Recordings - a core IMSLP mission?

[kgskaug]

I would think there has already been a war over this somewhere, but I just need to get this off my chest, if only to hear if I'm the only one.
Why do Recordings appear as topmost section on each work page?
Personally I go to IMSLP primarily to search for Scores, not for recordings. It annoys me that I have to scroll through sometimes considerable screen space taken up by recordings, before I get to the info I need. Don't get me wrong, I think the "recordings" feature is quite nice, but other sites have so much more to offer in this respect - e.g. YouTube; the Recordings to me would seem not to be a core business of IMSLP.

[Notenschreiber]

I would like to second this post.

[xavier]

I totally agree!

There are many websites providing "free" listening of (classical) music
performances but IMHO IMSLP should be the main reference when speaking
of public domain _scores_.

This also induces confusion: people think they are on a website
containing score. They simply click on the first item on the work page
and are surprised they have downloaded an audio file!
I have lost count of times I have sent a link to a "work page" on IMSLP
to the musicians of my orchestra (so they could download their score
for their instrument) and they reply me "I think there is a mistake,
all I have is an audio file".
Plus there might be a further confusion because "Performances" can
be attached to "Performer's edition" of a _score_ (as opposed to an
urtext, "musicology analysis" edition).

In addition, on the layout of the "work page" there is first a "free"
performances section, then the Score section (that is usually our main
interest when browsing IMSLP) and finally _another!_ recordings section
(Commercial Recordings)!!

Why not group together both recordings section _below_ the "Scores"
section, i.e. at the end of the page?

Thank you for your consideration.

Cheers,
Xavier

[Melodia]

Of course the 'commercial recordings' section is basically an ad, so it's not really related in any way to recording DLs.

That said, I kinda agree. With the new tab system. why not just make it another tab?

[heatherreichgott]

I agree. Listing recordings AFTER scores would be very helpful.

[VictorEijkhout]

Agree. First scores, then uploaded music, then links to commercial music.

Victor.

[Eric]

Well, the recordings _category_ is now a proper mess anyway, with very very very many workpages listed that have no recordings on them, pages with recordings on them not included in the category, and whatnot. Joy and rapture, to I think quote a comic book character...

(Almost obvious solecisms - like the Fétis "Biographie universelle des musiciens" - no longer in the list of recordings on the category page - but still mislisted pages that have no recordings on them, quite a few I suspect...)

[Davydov]

I think we should seriously consider moving the "Performances" (formerly "Recordings") section to the bottom of the page as well, now that yesterday's upgrade has made this much more prominent.

[Eric]

I'd move the -category list- to the bottom of the page until the bugs are worked out... just joking. Half joking. (Of course, they might be just on my computer and browser and whatnot. Probably are. Pages listed in Category:Recordings as having recordings that never have done, not even blocked ones, nothing in the history suggesting they ever have had a recording uploaded, just no recordings at all... bit odd, nybble odd, byte odd, just odd. Probably a cache thing on my computer though. Or summat.)

[steltz]

@Eric: do you remember what pages or composers they were? I remember trying to tag some pages like that. If they don't have scores either (some of what I was tagging was like that), and they've been there for more than a week or so, they should probably be deleted.

[Eric]

@Eric: do you remember what pages or composers they were? I remember trying to tag some pages like that. If they don't have scores either (some of what I was tagging was like that), and they've been there for more than a week or so, they should probably be deleted.

All the ones I've seen have had scores I think- (and they show up in the Recordings category even though the "Recordings" category does not show up on the page- except maybe as a hidden category which I have not turned on my tag to allow myself to see? don't know...? I think something is... I've said that already. Yes. Right. Moving right along, ...)
I am under the impression they are if not legion, many - but here are some (mixed in the Recordings catpage with genuine ones)
*http://imslp.org/wiki/Act%C3%A9on_(Aube ... is_Esprit)
*http://imslp.org/wiki/All-Night_Vigil,_ ... ,_Mikhail)
*http://imslp.org/wiki/Act%C3%A9on_(Aube ... is_Esprit)
*http://imslp.org/wiki/An_Wasserfl%C3%BC ... er,_Franz)
*http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Angels_Dear_( ... l,_George)
*http://imslp.org/wiki/Angus_MacDonald_( ... h_Leopold)

I notice they were not hard to find

Also, how do you put something under "Synthesized/MIDI" (or does one just put "Synthesized/MIDI" in boldface over it)? A lot of things are showing up in "General" that don't belong there, at all ("Sibelius sounds" performances are not "General", they are synthesized- for example... unless I am much mistaken- or unless something has to be provably entirely 100% synthesized and that description leaves open the possibility of something other so that it- but then nothing goes in that cat (pauvre chat?), so I'm still missing something, I think.)

[KGill]

I am under the impression they are if not legion, many - but here are some (mixed in the Recordings catpage with genuine ones)
*http://imslp.org/wiki/Act%C3%A9on_(Aube ... is_Esprit)
*http://imslp.org/wiki/All-Night_Vigil,_ ... ,_Mikhail)
*http://imslp.org/wiki/Act%C3%A9on_(Aube ... is_Esprit)
*http://imslp.org/wiki/An_Wasserfl%C3%BC ... er,_Franz)
*http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Angels_Dear_( ... l,_George)
*http://imslp.org/wiki/Angus_MacDonald_( ... h_Leopold)

I notice they were not hard to find

Strange, not a one of those pages is in the Recordings category according to my web browser. Two or three were when logged out, but a quick purge and/or login fixed that...

Also, how do you put something under "Synthesized/MIDI" (or does one just put "Synthesized/MIDI" in boldface over it)?

AFAIK you just put ===Synthesized/MIDI=== over the files and they will be sorted under the correct tab. However, this entire functionality seems to be just slightly less than ideal when we are confronted with Arrangements sections under the recordings section of a page - for instance, see http://imslp.org/wiki/Cello_Suite_No.1_ ... Sebastian) for some rather nice synthesized performances of an arrangement by Roberto Novegno. When I add the level 3 heading 'Synthesized/MIDI', the 'Arrangements and Transcriptions' header lines up (no tab) nicely when you click on it in the TOC, but the TOC itself does not indent it correctly and the name of the first tab becomes 'General-DUPLICATE-tab2'. No idea what causes this output, but in essence I am not really sure we should actually be using level 3 subheadings to differentiate synthesized recordings from human ones in the first place, since they are so easily put into conflict with the regular heading structure. Maybe there could be another entirely new supersection of the page introduced instead? (We already have '| *****AUDIO***** =' and '| *****FILES***** =', why not '| *****SYNTHESIZED***** =' or something as well? This would completely avoid messing around with the heading structure.)

[Eric]

ah, ok. purging/logging out and in should fix it... should have considered, as usual... will try. and thanks! (and no idea. there are several level-3 headings already that I would not mind seeing differentiated - parts and arrangements also, I think, come to mind...) Ok, log in/out may not have been needed- don't know- purge applied directly to Recordings category worked. Thanks again (And a thumbs-up in passing to Tbp/Mr. Novegno's compositions, arrangements and sequencings (and occasional piano performances) thereof.
Eric

[imslp]

@KGill: For now, the General tab cannot be added explicitly; the message you get is the system telling you that there are two tabs with the same name. In the near future this may be fixed.

Also, regarding splitting out Synthesized, I cannot say that I have not considered this. However, this would be a much larger change, and at the moment I'm not sure the added complexity and sacrifice in page real-estate from having another (mostly unused) section is worth it. In the future this may well happen, in which case the pages will be automatically transformed.

P.S. I've edited that page you linked to; please tell me if the result is acceptable, and if not, please change it to what you want.

[KGill]

P.S. I've edited that page you linked to; please tell me if the result is acceptable, and if not, please change it to what you want.

It does look much nicer that way, but I'm still a little concerned that the A&T heading has to be relegated to level 4, a fundamental change to the hierarchical ordering that makes me wonder what happens when there's a synthesized recording of an arrangement of a specific section. In that case we would need all 3 levels (3, 4, and 5), and simply adding extra equal signs to all of them would still leave the problem of the hierarchy not being correctly recognized by the automatic arrangement tagging system. I'm not trying to be overly critical here - I think this is hardly the most important thing to focus on (how about that automated special page for WIMA recordings, for instance? ) - but, for future consideration at least, this system is definitely not perfect, though I guess most pages wouldn't run across the problem.