Vocal could have chanson, lieder, and all sorts of other specifics underneath, so people could search for the general or the specific. I know that under your system people will get Lieder if they search for Art song and German, but that is dictating that they have to know to do specifically that and nothing else. It presupposes that they won't automatically try "Lieder". Under his system, both types of searches will work, i.e. better usability. (His Vocal category would also take into account multiple voice chamber works as well.)

The reason I'm not sure we can sort one corner out on its own, is that we have to decide on the meta-category for the stage works, and I'm not sure what you propose for the French opera-ballets.

In the meantime, I have to reiterate that I feel people will search for Lieder, so it has to be in there somewhere.

As for your final comment, I am not taking you to task for speaking up in a discussion per se, but the comments about Davydov not being constructive were below the belt, considering the sheer amount of work he went to in the first place. And this is apart from the fact that if you are allowed to speak up in a discussion, so is he. I objected to you telling him to stop it.

[Operalala]

Steltz, this thread is about Categories, not Tags. Category:Lieder, Category:Chansons, Category:Art Songs.

For example, I went to Sibley and searched "Lieder". I definitely didn't get only those works that had "Lieder" in the title.

Look further. When the word wasn't in the Title, it was in one of the "Other Titles". Sibley doesn't have a "Lieder" category, or tags.

[pml]

Hi Operalala,

May I point out that the main problem with categorisation is owing to the failure of the FTE work page template (i.e. the format of any page with a musical score on it, beginning with {{#fte:imslppage ... ) to have a flexible means of deploying information about works. Davydov's proposal of reorganisation of genres elsewhere was a good one (and I liked its quasi-non-hierarchical structure), but it needs the implementation of a better means of programming in the FTE imslppage template. There was agreement on the previous thread that fundamental change was needed, but that it should be postponed until the technical means of implementing it was fully supported. Yes, it is agreed that the longer this is put off the more work will be required later, but unless you want to find someone who can be employed to do the work needed, the site designers are unable to do anything about the problem now.

I respect that you've started this thread to discuss the consequences of making changes to the IMSLP instead of simply diving into the task headfirst without consultation, but I am concerned that the temperature in this thread has risen above a comfortable level - which should tell you something about the desirability of going ahead with this change.

By going forward with your changes before the IMSLP genres are re-defined and the programming put in place to support it, you're creating a lot of work for yourself now - and possibly just as much work later for others, to reconcile anything you do now with what is agreed upon sometime in the future.

For one, I also would like to state my strong disagreement with your proposal to remove the "Lieder" category from works pages and replace it with "Art Songs". A superior implementation of the imslppage FTE template would allow the two categories to be employed concurrently, with "Lieder" being the specific sub-type of "Art Song" exemplified by an individual Lied. You're "fixing" a problem that would not exist if another underlying problem were addressed.

Regards, Philip

[Operalala]

The biggest problem we have now is not with the "Lieder" per se, but with the French "Melodies", for which we have no proper (sub)category. And then, if we have special subcategories for German "Lieder" and French "Melodies", what do we do with all the rest of the languages, like English, Czech, Russian, Italian, etc.
If and when a secondary genre system is implemented with "Lieder" a subtype of "Art Songs", the term will have to be moved and replaced anyway, other subgroups would have to be labeled as well, and presumably all non-German Lieder would have to be re-labeled something-or-other. A better idea might be simply to use the language as the subcategory.

There are 3 facets to this thread :
1) We have a zillion art songs in the IMSLP which are pretty randomly categorized, and we need a category for them, just like we have for operas, piano pieces, symphonies, etc.
2) We need to name this category. I personally call them all "Lieder", but suggested "Art Songs" as a better choice, for reasons I've given in http://www.imslpforums.org/viewtopic.ph ... 980#p15989 and http://www.imslpforums.org/viewtopic.ph ... =15#p16025 :

• a) Terminology and Categories on the IMSLP are all in English generically.
  b) Many people don't realize that Lieder is plural, or know what the singular is.
  c) Even though the term "Lied" is widely used by musicians, we still get people uploading French songs looking for some French term, like "Chanson", and using it incorrectly. And conversely, if you do try to search for "Lieder" your search will bring up virtually no French Lieder.

3) Whether we use the term "Art Songs" or "Lieder", we will also need a category for "Popular and Traditional Songs" for those works which are tagged "Chansons" correctly.

[steltz]

what do we do with all the rest of the languages, like English, Czech, Russian, Italian, etc.

Davydov's system took care of this quite well -- the category "Vocal" was for "Works for one or more singers, where each performs a unique solo part". The subcategory didn't need to be filled in at all. So a solo piece with German text could be labeled Lieder, and with French text could be labeled art song or melodie, or chanson or whatever fits, and Czech songs don't need to have the subcategory filled in at all, and they can still be found under a search for "works for one or more singers . . . ".

To answer your 3 points:

a) there are terms that might be from another language, but have come into common usage, and are common search terms. Scrapping them is like insisting that people scrap the word "piano" and use "soft" because "piano" is Italian.
b) ignorance of singular and plural won't stop people using the word as a search term.
c) no one system is going to prevent people uploading things incorrectly. There are a lot of good people who scan and upload things here who don't necessarily have an in-depth knowledge of music, and therefore can't fill in the bits and pieces correctly. It will always be up to other users with more knowledge to clean things up. At least the stuff is being scanned and uploaded.

[Operalala]

Steltz, the term in question refers to the name of the Category that will contain all the Lieder, Melodies, Arias, Song Cycles etc. This thread has nothing to do with the validity of the term "Lieder" itself, or it's use in tagging German songs, but what to name the Category.
Art Songs are 1 of several types of Vocal music for one or more singers.

[steltz]

Yes, but you did say you would be deleting the word lieder from all entries unless it appears in the title. THAT is a huge problem, since it is an acceptable search term in many libraries.

As Philip says,

A superior implementation of the imslppage FTE template would allow the two categories to be employed concurrently

This is the ideal for which we need to strive, and I would object strongly to one person single-handedly deleting a category without consensus from others, particularly when it involves a word in common usage.

[Operalala]

This thread is about a Genre Category.
The use of "Lieder" in the context you are referring to is a Tag. When you search for "Lieder" in non-German libraries, your search results will contain the term in the title, subtitle or one of the alternate titles, but few if any in the subject heading - the cataloging term in English is "Song". The solution would be to ask the devs to add a Tag field to the workpage template.

[steltz]

I don't agree with you that non-German libraries only bring it up if it's in the title, I've tried it with several, and I get enough works that don't have "Lieder" in the title to convince me that, whether it's a Tag or something else, it's a valid search term.

I have to reiterate that, as Philip says, we need to allow the two categories to be employed concurrently. Your system doesn't do that, and we shouldn't be deleting lieder as a category.

[Operalala]

Yes, exactly, "Lieder" is a search tag, not a Category, and there is no Tag field on the work pages. As the Sibley example shows, "Lieder" is not a standard cataloging term either.
This thread is concerned with Genre Categories.

[pml]

Operalala,

as you've defined it, the Genre category is "Vocal"; the sub-category is "Solo vocal works"; the sub-sub-category is "Art Songs", and then we have individual sub-sub-sub-categories such as "Lieder", "Mélodies", and so on.

Now, an even more sophisticated implementation of the fte template might (note, I say might) allow a particular assignment of a "child tag" such as

|Genre=Lieder

to inherit all of the "parent" super-categories, i.e. Art Songs, Solo vocal works, Vocal. However, at present IMSLP doesn't support more than one super-category "meta-genre"; you only get "Vocal (non-operatic), just as with "Chanson".

An interim solution - based on the way you can specify multiple options for certain fields in the fte template - might be to allow multiple genres in the one description, i.e.,

|Genre 1=Lieder
|Genre 2=Art Song
|Genre 3=Solo vocal works

However, this cannot be done with the template currently - at present it will generate the infamous "metagenre error". Now, this might be an easier kludge in terms of re-programming the fte template as it currently stands; and furthermore, it might also help with "sui generis" works such as Rimsky et al's Mlada (opera = ballet) or numerous Berlioz works (Damnation de Faust, opera = oratorio/cantata; Harold in Italy, symphony = symphonic viola concerto).

Otherwise I stand by my earlier comment, you shouldn't be attempting to "fix" a problem that wouldn't exist if not for a more significant problem, namely the overall IMSLP genre and metagenre system, as it will inevitably involve a lot of manual work now, and more later.

Regards, Philip