Choral Public Domain Library

I was wondering if adding voicings to the list of works inside Text pages is a good practice, as it adds an unnecessary complexity to the maintenance of these pages. Users are constantly adding transposed editions with different voicings, causing the Text pages to become outdated. Here's one example of what I'm talking about: http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Tantum_ergo

What do others think about it?

I agree. It is perhaps necessary to state the number of voices on these pages for disambiguation purposes (e.g. a 7, a19) (in those infrequent instances where an individual composer has made multiple settings) but to clutter the page with editorial pernickettyness of voicing or pitch at this stage of the system is as unwelcome as it is unnecessary.

For the moment, at least, I have to disagree. If, for instance, I am a choir director looking for, say, SATB, SAB, or SAT settings of Tantum ergo, what better place than to check on the Tantum ergo text page? Okay, such pages need maintenance for this and other thing ... but that is precisely what James, Edmund, Claude and others are doing on a regular basis for various aspects of the ChoralWiki that need such care, with laudable success.

One might counter that one need only use the Multi-Category search for the situation I described. But, in fact, it would take three separate such searches ... one for SATB, one for SAB, and one for SAT ... with "Tantum ergo" specified in the "Part of work title/composer name" field. Okay, that''s three searches ... not one glance through the listings on the Tantum ergo text page.

To compound matters, NONE of the three separate searches yields any result at all. It seems that specifying a title for the work is not implemented properly and needs to be fixed. Until it is fixed, one must search the SATB, SAB, and SAT categories separately (either by going to the category pages or with Multi-Category search) and scroll through the listings until one encounters "Tantum ergo" in the title.

Furthermore, any of these individual searches for "Tantum ergo" in the title will miss those settings of "Pange lingua" that happen to contain the "Tantum ergo" verse.

My recommendation: leave the voicings in, where implemented, and put out a call for volunteers to join the efforts to make voicings listed with works on text pages up to date. And, certainly, until and when Multi-Category search can be fixed, don't tamper with the present system, even if there is sentiment to remove voicings from text pages.

CHGiffen wrote:To compound matters, NONE of the three separate searches yields any result at all. It seems that specifying a title for the work is not implemented properly and needs to be fixed.

This functionality was implemented properly and thoroughly tested back then. The problem lies in the DPL extension that was upgraded recently to a bugged v2.01, which I had to patch to make it work again as expected.

CHGiffen wrote:My recommendation: put out a call for volunteers to join the efforts to make voicings listed with works on text pages up to date.

in an ideal world that could work fine, but we all know that CPDL is way short of volunteers for most of the daily chores, like cleaning up pages and posting new works for those users who can't manage coding the wiki. The result will be an increasing number of text pages with out-of-date information. That's no problem as long as we add a hatnote to each page informing that their content is manually maintained and voicing info may not be current.

Just a small hint for the specific example: one can get several results on CPDL and IMSLP by using the Multi-site Search with the option "All words in page text" and using "tantum ergo" + desired voicing in the search field.

Max

The average user coming to CPDL is hardly versed in the various features that Administrators and frequent contributors are aware of. The Multi-Category Search feature is something that I find myself frequently having to point out and explain to users.

Still, with it now fixed (thanks Carlos!), it still doesn't handle easily the case wherein one wants to look for settings of a particular text for multiple voicing possibilities (eg. mixed voices, anything from ST or SB through SAT, SAB, then SATB, and perhaps on to SSATB), since it requires a separate search for each voicing. Moreover, the particular text (from a text page) is not always the title of the work in questio. For example, "Nunc dimittis" might be found in works with titles containing such things as "Evening service" or "Evensong" or "Compline" or "Song of Simeon" ... you get the idea. In a situation like this, would Multi-Category Search be of any real help? How much easier it would be to be able to go to the Nunc Dimittis page to search for settings and voicings.

Yes, this requires maintenance. Yes, we are understaffed in terms of volunteers. This is all the more reason to put out a call for more volunteers. I do think that Carlos has a good idea for posting a note on such pages informing users that they are manually maintained, and I further think that such a note should somehow suggest that volunteer help for such maintenance would be greatly appreciated.

CHGiffen wrote:Moreover, the particular text (from a text page) is not always the title of the work in question. For example, "Nunc dimittis" might be found in works with titles containing such things as "Evening service" or "Evensong" or "Compline" or "Song of Simeon" ... you get the idea.

You've got a point here; in the specific case you cite, having the voicings info might be helpful. (but one could still use the Multi-category search for this, selecting "Sacred/Evening Canticles" and the desired voicing.)

As someone who worked as systems analyst and DBA for many years, I'm always concerned that the data collected by a system be always presented up-to-date, and this is usually achieved by establishing a single place for each piece of information to be stored (in this example, the voicing info should be found only inside the Works page and nowhere else). I'm sure that you understand what I mean, Chuck. A compromise can be achieved as seems to be this case, but at the expense of data accuracy.

To respond to a couple of points raised by Chuck:

The average user coming to CPDL is hardly versed in the various features that Administrators and frequent contributors are aware of. The Multi-Category Search feature is something that I find myself frequently having to point out and explain to users.

What about creating a nicely formatted and colored instruction box (pointing to another page with more detailed instructions), letting people know about the Multi-Category and Multi-Site search tools? We can then include that instructional box in all Text pages?

But, in fact, it would take three separate such searches ... one for SATB, one for SAB, and one for SAT

That, Chuck, is why that search function needs to be expanded.

I regularly have had to look for music on this basis for each session, only a bit more complicated. I have a count for each of S, A, T and B so I can filter by number (e.g. max 1, or require 2, or leave unfiltered to allow any number). That way, whether I ended up with SSAATBB or SATTBB, I can find that music easily without searching on each permutation.

I'd love it if this could be modified to allow users to specify as follows:
S min/max & A min/max & (T or B) min/max

Or at least:
S min/max & A min/max & T min/max & B min/max

Ahem, I'm just sayin'...

Whether it's 'unnecessary' might depend on what the user has in mind. I don't know how easy it would be, but in principle couldn't the information from the voicing template be displayed on the text page listings? Then to make things maintenance-free there could be a parameter in LnkTxt to specify which verses are set.

Richard, in theory it's possible to do what you suggest by using the DPL extension, but it'd be quite server-demanding.

Is this something that throwing money for ISP services would adequately fund on an incremental basis, or a big jump to higher-human-resource non-shared hosting service? Just curious.