IMSLP Forums

OK, I would like to add "Polish" as a user language category, and I've read the instructions in the Babel section, but I'm not entirely clear on where and how to initiate the template...

The other thing is, I notice that flute (recorder) is one category. Does that mean that this category includes both those who play the transverse flute (Querflöte) and recorder (Blockflöte)? Or that this category is just for the recorder, and the "transverse flute" category is yet to be created?

I play the transverse flute, but I wouldn't know one end of a recorder from the other (the only time I've laid hands on a recorder was one of those awful plastic mass-produced ones in elementary school.) I suspect there would be many recorder players who have never played a transverse flute. Maybe in the 18th century they could be lumped together in one category, but in this day and age they are quite different instruments with different applications and different repertoire. Would it be possible to separate the two categories?

After all, guitarists and lutenists have separate categories!

Aldona

Aldona,
On a related note, do you think related instruments should be grouped together as one category as opposed to being separated to different groups? For example, should we lump together the piccolo, the tranverse flute and the alto flute in G in one category - "Flute"? The same goes for other instruments, whether "Oboe" should include the standard oboe, the cor anglais and the oboe d'amore, or each instrument stands on its own.

Aldona you speak polish? That will come in handy when we are presented PWM scores.

To start with a new page, or a new page in general, type Template:User XX in the url after /wiki/ or type it in the search box and click on the red link you get as result.

Then just copy and translate one of another language. Let me know something if it doesn't work.

For flute / recorder, sure you can split it if this is consensus, there are only four members so you can ask them which of the two instruments they play.

About the splitting: I think it's best to separate instruments if this reflects professional uses - e.g. violinists and violists are really separate professionals, how's that with the alto oboists and oboists?

Yes, I speak Polish...as well as someone who has 2 Polish parents but has never been to Poland can be expected to.

Well enough to carry on an intelligent conversation with my parents (most of the time) and because my family is full of musicians (not medical people), I could certainly help you with PWM scores although I often find medical consultations with Polish patients challenging.

As for the flute vs. recorder - I might try a poll (it would show us how many users there are out there who have not put the Babel "flute(recorder)" category on their user page because they are as confused as I am!)

Personally I would be happy to have separate categories for flute, alto flute and piccolo, if only for ease of locating works for a particular instrument. However, the impression I get is that there are very few works specifically for piccolo (it tends to be an orchestral/ band instrument...although PDQ Bach's "Sonata Piccola" does come to mind... ), and the alto flute is an instrument which started to be used widely only in the 20th century, so most works written specifically for it would not be PD yet. (Except a few works by Boehm (1794-1881), who invented it, and perhaps some transcriptions of older works under a CC licence.)

(Maybe one day I'll submit my transcription of Schubert's "Arpeggione" Sonata for alto flute under a CC licence, but at the moment it needs a lot more work and I'm too shy... it's definitely a work in progress.)

The cor anglais and oboe d'amore are much older instruments, and would have more PD repertoire available. I don't know if there are specific professionals who play one and not another - I know when my father played the oboe in a professional orchestra he also sometimes played the cor anglais as well. I notice that there are separate categories on IMSLP for oboe and cor anglais - maybe the creators and users of these categories could give us some feedback on the practicalities of this?

Sorry if my presence on the forums is a bit erratic for the next few days...work and personal life have thrown a few more things at me than normal. (as the old saying goes, normally I try to take one day at a time, but lately several days have attacked me at once. )

Aldona

Speaking as an oboist, anyone who plays english horn (cor anglais) or oboe d'amore also plays oboe, so I don't think there would be any need for a separate category. There are professionals who play only oboe or only English horn, but they are, for the most part, interchangeable. But I don't think the english horn and oboe d'amore have more PD music available than the oboe, mainly because they weren't nearly as popular as the oboe in a solo capacity, and most works available today for those instruments (and most of the repertoire) are published fairly recently and almost always with an editor.

aldona wrote: (Maybe one day I'll submit my transcription of Schubert's "Arpeggione" Sonata for alto flute under a CC licence, but at the moment it needs a lot more work and I'm too shy... it's definitely a work in progress.)

I would buy a recording of this

And for the record, I think specific instruments should be seperated, and catagorized under a family as the parent. So all oboe sheets, and then English Horn and Oboe seperate as child catagories and lists.

Though I doubt there's much PD bass clarinet music....


-Lala-

This situation brings up a question that I had posed last year but don't remember whether it was answered well enough. The genre categories that one is required to choose from when setting up the details on a page for a work seem awfully limited (although I do understand that they could be made unwieldy with too *many* choices).

For instance, just today I set up a page for Tchaikovsky's "Liturgy of St. John Chrysostome," and none of the genre choices for sacred choral music were adequate. Since there was no "Orthodox service" or "misc. sacred" category to choose I went with "Mass," which is somewhat better than "cantata" or "oratorio" but still isn't satisfactory. On the other hand, that's how the Gretchaninov setting was categorized.

Any plans to add some more (useful) genres?

Lyle, Feldmahler had planned a cataloguing system, but have no idea if that is still on his mind.

In the meantime, http://imslp.org/wiki/Browse_by_genre -> browse by instrument on the right. These are manual compiled lists, that are far from complete, but they are very flexible. I think that these lists will become pretty complete when enough time has passed so enough specialists will have passed by. They might once even replace the repertoire books?

So feel free to start up your own categories. Just add [[:Instrument Composition Lists]] to your page so they show up in the right category.

Peter wrote:[...] So feel free to start up your own categories. Just add [[:Instrument Composition Lists]] to your page so they show up in the right category.

Thanks, but I'm concerned more with the limitations of the genre listings than with the existing instrument categories.

Peter wrote:Lyle, Feldmahler had planned a cataloguing system, but have no idea if that is still on his mind.

Very much so. This will (hopefully) be part of IMDBP's ultimate structure. Implementing it on IMSLP is currently hard because of the labor intensive tagging process which needs to be done for every page... hopefully IMDBP's structure will prevent such redundancies.