Template talk:Genre

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Sort keys

I like this template, but unfortunately, it does not categorize Masses properly, since when a work is categorized as a Mass, it requires a special sort key of the form "ComposerSurname, ComposerFirstname(s)". Probably the template needs some tweaking for this special case (an extra sortkey parameter for the Masses case, and also a different sortkey for other cases, such as then "The Haven" is to be sorted under "Haven, The). -- Chucktalk Giffen 21:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I had forgotten this special case. A sort key was added, one just needs to add 9=surname, name to the template. Fortunately, the other sortkey for alternative page titles is no longer necessary, DEFAULTSORT will suffice in those cases. —Carlos Email.gif 05:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
This doesn't seem to be working... see Missa Beati Conradi (Peter Griesbacher) and Messe de Minuit pour Noël (Marc-Antoine Charpentier) for examples. --Bobnotts talk 18:05, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for noticing that, Rob. I just reverted a Text Replace that shouldn't have been applied to this template. Carlos 22:43, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Would it be possible to use the sort key in this template with Evening Canticles and Morning Canticles as well as Masses? This page is currently incorrectly sorted in the category, for example. Also, would it be possible to not drop the final "s" on "Canticles" since in most cases, there are two canticles paired - Magnificat with Nunc dimittis and Te deum with Jubilate, for example. --Bobnotts talk 13:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, sort key added to the Canticles, and final 's' maintained. —Carlos Email.gif 13:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Thank you, Carlos. Now just two more - sorry! Could you please fix Preces and Responses which are also sorted by composer surname and should have the final "s" of "Responses" included. Also, Communion Services which should drop the final "s" but be sorted by composer surname. Thanks --Bobnotts talk 14:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
No problem, Rob! These were added too. —Carlos Email.gif 21:50, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
And even more... Category:Requiems, sort by surname the same as masses etc. Thanks! --Bobnotts talk 16:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Another final s needed, maybe: I was just changing Christmas (secular) to Christmas in the genre field of Pastorales Graduale und Offertorium (August Zangl). Richard Mix 07:58, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Richard, I'd suggest you change it to 'Carols' in the Genre template and add Category:Chrismas to the bottom of the page; this is because Christmas is conceptually a season, not a genre. Please read the topic bellow ("What is a Genre") for more information. Regards, —Carlos Email.gif 12:50, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I hate to use the overbroad "Motet", but "carol" isnt quite correct. You of course are correct about Season vs. Genre. Richard Mix 00:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Responsorie and Offertorie are two more genres I would fix myself if I knew how. Richard Mix 23:54, 18 January 2011 (CST)

Hi Richard, these items were added, they are now shown as 'Responsory' and 'Offertory'. Is that what you had in mind? —Carlos Email.gif 05:47, 19 January 2011 (CST)
Thanks for the speedy response! I might be back here again someday...Richard Mix 16:57, 19 January 2011 (CST)
One more fish please! Tenebrae responsories needs fixing as well. Richard Mix (talk) 14:43, 5 November 2012 (CST)
Added! Richard, I've simplified the template a bit by moving this part of the code inside {{Subgenre}}. I've also added a couple of instructions inside of it: [1]. You may want to try and add a new genre by yourself next time :) —Carlos (talk) 15:10, 5 November 2012 (CST)

What is a Genre?

 Help 

Okay, I'm rather confused about what is and is not a musical genre. I grant that things like Anthems, Cantatas, Motets, Hymns, Masses, etc. (under Sacred music) or Chansons, Folksongs, Madrigals, Operas, etc. (under Secular music) are musical genres. But I do not understand that Christmas music (and probably secular Christmas music) are musical genres - these are seasons, not genres. If Christmas is to be a genre, then aren't also, Advent, Ephiphany, Lent, Easter, Yom Kippur, Passover also to be considered as such? Please enlighten me.

Ok, Christmas removed. —Carlos Email.gif 13:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Please see introduction to ChoralWiki:Subgenres, with counts at ChoralWiki:Subgenres/Counts. Subgenres are still confused and confusing, but it appears the problem will continue to persist. It could be resolved if we could all agree on a classification, but that does not seem possible. For example, is "motet" generic or specific? The classification would probably need to be hierarchical, which makes it much more complex. I have tried to construct such a classification, but nothing worked. So, I think we will not get resolution of this short of a standardized, enforced classification – certainly that would not be in the spirit of this website, and would result in more mis-categorization than we have now. Nonetheless, some cleanup is needed in the small details.
I do have a question, though, about genres (the first parameter of the {{Genre}} template). I need to remove the mistakes in assigning this parameter, but after that, there are seven remaining values that have been used for this field: 1. Sacred; 2. Secular; 3. Dual; 4. Both; 5. Other; 6. Unknown; and 7. (blank).
Numbers 3 and 4 can be combined, under what name? In any case, there are many composer pages where implementation of {{#SortWorks:}} has assumed that works are either Sacred or Secular: these composer pages then are missing works assigned to Dual or Both. These composer pages would then need an added {{#SortWorks:!Sacred music&&!Secular music}}.
The same can be said of numbers 5, 6, and 7. There may be a case for one of these, but I would like to have just one of them, reworded so that the definition is clearer ("Indeterminate"?) – and editors would not be allowed to leave this parameter blank. — Barry Johnston (talk) 17:00, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
My post (just above) cross-posted at this forum. — Barry Johnston (talk) 18:20, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Sometimes the plural needs to be retained.

 Help 

For certain Genre categories there are instances where sometimes the plural form should appear and other times when the singular should appear. The plural form should appear when the work in question is a "cycle" or coherent collection. Here are a few examples

I wonder if it is worth trying to shoehorn these various possibilities into the Genre template (although some "escape" trick can be used), since the alternative could be to put exceptional instances after the Genre template, using the Cat or Pcat template. At any rate, this is a matter that probably should be cleaned up somehow.

Hummm, perhaps its a good idea to go back to your previous topic: what do we understand as Genre? For me this information is not strictly related to the works on the page, so I don't see why it should have to agree in number with them. When I read "Genre: Sacred, Motet" I understand "Sacred music, Motet music/style" or something like that. Because of that I believe that the Genre links should follow a standard: either always in the singular or always in the plural. In fact, the most generic form would be if we used the plural always (Genre: Sacred, Motets). It's a subject that deserves a further discussion. —Carlos Email.gif 18:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
I understand what you are saying, Carlos, and I think it needs rethinking, as well. Back in the infancy of ChoralWiki, it was decided that the Genre categories should generally be plural but that, in the Genre field on a works page, the description should be singular when it reflects a single work (as opposed to a cycle or collection). Whether that was a wise decision, I don't know, although I made the Pcat template precisely to handle the dual nature of Genre cat (plural) versus Genre field listings. And some of us spent lots of time and effort trying to bring some uniformity to that principle.
Funny thing, at about the time that the Genre template appeared, I was toying with the idea of creating templates for each of the genres, so that, for example, the genre "Motets" might be invoked either as
  • {{Motets}}
or
  • {{Motets|+}}
where the + denotes pluralize. In both cases the categorization would be in Motets, but the Genre field listing would be "Motet" in the first case and "Motets" in the second case. Alternatively, one could use something like
  • {{Motet}}
or
  • {{Motet|+}}
with the same convention that + denotes pluralize. Or, one could have use a construction
  • {{Motets|-}}
or
  • {{Motets}}
where the - denotes singularize. Since my thoughts were not that well-formed at the time, I did not suggest or press for an alternative to the Genre template then. But now with this discussion started, I thought I'd run these other ideas up the flag-pole. -- Chucktalk Giffen 20:58, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
Hi Chuck, I opened a new topic in the forums, let's continue the discussion there, ok? —Carlos Email.gif 17:09, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Hi Carlos, good enough for me!! -- Chucktalk Giffen 18:31, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Hi all, and thanks Chuck for explaining why Hymn became red-linked Hym. I was then immediatly startled by Evening Canticles retaining the s! Is Category:Evening Canticle for unpaired pieces an idea later abandoned? Btw, I get a no permission message when clicking on the forum link Richard Mix 05:13, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
This forum thread had been opened by me on the admins-only section; I just moved it to the open section, since this is a subject of possible interest to others; please try again. With respect to the Canticles keeping their s, read the first topic above for an explanation. —Carlos Email.gif 05:39, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Secular & Sacred on same page

For works as all those madrigals on CPDL that have their sacred contrafactum on the same page, what's the best way to inform it to the Genre template? Using "Secular/Sacred", "Both", "Dual" or what? —Carlos Email.gif 19:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe "Sacred & Secular"? -- Chucktalk Giffen 14:58, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, "Secular & Sacred" looks better that "Secular/Sacred" (I put Secular first because usually contrafacta were added later to Secular works). But what about the way this should be declared inside the template? Is {{Genre|Both|}} OK, or {{Genre|Dual|}} is better? —Carlos Email.gif 18:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Either Both or Dual is fine with me, but maybe Dual conveys a little more to the user? -- Chucktalk Giffen 19:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
There are many examples. My favorite is Vaterland, in deinen Gauen (Felix Mendelssohn), which is the direct basis (music, harmony, and all) of Hark! the herald angels sing (Felix Mendelssohn). The two are very closely related musically, though the two texts are very far apart. The big reason why these are separate pages is that they are both discussed, written about, analyzed, etc. – each is significant in its own right. (Mendelssohn's wish that his music not be set to religious words, and Charles Wesley's desire that his words be matched with slower, more meditative music are interesting factors in this!). And generally throughout CPDL, editors have separated works into different pages if they are "significantly" different – "significant" in the eye of the editor at least, which is good enough for me. I think sacred and secular versions of the same work should appear on different pages, if they are significant – and they will be in most cases, because they would be performed in different settings, put in different parts of the library, etc. (Same reasoning for works translated into a different language.) The whole concept of "Sacred" vs. "Secular" needs to be revisited anyway. Also see a related discussion at Talk:Prado verde y florido (Francisco Guerrero)Barry Johnston (talk) 17:15, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Good points, Barry. In the case of Guerrero, given that the contrafacta were also prepared by him, I would tend to expect both texts sharing the same music page. But I'm not against keeping them separate (or splitting those that currently share a page), provided that both pages are linked to from one another. —Carlos (talk) 04:01, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
See discussion above (under "What is a Genre?"). I think "Dual" (or "Both") should be applied only to works that have both Secular and Sacred sections (or stanzas, or lines) – not pages that have editions in different genres; in the latter case, the {{Genre}} template should show the genre of the original work, and add {{cat|Sacred music}} or {{cat|Secular music}} in appropriate {{EdNotes}} template(s). — Barry Johnston (talk) 17:26, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
Barry, I tend to agree with you on this. We already do this with the Voicing template: in the "General Information" section it usually displays (or should) only the original voicing; if someone posts an arrangement with a different voicing, this info goes in the Edition notes field using {{vcat}}. I think the same could be done with Genre. —Carlos (talk) 15:13, 17 April 2022 (UTC)