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Revision as of 05:14, 30 October 2004

Communications in Dutch: please see User talk:Francis Schonken/Dutch

Overleg in het nederlands: op User talk:Francis Schonken/Dutch a.u.b.

Welcome

Hi Francis :) Allow me to greet you properly! I hope you like the place and choose to stay.

Some links that may be of use:

• Misplaced Pages:Welcome, newcomers
• Misplaced Pages:How to edit a page
• Misplaced Pages:Village pump - ask questions you may have here, or leave a message on my talk page

Check out the Misplaced Pages:New user log, or here's some stuff you can do, if you want:

You can help improve the articles listed below! This list updates frequently, so check back here for more tasks to try. (See Misplaced Pages:Maintenance or the Task Center for further information.)

• Bhumij rebellion
• List of analog television stations in the Philippines
• Amulet (comics)
• St. Therese Chinese Catholic School
• Valentino Rossi

• Kirsten Magasdi
• Hop River State Park Trail
• Subsidiary legislation in Hong Kong
• Penn State University Creamery
• Tenoch Huerta

• Estola vittulata
• Estola operosa
• Estola benjamini
• Estola lata
• Estola nigrodorsalis

• Forward (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
• No. 500 Squadron RAuxAF
• Inflation Reduction Act
• Brazilian Australians
• TAROM Flight 371

• AoS and SoA
• Santa Fe Railroad tugboats
• Centre Right Alliance
• Benbecula
• Monarchy of Fiji

• Chris Volz
• GWR 4575 Class
• Kaneaster Hodges Jr.
• Pets in South Korea
• Wilk v. American Medical Association

• Nurul Huda Mosque of Gelgel
• Norland, Florida
• North Berwick Harbour
• Nikkei cuisine
• National Institute of Arts, Kinshasa

• Palazzo di Spagna
• Hassan Ali Nokhodaki Isfahani
• Rench
• Taaghche
• Max Müller (Danish army officer)

Help counter systemic bias by creating new articles on important women.

Help improve popular pages, especially those of low quality.

Have fun, and keep contributing Dysprosia 11:18, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Edit summary

Please provide an edit summary, thanks. Hyacinth 20:25, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by interal messages. I left you a message on your User talk page, just as you did on mine. Either way[REDACTED] alerts you if you are logged in. See: Misplaced Pages:Talk_pages#User_talk_pages. Hyacinth 07:08, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ballet

Hello! I noticed you creating a category regarding the Ballet Russes productions. If you are interested in working further with the dance section on Misplaced Pages, may I suggust stopping by Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Dance. We're attempting to work on all the dance articles, categorize them correctly, and expand the coverage. Lyellin 01:14, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)

Francis... your efforts are more than welcome! :) Doesn't matter your angle or knowledge of the subject. I suspect my knowledge is just as weak, if not weaker than yours. My angle? I have a ballerina friend, so I checked out the article here, and realized how bad the section was, so I decided to fix it up some, and then got invovled. ANY contributions you can make to any of these, well, will do[REDACTED] good. Dance is a very weak subject on the 'pedia. If you want to join in on the project, feel free- it'd be great to have more minds, even if all someone can do is copyedit an article they don't know anything about. OR well, I hope you add more information regarding Ballet Russes stuff as well. Regardless, happy editing! Lyellin 01:56, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/unresolved

-Erolos 00:26, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

LGBT-related categories

I noticed you added the notice to all the LGBT-related categories that they are "inherently subjective, and/or can be experienced as unrightfully labeling persons". I would suggest that, for example, Category:Queer theory does not incorrectly categorize the people therein - they are all queer theorists. It is a field of study, and all the people in the category (should, at least) participate in that field of study. It is just a categorization by profession. That this profession deals with homosexuality doesn't make it any less valid. -Seth Mahoney 04:37, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

I made significant changes to the notice, which I think make it read and function more like similar notices for articles. -Seth Mahoney 05:08, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

Orlando

66.167.139.240 04:07, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC): See Talk:Orlando re: Orlando, Orlando (character), Orlando, Florida

Category:Atheists

This category was already disposed of on Categories for Deletion—the more focused Category:Atheist thinkers and activists is the logical replacement, tailored for relevance to the subject rather than just anyone who might check "atheist" on a religion survey. Postdlf 20:51, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Your way of adding posts in discussions

Content of remark under this heading moved to User Talk:Aris Katsaris.

Interwiki redirects

Please avoid using them, especially if it's to redirect back to Misplaced Pages (e.g. #REDIRECT w:category:Belgian political parties-Flanders). -- User:Docu

Rotterdam symposium

you are most welcome! hope you can make it to come. groet, oscar 10:54, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

See User:Francis Schonken and User:Francis Schonken/Dutch

Public address test, etc.

1. Looks perfectly fine to me, and you wrote probably more eloquently than I, as a native speaker, could have. I'm totally behind you on this one, for the record.
2. I'm very glad that, rather than posting immediately to CfD, people are working in groups on this. This, I think, is what category talk pages should be used for. I'd like to see some sort of group form around this, maybe Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion or something, where we can list the hot topics of the moment.

I've kind of dropped out of the Category:Priests discussion for the time being because, first, I think we've gotten close to an agreement - we're just approaching it from different angles; and second, I'm taking a break of sorts from Misplaced Pages as I get ready for the new school year. I'll stop in from time to time and see how stuff I've been working on has gotten along without me, and probably start contributing again in a couple weeks or so, though. Cheers! -Seth Mahoney 20:26, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Categories: dramatists versus playwrights - Writers of plays again

Communications with User:Bishonen on these topics moved to Category talk:dramatists.

Misplaced Pages:MO

Can you please explain what Misplaced Pages:MO means, and why it should redirect to Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view? Thank you. RickK 06:29, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Explanation posted on User talk:RickK, but I see my explanation has been deleted there. Please see NPOV article: at the bottom of that page there is a section "But POV is bad, isn't it?", that's where you'll find the explanation about "MO" and some other abbreviations.

Satie

"Avant-garde composers" is not currently a category, and would almost surely be a subcategory of Category:Classical composers if it was created. You seem to want to change the definition of "classical" currently in use (or at least, this makes more sense to me than arguing that Satie is not classical under the current definition), but I would not agree with you until given reasons for and specifics about what you intend "classical" to mean. Hyacinth 21:56, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

But, in practice, "Composer" = "Classical composer". Hyacinth 00:30, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Classical music

Hi FS, thanks for your reply.

I think your point about classical music benefitting from having centuries to throw away the bad stuff is legitimate; I tried to polish prose a bit.

Concerning your comments about "The Nature of Classical Music", here are some quick replies:

I

Classical music is meant to be experienced for its own sake.

While the meaning of this sentence is somewhat vaguish, just ignore it. It is as true as saying that popular music is meant to be experienced for its own sake.

It is unlike other forms of music that serve as a vehicle for poetry or other lyrical content, or as an adjunct to other forms of entertainment.

Ever heard about Opera? Oratorio? Passions? Operetta? Melodrama? Soundtracks (many of these use classical music extensively)? Fantasia? Ballet? Sleeping Beauty?

I agree, this should be changed or deleted.

Of course there is this concept of "absolute" music in classical music (Kunst der Fuge and the like), but that applies to a very limited part of the classical music only. Note e.g. that "opera" was as much the top of the entertainment business in 19th century, as "Film" was that top in 20th century (in 19th century, it appears, that composers and public alike considered non-vocal orchestral music, especially symphonies, as a much more elevated and demanding kind of music than opera. Today perception sometimes seems the other way around: a symphony you easily can listen to in the background when working on something else - opera is perceived as much more demanding for the listener today).

II

Performances of classical music often take place in a relatively solemn atmosphere, with the audience expected to maintain silence and remain immobile during the performance, so that everyone can hear each note and nuance.

That's what you would do with any music that is a bit different from the music you grew up with, and that is performed for a life audience - e.g. you would do exactly the same in a concert of 15th century Villancicos, which is just the folk music of those days. Apart from the fact that some of the music that is now called classical, was distinctly intended to be talked through, and from the fact that who said the above apparently never attended an Opera in Italy, by the end of the 20th century more classical music is consumed as background music to other activities, than it is listened to as intensively as described above. When film music is performed separately from the film (e.g. Ennio Morricone), or when a musical with exclusively ABBA songs is performed, the behaviour of the public is not all that different than in concerts with exclusively classical music.

But surely the overall difference is there. A popular musician who never talked to the audience and expected a hushed silence would never get anywhere.

Yes, yes I agree with you: there is definitely some difference, but should be approached maybe a bit different. Don't know where you're from, but where I'm from (Belgium), fairly, I can't remember a classical concert I've been to the last years where there was no-one of the performers (or at least some speaker on the side of the performers) addressing the audience, and much more casual than it used to be some 10 years ago or so. Something that can be said is e.g. that when a work has several movements, it is not a habit to applaud between the movements, and that audiences to classical concerts normally are not informed about that every concert again, its just a convention they know about when they come to the concert. Of course, the recording of Concerto for Group and Orchestra shows other things (and this would be "classical" music to your definition - I, on the other hand, just added this work as example to the crossover (music) article).

And than you have still those Italians in opera: cheering so loudly after every aria they like, that it makes the polite "applauses" after the solo's in a Jazz concert look very pale indeed.

Also, your examples are in a way just further examples of classical music. The only people who perform centuries-old folk music are in fact classical musicians--early music groups. And when film scores get divorced from their films and played in concert halls, they essentially turn into classical music--think of Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije and Alexander Nevsky, now securely in the classical canon.

Well, here you're in that difficult domain of film music: Prokofiev, yes, OK, but that was rather because this composer was in the classical music tradition (and not even of the most futuristic of his time: generally he tended to neoclassicism). But then you have Help!, and the other Beatles films: does that suddenly turn "classical", just because it has been in a film? (Note that I see some difference between "being a pop classic", and being "classical").

III

The performers usually dress formally, a practice which is often taken as a gesture of respect for the music, and performers normally do not engage in casual banter or other direct involvement with the audience.

Well that's the kind of FUD somebody who knows nothing about classical music might try to use to keep you out of a concert of classical music. In early 21st century classical music performances generally are a lot more casual (just don't go to the ones where it's still all stiffy-niffy), without losing a bit of respect and appreciation for the music.

Nobody says you have to like this fact about classical music, but our job is to report the facts. Perhaps worth adding a bit on snobbery?

Well, as I said, I don't know where you're from, but all this is so much more relaxed in Belgium these last years. Maybe Queen Elisabeth contest still has some of the old stiffness (and yes, of course that's the concerts that are the most likely to have any international radiation when speaking of Belgium...). So at least a bit pointing out that this is not the same everywhere in the world (and frankly, I suppose USA is still lagging behind a bit in this respect - sometimes it feels as if the "separation" between high and low culture is still very much held up over there, the Proms are definitely European in that respect).

IV

Written transmission, along with the veneration bestowed on classical works, has important implications for the performance of classical music.

Unclear sentence, makes it appear as if generally music that is exclusively transmitted in writing is object of veneration. Most classical music is absolutely forgotten (probably more than 99% of what is still available in libraries and archives). And the other less-than-1% that is still heard today is appreciated, liked, and what more, but stays far from idolatry-like veneration.

True, but I think there's a huge difference in how much veneration-behavior happens in classical music. Just look at the annoying veneration passages that editors are constantly inserting into the classical music articles in the Misplaced Pages!

Yes, yes, I see your point better now. The only thing I remarked so far is that there are some very active Opera-lovers, who with some excusable (in my eyes) slip of the tongue tend to get somewhat venerabilish sometimes (a bit out of order with[REDACTED] NPOV, and I tend to overwrite that when I happen to be working on such article).

V

To a fair degree, performers are expected to perform a work in a way that realizes the original intentions of the composer, which are often stated quite explicitly (down to the level of small, note-by-note details) in the musical score.

When performers try to render the music as faithfull to the composer's intentions as possible, that has less to do with veneration, than with making come to life something of the past, something like Walt Disney making a written fairy-tale come to life, e.g. without turning sleeping beauty in an ogre the moment she is kissed by the prince (that's a different fairytale, like you have so many different classical compositions).

Indeed, deviations from the composer's intentions are sometimes condemned as outright ethical lapses.

Ethical? When described in ethical terms, just buy another newspaper: the critic is no good: he/she should be talking about esthetical

Just as before, the article is supposed to report the truth, whether we like it or not. Read the reports on the recent productions at Bayreuth if you'd like a contempory example.

Belgian radio has every sunday afternoon a program where some people listen "blindly" to three performances of the same work and have to give their judgement on which is the best in their eyes. I never see that getting ethical (nor anything else when I discuss performance-related topics with others, or hear anything else on the radio) - whatever devastating the criticism might be. Not that there are no "ethical" discussions, e.g. on Wagner, and the anti-jewish pamphlet he wrote etc... but not ethical on performance practice. Indeed, it can be mentioned that some people get all ethical over it. But than at least accompanied by the question whether that is the way classical music should be listened at, and whether it is the way it is generally listened at.

VI

Yet the opposite trend - admiration of performers for new "interpretations" of the composer's work - can be seen, and it is not unknown for a composer to praise a performer for achieving a better realization of the composer's original intent than the composer was able to imagine. Thus, classical music performers often achieve very high reputations for their musicianship, even if they do not compose themselves.

This is, however, in no way exclusive to classical music, think e.g. Joe Cocker

Nor is it being claimed as such.

Well, if it's not at least "typical" for classical music, what is it doing here? I see only a naming difference: what is named an "interpretation" or "rendering" of a work in classical music is called "cover" or "remix" in pop music (with the same discussion of whether cover/remix X is better or worse than version Y or Z). And it could be put forward as a question whether DJ's do more a performer's job or a composer's job? Composer, yes, but certainly something that is comparable with interpreter/performer too.

VII

Another consequence of the veneration of the composer's written score is that improvisation plays a relatively minor role in classical music - in sharp contrast to traditions like jazz, where improvisation is central.

The contrast is not so sharp as one would be likely to think: in the music of the classical era, for instance, improvisation, e.g. in the form of cadenza's or musical contests, played a greater role than in most of the pop music of the second half of the 20th century.

Improvisation in classical music performance was far more common during the Baroque era, and recently the performance of such music by modern classical musicians has been enriched by a revival of the old improvisational practices.

"Revival" of improvisation is less linked to Baroque era, the 2nd movement of the 3rd Brandenburg concerto as a notable exception.

During the Classical period, Mozart and Beethoven sometimes improvised the cadenzas to their piano concertos--but tended to write out the cadenzas when other soloists were to perform them.

Mozart generally improvised his cadenzas, note also that Mozart only wrote cadenza's down reluctantly, under pression of demand by performers. In late 20th century, e.g. Jos Van Immerseel goes on stage improvising cadenza's of all of Mozarts 27 piano concerto's.

Well, the article mentions this, I don't think we need to give a particular example in such a general context.

Re. baroque music, I still forgot about Basso continuo, which of course too has some elements of "improvisation", but that's of course also improvisation at a completely different level as a Jazz solo - I don't know whether in pop music "drumming" and "playing the bass guitar" is experienced much as improvising, but if it is, than is the "basso continuo" likewise. But as you said I suppose it is covered elsewhere in the article.

Cheers, Opus33 15:36, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

And thanks to you too! F.

Categorisatie Rotterdam symposium

(topic moved to/verhuisd naar User talk:Francis Schonken/Dutch)

Bureaucratship

Thanks for your support for Bureaucratship, but I'm not really interested, plus I doubt I would get consensus vote for it. RickK 18:47, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

Constitutional Monarch

I enjoyed our conversation, but I was wondering about one last thing. Why the strong opposition to the terminology of constitutional monarch? I personally find it to be the best analogy. Jimbo Wales 05:14, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)