Template talk:Music

message: Per the discussion on Wikipedia:Manual of style (music), I've put what was at Accidental here; moved the user box to Template:User Instruments List (discuss at Template talk:User Instruments List) and moved the newly created "Music portal" navigation box to Template:Music portal.
-- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 15:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Template:Accidental]] & [[Template:User Instruments List]]

message: Perhaps page protection would be appropriate for this page if most important changes have been made now? I'm sure it will have very extensive usage at some point in the near future. ck lostsword•T•C 14:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would agree with semi-protection, but at present full protection would probably be counter productive.  The template isn't yet used in that many places and hasn't had any vandalism (knock on wood).  Most importantly, it's not close to finished and the major contributors to the template aren't administrators, so it would prevent further contributions.  -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 22:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem for now - just an option for in the future :). ck lostsword•T•C 22:24, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Protection?

message: This is a very cool template and I applaud your efforts. My only problem is in the "sample text" under the heading "Notes and rests". That looks like a clear place where prose should be used, not characters. It's bad style to write in that way, even if one can. Can someone please think of a better example of their use? I'll ponder it as well, but nothing is immediately coming to mind. Mak (talk) 16:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm happy to find a piece of text that would be a better demonstration that we can agree on--I just put something quickly that came to mind.  If I were actually writing, I would spell out "whole note."  However, there is a movement to use symbols more often within text--Edward Tufte devotes a chapter to it in both his first (?) and fourth books on design.  I don't think that there's any better way to convey the syncopated rhythm in the second half of the sentence.  Saying "eighth rest, half note, quarter note, eighth note" is far too bulky and would slow down a musically literate reader, while the figure is too small to justify using an external figure.  The Bach font encourages such uses .  Looking at the book next to me, Allen Atlas's Renaissance Music, I see these uses on pp. 50 & 51.  Christopher Hasty also embeds metrical examples in text in his Meter as Rhythm (Oxford; first usage, coincidentally, also on pp. 50&51).  And the first theory book I looked at (Clendinning and Marvin) does also.  I'm more finding these examples to satisfy my curiosity than to refute you--I've embedded rhythms within text in just about every article I've published, and wanted to make sure that I wasn't alone.  In double-spaced contexts I've also embedded whole staves of music within text, but it just doesn't look right in single-spaced writing.  Best, -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 22:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, when I looked at it again I realised that the latter rhythm would be awkward as prose, but the use of the whole note symbol definitely threw me off, and feels like bad style. Perhaps just change the whole note to text? I'm glad to know of other inline uses of rhythmic notation, though. Mak (talk) 22:42, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I modified the sample sentence per Mak's suggestion.--Dbolton 02:51, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Example

message: Has anyone else noticed a change in behavior on Firefox?  Now all the music symbols that don't use this template are displaying as "?" on my system instead of the proper flats and sharps.  Is it just my system?  I certainly didn't uninstall any fonts.  -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 04:02, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Odd. I haven't noticed this myself. Does the behavior continue after a system restart?--Dbolton (talk) 05:34, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to come and go; a restart seems to help -- and actually, if I leave the page open for a few minutes, after awhile the flats appear.  Maybe it's a memory leak in determining which glyphs are present and which are missing in the font.  I notice that some of the ja:xxxxx links appear as ja:??????? at first and then resolve themselves into the proper characters.  So it's probably not a pan-firefox problem.  Phew!  I did change a few articles to use the template anyhow, so that's probably a good thing.  :)   -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 05:51, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Firefox change? 

message: Are rendering squares in Internet Explorer 6.0. OK in Mozilla 3.0 Fefogomez (talk) 13:52, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Flats and sharps appear as empty squares in Internet Explorer 6 and 7. Flats and sharps appear in Firefox 2.0 but are sub-standard. Firefox 3.0 has a lot of font rendering and graphics improvements so flats and sharps appear fine without the template. --Dbolton (talk) 21:02, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you sure?  It works perfectly in my Internet Explorer 7 so long as this template is used.  (Actually my system renders it fine either way, but I know I have the Vista fonts installed on XP so it's an odd system).  But the main point of the template at first was to get proper IE rendering of flats and sharps.  If it doesn't work, we should change the output of the template to produce an image for flat, sharp, and natural, as it does for double-sharp and double-flat.  -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 19:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry for being unclear. My comment above referred to the status of sharps and flats without the use of the template. I am not aware of any display issues when the template is used.--Dbolton (talk) 06:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks!  That makes things clearer.  I was worried for a minute.  -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 17:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Flats and Sharps

message: The SVG images don't scale with different font sizes. I suggest that EM be used instead of PX as the unit of measurement. SharkD (talk) 19:12, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I just tested the em measurement to see if it would work but the syntax is ignored. It is not possible to use em measurements on a image (see WP:Extended image syntax#Size). --dbolton (talk) 22:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: We'll just have to wait until inline SVG images are supported by Wikipedia/browsers. SharkD (talk) 06:04, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Text size as EM 

message: Perhaps a more realistic request: can we get symbols for common time and cut time? Something along the lines of ? I was looking at Marty's book on Mozart's tempo indications and he uses those symbols within the text a lot. James470 (talk) 04:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Symbols for cut time and common time 

message: If we include the demiflat and demisharp symbols, shouldn't the sesquiflat (, ) and sesquisharp (, ) symbols be represented also? As with the demiflat, there is an alternative version of the flat sign with slashes (, ).  - NDCompuGeek (talk) 20:46, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional quarter-tone accidentals 

message: User ESSch added the Russion names of the symbols in the table. Since this is a template in the English WP, this serves no purpose and should be removed. −Woodstone (talk) 01:56, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: And since this is the American Wikipedia, I would also like the British names removed as well. Have we anyone to argue for the removal of the American names as well? Good day, kind sir. ;-) James470 (talk) 06:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand the concept of what ESSch wanted, since the template is mirrored in other language WPs, and would make updating easier there, but it is true that having Russian names alone in the template does not make sense. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 00:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, whatever. James470 (talk) 05:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Russian names? 

message: To John Cardinal for making the documentation easier to read and more beautiful.  And to Ford Prefect 42 for the addition of time signatures.  -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 16:26, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thanks! 

message: If one goes to the image description page for :File:Figure_rythmique_noire_hampe_haut.svg one finds that it has been marked as superseded by :File:Quarter note with upwards stem.svg due to the fact that the sides are cut off. However, since all the notehead images used here have their sides cut off File:Quarter note with upwards stem.svg doesn't fit in and unless there are similar replacements for all it should not be used in this context. Hyacinth (talk) 08:37, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Superseded

message: Would it be terribly difficult to make , such as for use in Symphony for Classical Orchestra? Or should I just kludge it with . ? James470 (talk) 02:55, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd do it with the "kludge" method, because we don't have a full musical vocabulary, and . looks close enough.  Otherwise we'd need double-dotted half, triple-dotted sixteenth, etc. eventually.  -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 06:05, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You're absolutely, totally right.  I sometimes forget how Wikipedia likes to take some things to the logical extreme (and even illogical extreme) even after being confronted with reminders of this.  I only foresee needing the dotted half for tempo indications, and I've never seen a composer indicate anything like M.M. ... = 100; but who knows, someone would come along and contrive a situation just for the sake of requiring such an otherwise unnecessary extension. James470 (talk) 00:44, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dotted half 

message: Edokter (talk  contribs) has been making changes to this template that I feel merit discussion here. See the page history. Lanthanum-138 (talk) 12:29, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume you are referring to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3AMusic&action=historysubmit&diff=421159118&oldid=421132374 The choice of fonts is intentional, and researched extensively so you were correct to revert the change and bring the discussion to the talk page. (The Unicode template is designed for a more general purpose and does not meet our needs). Without the specified font choices the accidentals do not appear on Internet Explorer (which is the original purpose for creating this template). If there are problems with the current choice of fonts, please be specific: what operating system, what version, what browser, what browser version, which of these fonts do you have (or not have) on your system, etc.--dbolton (talk) 02:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Font choices 

message: Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the template? If one is just going to use Δ one could simply use it without the template. Hyacinth (talk) 22:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It renders slightly differently: Δ (without ) vs  (with ). Double sharp (talk) 12:30, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Those look identical. Perhaps its a difference in our operating systems or software? Anyways, good to know. Hyacinth (talk) 22:08, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: On my setup (Win7/FF) the former is an isosceles triangle and the latter is an equilateral.  But I don't have an opinion pro or con for keeping it. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 18:24, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Resolved. This happened: internally in the template, all input is changed into lowercase before checking in the list. That way all input Sharp, SHARP, sharP, sharp is catched nicely. Now Δ is the Greek capital letter delta. It was in the list, but was not catched because the correct input "Δ" was turned into its lowercase "" -- no match. I have added the lowercase, it returns the delta as expected. Extra note: using the template for such trivial action (input = output) still is usefull, because this way the same font will be used as with other musical symbols. -DePiep (talk) 15:07, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

text: Oops again. I misread this early old post. It's not about the error (template did not catch input capital "Δ"). It was about the representation (so the error was temporal). Now that I see the essense, I can say: when in music, use this template. It will show the musical symbols well, even on other browsers (we cannot see oourselves). -DePiep (talk) 21:52, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Δ vs {{music|Δ}}

message: You are invited to participate in an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/The Beatles on the issue of capitalising the definite article when mentioning that band's name in running prose. This long-standing dispute is the subject of an open mediation case and we are requesting your help with determining the current community consensus. Thank you for your time. For the mediators. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 22:59, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beatles RfC 

message: I updated the Time Signatures to be serif and bold to better match real time signatures.  I have a "pull request" on the underlying Lua code to make the numbers touch each other; when that request is completed, the template should automatically update to be even more accurate. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 19:38, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: , a question about the proper way to identify a time signature in prose (text of an article) came up during a recent GA review.  An editor felt that a bold time signature in continuous prose, such as "many pieces in  time were performed ...", looked awkward.  This is more obvious when several are listed (see Time signature).  A brief review of music reference books showed that time signatures were usually rendered without bold ( and often in the form of a fraction, i.e., "3/4").  Is there a way to defeat the bolding for use in text? —Ojorojo (talk) 15:11, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Chiming in: serif & bold may be closer to engraved music, but it looks out of place in running text. The only way I know to avoid that is to use ordinary letters ("3/4") or the :template:su directly (which is used after a detour via  with bolded arguments by ):  which gives: . I would prefer something like   would do that. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:20, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this looks better.  Editors should have the option to use a "time plain" template. —Ojorojo (talk) 13:47, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time Signatures 

message: , your recent edits to this template have created  transclusions in three articles:
* Just intonation
* Ben Johnston (composer)
* Septimal quarter tone
Can you fix these? Thanks, Wbm1058 (talk) 16:31, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Errors after December 9 edits 

message: Can we include the Helmholtz-Ellis notation as well? For example:  --kupirijo (talk) 10:41, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Helmholtz-Ellis notation 

message: Would it be possible to add the following accidentals to the template: https://www.smufl.org/version/latest/range/arelEzgiUzdilekAeuAccidentals/ . This is to be able to improve the wikipedia article Turkish makam. Thank you. --kupirijo (talk) 08:40, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: please make your edits in the sandbox and test your changes.  When ready, reactivate the edit request. — xaosflux Talk 19:17, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have made the edit in the sandbox. How is this incorporated into the original template? --kupirijo (talk) 20:51, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I have copied the kucuksharp section to the main template. If you want the other notation as well, please add it to the sandbox and then re-activate this edit request. I have just synced the sandbox with the live template to ensure that any new modifications don't wipe out changes in the live template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:54, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template-protected edit request on 14 January 2020 

message: As noted in a previous thread, there is a problem with the flat character, no matter which method you use to make it  or  or  or just entering the unicode symbol: it adds extra space before and after the flat sign. Sharp doesn't have this problem. Example: G minor, G minor. Makes displays look really crappy. I'm surprised nobody's corrected this in all these years. What's up?
Another oddity I've noticed: I tried just typing the actual unicode symbols in an article, which works, but the symbols' font is too large and creates extra space between lines. Obviously the wiki code for these templates reduces the font size. I'm using Safari on an iPad, BTW. Using the entity method ♭ or ♯ (or their equivalent decimal numbers), produces the same problem (at least on iPad Safari).
What worries me, though, about the use of all these templates or even entering the unicode symbol, is that both these characters, flat and sharp, no matter what method you use to produce them, are HTML 5.0. If you have an older 4.0 compliant browser, as many readers do, the symbol will display as a question mark or a square or blob or somesuch thing. I would therefore suggest refrain from using ANY of these flat or sharp templates at all and just type the WORD: G-flat minor. The convention is to put a dash between the letter key and the word "flat" or "sharp", with no spaces (per MOS). I see people do mass changes on pages that have the word spelled out, changed to the symbol template (everybody using , not ). Doing such mass changes and using these templates is a bad idea IMO, for compatibility. Plain English text avoids all these problems. LisztianEndeavors (talk) 23:19, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I commented on this in the other thread before seeing this one. Jmar67 (talk) 13:39, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I came here to comment on the same thing, having noticed the issue at piano. Looking at the code, I see nothing to my less-trained eyes that would indicate the reason that the flat symbol has the space but the sharp symbol does not. Anybody with insight as to why that is? oknazevad (talk) 15:41, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reviving Extra Space Problem / HTML 4.0 vs 5.0 Browsers 

message: "h-minor" is wrong. "b-minor" is right. MFSHK (talk) 08:10, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: That fixed itself thanks to the redirect at Commons for C:File:D-major h-minor.svg to . It just needed a purge here. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:49, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: TBH, although I think I added them way back in 2011, the main use I can think of for the key-signatures is to refer to the Hugh Macdonald article with the title  ... Double sharp (talk) 19:59, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template-protected edit request on 19 November 2020 

message: Could the double-sharp and double-flat symbols be replaced by the actual Unicode characters 𝄪 and 𝄫 rather than images? Using images makes it difficult to link and copy-paste, and the actual Unicode characters have been in Unicode since way back in 2001 (Unicode 3.1). Double sharp (talk) 15:15, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Example: G-sharp major, where "F" needs to be linked, as it's the leading note. With the image this doesn't work, but as "F𝄪" it would. Double sharp (talk) 15:27, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:   Not done for now: looks like a consensus needs to be established for this alteration. There are a lot of images used for symbols in this template, plus it should probably be in sync with Template:Music at Commons. Please garner the needed consensus before using the  template again. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. put'r there 19:44, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double-sharp and double-flats 

message: Would it be possible to adopt the double-flat/double-sharp convention regarding ? There's a Unicode codepoint U+01D1A9 for it now, which renders as 𝆩. It's certainly not well supported presently, which is why I'm curious if it could be rendered as SVG in lieu of its actual codepoint. Remsense (talk) 04:13, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of the half-diminished Unicode codepoint 

message: I'm surprised that dynamics such as  are not included here.  Is there a reason?  Tayste (edits) 22:16, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dynamics 

message: Please delete line 80 - '17 upside down' is duplicated
also line 180 - 'dot' is duplicated
also '+' is duplicated at lines 118 and 270 - please remove the duplicate at line 270 Desb42 (talk) 10:48, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:52, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template-protected edit request on 9 July 2023 

message: Why not just use that as the template result? Enx8 (talk) 18:26, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: We need to use  instead off ; the image you added includes bar lines. intforce (talk) 19:35, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  –  = . P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 19:54, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

text: Also added to the music template on Commons. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 20:40, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double whole note 

message: Decided to make another topic because I wanted this to stand out from the double whole note ("breve")
I found two images of the 128th note and rest.
:File:Quintuple-croche tête en bas.svg Not sure why the note image is so small, hopefully you can work with it
:File:128th rest.svg same with this one.
Will subscribe to keep updated. Enx8 (talk) 13:44, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: please make your requested changes to the template's sandbox first; see WP:TESTCASES. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:23, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  128th note and rest 

message: Following the discussion and recent amendment to MOS:FOOT to allow for specific use in music, and another discussion about pitch on MOS:MUSIC, I propose a possible "foot" shortcut that displays the correct prime character for use with (e.g.) organ stops, wind instrument air columns, etc. Something like adding the following:
 | ft
 | '
 | feet
 | foot =′
so that "this organ has a 16 pedal stop" can be notated using 16. It's only a convenience shortcut, because using 16 ought to have the same result (16). — Jon (talk) 21:00, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually I've overlooked the usage of the  template, as pointed out in the MOS:FOOT discussion above, which is that  should be notated using  which fixes typographic spacing details, and not 16. Not sure how this music template can handle a second parameter like this, e.g. ? Perhaps this is all too hard...! — Jon (talk) 21:06, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using feet for organ stops, air columns, etc.