Further to our previous discussions (and discussion at http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Talk ... illings%29), I've tried to draw this together into some proposed page naming conventions. What do you think of these?
Editors are of course free to title their editions, (i.e. the words at the top of their PDF) as they choose (this proposal relates instead to page names), and the issue mainly seems to relate to settings of hymn texts (though there are some anthems which have 'titles' or 'tune names' which are not the opening words of the text, to which this would also be relevant), so the following need not affect page naming for madrigals, oratorios etc.
1) Where we are only aware of one setting by a composer of a given text, the page name should usually be the opening line of the text, in ordinary sentence case, followed by the composer's name in parentheses: e.g. "Angels from the realms of glory (Henry Thomas Smart)".
2) Where there are multiple settings by a composer of a given text, these should be disambiguated so that not more than one setting appears on the same composition page. If the two settings can be distinguished by a tune name, this can be used, e.g. "He that hath made his refuge God (Langport) (Thomas Clark)" vs. "He that hath made his refuge God (Safety) (Thomas Clark)". In some cases, other disambiguation might be required, for example if one setting of a text by a composer has a tune name, and another does not. This might, for example, include the title of the publication in which one of the settings was first published, e.g. "Mortals awake, with angels join (Incarnation) (Thomas Clark)" vs. "Mortals awake, with angels join (from A Fourth Set of Psalm Tunes) (Thomas Clark)".
3) If there is a strongly-established practice among writers on a particular composer to routinely use tune names as titles to identify works (as might be the case with William Billings), these may be included in page names in addition to the opening words of the text (as at 2 above) even if they are not required for disambiguation. So, for example, under principle (2) we would have "Come, let us join our cheerful songs (Brattle Square) (William Billings)" and "Come, let us join our cheerful songs (North Providence) (William Billings)", because the tune name is needed to disambiguate between the two settings, but under this principle we would also have "Awake, my heart; arise, my tongue (Andover) (William Billings)", even if we weren't aware of any other setting of this text by Billings. This is analogous to the inclusion of standardised composer-specific catalogue numberings in page titles which we currently have for some composers' works (e.g. Z numbers for Purcell).
4) If (3) applies, then redirects and disambiguation pages are likely to be useful: for example
i) a redirect from "Text (Composer)" to "Text (Tune name) (Composer)" if we are only aware of one setting of this text by this composer,
ii) a redirect from "Tune name (Composer)" to "Text (Tune name) (Composer)" if we are only aware of one text that has been used with this tune,
iii) a disambiguation page at "Tune name (Composer)" if we are aware that the tune has been used with more than one set of words (e.g. West-Sudbury, previously mentioned in this discussion)
5) In any cases where there is more than one setting of a text by a composer, or the same tune has been used for more than one text, the individual pages for the text+tune combination should include explanation of this, and links to the related pages.
Optionally (6): Where tune names are shown in parentheses above, they should be shown in small-capitals in the composition page and where referred to on the works page.
Optionally (7): Where parentheses are proposed to enclose tune names above, square brackets should be used instead.
What are your thoughts on this? I'd be in favour of 1-5, possibly 6 (perhaps using DISPLAYTITLE to show the small-caps where the page name is displayed at the head of the page, but without the additional complication of using all-caps for the tune name in the page name itself), and probably not 7 (because of the potential for confusion with other uses of square brackets: for linking in MediaWiki, and for indicating editiorial additions to quotations or externally-identified dates of publication in descriptive text).
Titles of Early American Compositions
Re: Titles of Early American Compositions
Reflecting on this, I realize I have been contributing to CPDL under several assumptions. First, to use the existing structure. Second, to use expert monographs on the music, where those are available, secondarily common usage in printed or recorded media. Third, to change previous contributions as little as possible.
Much American vocal music before about 1850 are called psalm-tunes; see the attached transcription of a conversation on Google Groups. In this conversation, I was most impressed with two comments. The first is by Warren Steel:
I would very much prefer to follow the experts in how these works are titled, and a change such as EJG proposes seems to require some restructuring of the current CPDL system. I remain to be convinced that EJG's proposal would be beneficial, although there are some good points in it.
In the above, the suggestion was made that a better index to texts might be helpful, which implies many more text pages and a different structure to them; I would be willing to contribute to such an effort (I have already done some of this on my own). Perhaps the composer and author pages could have two lists, one by Title and one by First Line? Or maybe a way to link to texts -- [[..]] links to a page, how about //..// (or <<..>>) to link to a text?
Thanks for waiting. This is more difficult than I thought.
Barry Johnston
Much American vocal music before about 1850 are called psalm-tunes; see the attached transcription of a conversation on Google Groups. In this conversation, I was most impressed with two comments. The first is by Warren Steel:
The second is by Roland Hutchinson:A hymn is a poem. It may be known by its "incipit" (the first line or part of the first line) or by a "title" assigned by the author or by a hymnbook publisher, such as "The Morning of a Lord's Day." A tune is a musical setting, with its own proper name, the likes of which you have given a good summary, and which *may* refer to a commonly-used text. Generally, hymns and tunes are interchangeable within a given poetic meter -- in fact, Billings's MARYLAND was printed with varying texts, or with no text at all! The Hymn Tune Index is aware of this, and searches independently by tune (the primary focus) and text. CPDL, because of its wiki nature, has no such capability, but since it is primarily a database of musical compositions, individual sacred pieces should be known primarily by their *tune title*, such as MARYLAND, or KITTERY or JUDEA. There are other means of searching for hymn and psalm texts, or someone might index the texts of the works in the database.
The consensus among this group at least was that these works need to be titled as the original composer titled them, and that the tune name may be different from the title.The tunes are psalm tunes until sometime the 19th century; thereafter (being composed for hymns) they are hymn tunes.
To quote Grove Online: "Psalmody. A general term for music sung in Protestant churches in England and America from the 17th to the early 19th centuries. The term was first associated with the chanting of psalms (following traditional practices of the Roman Catholic Church) and later with the singing of metrical psalms, but after these had been gradually replaced by hymns, the term was retained to cover all kinds of sacred music sung during the period." ( article "Psalmody" by Richard Crawford and Laurie J. Sampsel, from Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2d ed.).
Psalm tunes and hymn tunes have their own names, which MAY occasionally reflect a text with which they are associated in the EXCEPTIONAL case in which a tune is associated with one particular text. (This becomes more common toward the end of the period.)
The more inclusive term nowadays is "hymn tune" for any tune whether used for hymns or metrical psalms or both. Earlier on, the generic and inclusive term (sanctioned by long usage) was "psalm tune" even when referring to tunes composed as hymn settings. Even in the second half of the 19th century, the output of Lowell Mason, consisting largely of hymn settings, was characterized as consisting of "psalm tunes" both by Mason during his lifetime and by others for a time thereafter (he died at a ripe old age in 1872). Nowadays, we don't hesitate to call them "hymn tunes" according to our now-established usage.
It is sometimes necessary to distinguish sometime between "hymn tune" meaning the melody and "hymn setting" or "hymn tune setting" meaning the (usually) four-voice setting in parts. However, "hymn tune" (or "psalm tune") can also be used for the setting in parts or for either the bare tune or the setting indifferently (sometimes it doesn't matter which one is meant); context generally makes the meaning clear when necessary.
I would very much prefer to follow the experts in how these works are titled, and a change such as EJG proposes seems to require some restructuring of the current CPDL system. I remain to be convinced that EJG's proposal would be beneficial, although there are some good points in it.
In the above, the suggestion was made that a better index to texts might be helpful, which implies many more text pages and a different structure to them; I would be willing to contribute to such an effort (I have already done some of this on my own). Perhaps the composer and author pages could have two lists, one by Title and one by First Line? Or maybe a way to link to texts -- [[..]] links to a page, how about //..// (or <<..>>) to link to a text?
Thanks for waiting. This is more difficult than I thought.
Barry Johnston
- Attachments
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- Title Page names for 17th.pdf
- Survey of 34 American books 1760-1810
- (178.41 KiB) Downloaded 554 times
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- What should we title them-x.pdf
- Edited transcription of Google Groups conversation
- (269.85 KiB) Downloaded 592 times
Barry Johnston
Gunnison, U. S. A.
Gunnison, U. S. A.
Re: Titles of Early American Compositions
Thank you for your comments, Barry.
Since a tune name doesn't indicate the text to which the tune is to be sung, since many tunes have been used with more than one text, and as we have the established principle (which I don't think we should change) that settings of different texts, albeit to the same tune, are distinct works and should be on separate pages, the proposal that we should use tune names in some cases as the primary basis of page names doesn't resolve how we disambiguate between settings of different texts to the same tune. Using first line as the primary basis of the page name, with the tune name (where there is one) used as a secondary element, as I proposed above, gets round this issue, and it also resolves the matter of how page names are shown on lyricist pages (where they are listed alongside other settings of the same texts by different composers which may not have tune names).
Re. the comment you quote that 'The Hymn Tune Index ... searches independently by tune (the primary focus) and text. CPDL, because of its wiki nature, has no such capability', this wouldn't be the case if we used 'First line of text (Tune) (Composer)' for works by composers for whom this is an issue (such as Billings), as I suggested at proposal 3 above, with the redirects suggested at proposal 4. If the page for (for example) settings of 'Awake, my heart; arise, my tongue' to Billings' tune 'Andover' was at 'Awake, my heart; arise, my tongue (Andover) (William Billings)', with redirects to this page from 'Awake, my heart; arise, my tongue (William Billings)' and 'Andover (William Billings)', then anyone typing either 'Awake, my heart; arise, my tongue (William Billings)' or 'Andover (William Billings)' into the search box at the top right of each CPDL page would be taken straight to this page. This wouldn't require substantial restructuring of the current system: the main task would be some page moves, which would themselves create many of the required redirects.
I agree that there's scope for an increase in the number of text pages, to include all the hymn texts of which we have settings (and to include metrical versions/paraphrases on the appropriate psalm pages, as you've been doing with many of the Watts psalm paraphrases - thanks for this). I don't think the text or lyricist pages need to be restructured (and doing so would potentially have knock-on effects on other works which use the same texts, or other texts by the same authors, but which are outside the early American psalmody repertoire). As we have one text per text page, and as links to text pages can be created using square brackets (like links to any other type of page) or by using Template:LinkText (in the specific case of linking from a work to its text under the 'Original text and translations' heading), I don't think there's any need to have another way to link to a text.
In terms of including both tune names and first lines on lyricist pages, including both of these in the page name as in the proposal 4 I outlined above would result in both the text and the tune name appearing in the list of settings on the lyricist page.
Regarding listing both tune names and first lines on composer pages, my preference would be to keep the main listing of works in alphabetical order by first line (optionally subdivided by types of work, where there are a large number of works by the composer in question), as is done across CPDL, and to provide links to publication pages for each of the composer's publications (such as we already have for Billings' later works) which contain sortable tables of contents - users can then view these tables in the original order of the publication, or sorted by tune name, or sorted by first line of text, as they choose. For composers who have a large number of named tunes which were originally published in several separate collections, though, like Billings, it might be useful to additionally have a collected alphabetical list of tunes by name on the composer page, as a secondary finding aid.
Since a tune name doesn't indicate the text to which the tune is to be sung, since many tunes have been used with more than one text, and as we have the established principle (which I don't think we should change) that settings of different texts, albeit to the same tune, are distinct works and should be on separate pages, the proposal that we should use tune names in some cases as the primary basis of page names doesn't resolve how we disambiguate between settings of different texts to the same tune. Using first line as the primary basis of the page name, with the tune name (where there is one) used as a secondary element, as I proposed above, gets round this issue, and it also resolves the matter of how page names are shown on lyricist pages (where they are listed alongside other settings of the same texts by different composers which may not have tune names).
Re. the comment you quote that 'The Hymn Tune Index ... searches independently by tune (the primary focus) and text. CPDL, because of its wiki nature, has no such capability', this wouldn't be the case if we used 'First line of text (Tune) (Composer)' for works by composers for whom this is an issue (such as Billings), as I suggested at proposal 3 above, with the redirects suggested at proposal 4. If the page for (for example) settings of 'Awake, my heart; arise, my tongue' to Billings' tune 'Andover' was at 'Awake, my heart; arise, my tongue (Andover) (William Billings)', with redirects to this page from 'Awake, my heart; arise, my tongue (William Billings)' and 'Andover (William Billings)', then anyone typing either 'Awake, my heart; arise, my tongue (William Billings)' or 'Andover (William Billings)' into the search box at the top right of each CPDL page would be taken straight to this page. This wouldn't require substantial restructuring of the current system: the main task would be some page moves, which would themselves create many of the required redirects.
I agree that there's scope for an increase in the number of text pages, to include all the hymn texts of which we have settings (and to include metrical versions/paraphrases on the appropriate psalm pages, as you've been doing with many of the Watts psalm paraphrases - thanks for this). I don't think the text or lyricist pages need to be restructured (and doing so would potentially have knock-on effects on other works which use the same texts, or other texts by the same authors, but which are outside the early American psalmody repertoire). As we have one text per text page, and as links to text pages can be created using square brackets (like links to any other type of page) or by using Template:LinkText (in the specific case of linking from a work to its text under the 'Original text and translations' heading), I don't think there's any need to have another way to link to a text.
In terms of including both tune names and first lines on lyricist pages, including both of these in the page name as in the proposal 4 I outlined above would result in both the text and the tune name appearing in the list of settings on the lyricist page.
Regarding listing both tune names and first lines on composer pages, my preference would be to keep the main listing of works in alphabetical order by first line (optionally subdivided by types of work, where there are a large number of works by the composer in question), as is done across CPDL, and to provide links to publication pages for each of the composer's publications (such as we already have for Billings' later works) which contain sortable tables of contents - users can then view these tables in the original order of the publication, or sorted by tune name, or sorted by first line of text, as they choose. For composers who have a large number of named tunes which were originally published in several separate collections, though, like Billings, it might be useful to additionally have a collected alphabetical list of tunes by name on the composer page, as a secondary finding aid.