Genre categories. Your views wanted!

[Lyle Neff]

Here's a new topic for discussion.

Songs for 1 singer and piano are currently being uploaded, in a fair quantity, as "duets". While part of me sees that this is a duet, I also know that as a searchable category, it is better to keep duets as instrumental, and voice + piano as lieder, chanson, art song, whatever. The reason is that singers won't want to search through gallons of violin duets to find songs, and violinists won't want to wade through songs to get to duets that include them.

They could be re-categorized as lieder, but some are Spanish. How narrow do we want to be with the definition of lieder, or art song, or chanson? Or does anyone disagree that classifying them as duets will confuse searchability generally?

Opinions, please?

This would avoid confusion:

• Duets (vocal)
  Duets (instrumental)

Also, "Art song" could be a catch-all for Lieder, chanson, romans, etc., regardless of language. However, many composers of art songs also wrote arrangements of folk songs.

Speaking of songs, I've never been satisfied with the term "song cycle" as the only choice to use for work that is a collection of songs (e.g., Cui's Op. 3). Not all (perhaps most) collections of songs that composers publish in a group are song cycles, properly speaking. I propose that something lik the heading "Song collection" should be included as an alternative to the genre "song cycle."

[steltz]

We do have a category for "folk song", so if "art song" can cover everything else, then the two would be sufficient.

My concept of a duet is more or less equal voices. Some of the vocal accompaniments are so simple that I would rather use "art song" than "duet". But then I'm not a vocalist.

Also, perhaps we should try to get to one category. If both "Duet (vocal)" and "Art Song" can be used (along with the "Lieder" that is frequently used), singers have to search under more than one category.

Because of this, I think I'm quite taken with Lyle's idea of "Art Song" as a catch-all.

Any other opinions on this?

[Lyle Neff]

[...] Also, perhaps we should try to get to one category. If both "Duet (vocal)" and "Art Song" can be used (along with the "Lieder" that is frequently used), singers have to search under more than one category. [...]

No offense, but to include "Lieder" as the one other category for songs (besides "art song" and "folk song") privileges that particular term unnecessarily over all the others that are associated with a language, nation, or ethnic group.

[steltz]

I don't think I made myself clear (typing too fast again . . .)

I think I should have said . . .

"Also, perhaps we should try to get to one category. At the moment, we have "Art Song" PLUS "Lieder" PLUS "Duet" (although the suggestion is to change this to "Duet (vocal)") PLUS a few others. Singers have to search under more than one category."

Because of this, I think I'm quite taken with Lyle's idea of "Art Song" as a catch-all for the non-"folk song" songs.

Is that less muddy?

[Davydov]

OK, I'll set the ball rolling. My suggestions can be found at:

http://imslp.org/wiki/User:P.davydov/Genre_Categories

Comments are welcome on the associated talk page.

[steltz]

Love it, most of the "other" appellations are gone, except as descriptions.

I'm sure I'll think of more minor things, but just a few minor things to start with:

1) Is it worth giving method books and instrumental tutors their own category? I've seen some of them categorized as books, others (such as Arban's Cornet Method) as "solo instrumental piece (no piano)", neither of which, strictly speaking, are correct. For another example, the guitar method books that were recently uploaded.

2) Some of the ballets are currently listed as "symphonic dance pieces", and this sort of makes sense unless you see "Stage Works" in the 8 overall categories. Is it worth having 2 levels of category visible, e.g.

Category 1: Stage Works
Category 2: Ballets

Most libraries allow more than one subject line, for better searchability. Is this too fussy?

[steltz]

Just thought of a simpler way to get both big and small categories into one field. Using a colon, the big category goes first, then after the colon the smaller category. Examples:

Stage Works: Ballets
Vocal Works: Works for solo voice with keyboard (art song)
Concertos and Concertante Works: Works for solo woodwind instrument with orchestra

[scottorr]

No matter how many fields it covers, is it possible to have the descriptions given in the left of the chart as hover-over text?

Also I like the teaching methods category, because they don't really belong as just texts. It could cover all instruments and levels, but it's better for a method to go in there rather than 'works for solo piano'. It could go under Section 8. (literary works)

[Davydov]

In response to the above postings I've added "Teaching Methods" to the list under the "Books" meta-genre.

The technical whizzes will have to tell us whether it's logistically possible to have two or more genre categories per work, but I suspect the answer will be that the main one would have to be compulsory (as it is now), with any others as optional extras to be added manually — similar to the "Works for Cello"-type lists that we have already.

In reply to Scottorr's last point, we would ideally have pages giving clear descriptions of the categories, translated into as many languages as possible.

[steltz]

I did an experiment with searchability of this suggested system.

"Duos (with Keyboard)" will be a large category, since it will include sonatas, incidental pieces, suites, etc. I wondered how searchable a large category would be.

So I changed the Bach violin sonatas (temporarily) to "Duos (with Keyboard)". Then I used the search box on the left and I typed in:

"Duos (with Keyboard)" sonata

I used the quotes to keep the category part as a phrase. The Bach came up. So using the category title plus a keyword makes this system work nicely.

(I changed the category back to the old one because until a new system is approved, these new categories create metagenre errors.)

[Davydov]

Hi Steltz. Yes, that search worked because the word "Sonata" is in the title. Feldmahler has indicated that we can have more than one genre category per work, e.g. one for the instrumentation, one for the 'type' (like sonata), and maybe others that have been suggested (like 'children's music'), so these searches could be combined in a similar manner.

Overall it's looking like we might end up with one 'default' genre type (based on the instrumentation), with additonal categories like sonata, nocturne, etc. as optional extras (because not all pieces of music can be classified in that way). Let's see how the discussion develops...