[WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

[Ray Saintonge]

Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 12/26/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>I think the question had more to do with verifying a claim that a
>>particular musical work is in C major.  It would seem a waste of time if
>>every time the description of a piece of music included its key there
>>would need to be a source to establish that as true.
>>
>>If someone claims that a piece of music is in C major I have to accept
>>that without the need to go through a mini-course on music theory.
>>    
>>
>Which "someone" do you mean - a Wikipedian? The hard-line view of OR
>which has dominated most of this discussion seems to indicate that a
>source is needed for *everything*. IMHO, totally unworkable, and not
>even desirable. We serve our readers, and ourselves, better by simply
>referring to the work as being in C, then if we feel the need, adding
>a footnote like "No sharps or flats are indicated in the key
>signature, and the final cadence is C major" or whatever.
>
The "someone" would be the editor, but then I'm not a hardliner. :-)

IIRC "cadence" or "beat" has more to do with the time signature than the 
musical key. ;-)

The problem with something like "No sharps or flats are indicated in the 
key signature" is that it looks so brutally amateurish.  It may help 
those who know absolutely nothing about music, and still don't know what 
sharps and flats are for.  To those with a more sophisticated 
understanding of music it will be silly, and will convince them that we 
don't know what we are talking about.  The latter wouldn't expect us to 
know music theory, but they could still rely on us for biographies of 
composers, and other less theooretical articles.  We still need to 
maintain articles on the basic concepts of music, and discrete linkages 
to these articles are superior to awkward attempts to describe musical keys.

Ec