IMSLP Forums

It occurred to me that there seems to be two (or more) schools of thought on how to label instrumentation in terms of numbers. P.Davydov says "I tend to use "Piano (solo)", "Piano (4 hands)", "Piano (left hand)" in the instrumentation field, just to be absolutely clear." I agree with him on those cases, but he seemed to disagree with using "1 piano" "1 violin" just to be clear.

Personally I prefer to put a number in front of the instrument to be clear (e.g. "1 piano"). That way it can apply to all instruments.

Is there something written on this (I'm sure there must be, but I haven't found it)? If there isn't, we should all agree on something so we aren't changing each other's edits , which is what I've noticed we've done. KGill tends to agree with me (e.g. 1 piano, etc), I think.

I just feel that we all do things differently when it comes to this (based on my observations).

Thanks,

BKhon

Over the last couple of years there have been very long discussions about how best to complete the instrumentation field, but no consensus has yet emerged. It would be very useful if the data in this field (and the others under "General Information") could be standardized to help searching and automatic translation into other languages. That's some way off though

If this helps at all, then the tagging system introduced earlier this year assumes that assumes that the singular form of the instrument means 1 by default, so that "violin" is just 1 violin, "clarinet" is 1 clarinet, "piano" is solo piano (2 hands), etc.

Perhaps someone (maybe me) should work on some sort of draft for standardizing the general information field? Probably a concise set of "simple rules" would be in order, and somewhere convenient to put it.

I guess leaving it singular is OK, but I still think the number "1" should go in front of it just for absolute clarity. The only problem is that it differs from the categorization system. I guess that's not too much of a problem though...

Although, it's already bulky having to describe with 2...saint saens septet...2 Violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 piano, 1 trumpet, 1 bass as opposed to 2 Violins, Viola, Cello, Bass, piano, Trumpet...

My 2 ¢, there's usually no need to specify one as the number for singular instruments — it’s why we have a difference between singular and plural forms of words...

Regards, PML

Fair point. I guess the reason I have personally always favored that format is because that's what it says on the Add Work page There's also the consideration that it's usual practice for songs to be listed as 'Voice, Piano' rather than the slightly ridiculous '1 voice, 1 piano'. IMO we should try to find something that's standard for both vocal and instrumental music. (With the exception of voice listings for choral music, e.g. SATB.)
Another thing: I have always found it helpful for music written in, for instance, the baroque period to specify exact numbers, even if there's only one instrument. This is because many works were published as 'Sonata for Flute' (for instance), meaning for flute and continuo. To make an unambiguous distinction from the cases where there really is a work for solo unaccompanied flute, I prefer to number it. Of course, this could also be fixed by always giving 'Flute, Continuo' where applicable, but there still may be room for ambiguity (when the listing reads merely 'Flute').

I guess I agree with KGill. This should probably be changed on the add work page, since the way KGIll and I have been doing it is listed there... I guess I like the concept of consistency

Done.