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 Clarinet wiki?
Author: johng 2017
Date:   2007-07-31 21:32

I am considering the idea of starting a wiki devoted to the clarinet with the editing of articles open only to this group of Klarinet BBoard-ers.

For those who have not looked into wiki's they are interactive web sites that allow on-line editing and additions to the content. An example is wikipedia that is an open wiki where anyone can contribute. There are plenty of great articles there, although the quality has been attacked since you never know what the qualifications are for those making changes.

What I have in mind, then is a limited editing access wiki using the expertise found on this BBoard and maybe the Klarinet list as well. Anyone could view it on the internet, but only you folks could contribute. I would moderate it to keep really bad information out, but I believe we could count on this list's generosity to provide quality information. Topics that we consider complete could be closed to further editing. I haven't worked out the details of how to make it work, but I wanted to see if there might be some interest. In some ways, Mark has created the beginnings of a wiki with the great articles in the Resources and Study areas of Klarinet. The difference is that we would be able to contribute.

I would probably browse this board for topics of interest, but here is a brief list of ideas: reed adjustment and balancing, reed placement on the mouthpiece and ligature position, intonation, playing a gliss, fingerings for difficult passages, styles of tonguing, embouchure issues, using a tuner, tongue and oral cavity voicing, clarinet accessories, beginner topics, clarinet history, clarinet science, clarinet literature, great players' bios-----and so on.

What do you think of the concept? Any questions?

John Gibson

(I am owner of JB Linear Music since 1998 and a long-time woodwind.org sponsor)

John Gibson, Founder of JB Linear Music, www.music4woodwinds.com

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 Re: Clarinet wiki?
Author: Mark Charette 
Date:   2007-07-31 22:05

I think you might want to wait a while rather than split this readership up. I have my own ideas on a better community site, and have the experience to run it.

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 Re: Clarinet wiki?
Author: johng 2017
Date:   2007-07-31 23:15

Mark - my intent is NOT to do anything negative to this site. My idea was just a way to provide an open source to members on specific topics. However, if you think it is a good idea, and were thinking of adding something similar to the current program, then please do! I can't think of anyone better to do it, although it could be you have enough to do....but that is your decision.

johng

John Gibson, Founder of JB Linear Music, www.music4woodwinds.com

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 Re: Clarinet wiki?
Author: Mark Charette 
Date:   2007-07-31 23:22

John,
Sorry to be so curt online! It wasn't my intent, though it most certainly came out that way.

I'm not so sure Wikis are the right thing, but blogs certainly are from some of our more renown members, and I know a few other readers who would add to the site's information, though they don't post. Articles written by those members would also be welcome additions - especially if I don't have to re-edit everything when changes get made!

I've been working offline to convert some of our databases along with converting the BBoard into something more modern and flexible. It's a big effort, but I'll get it done somehow. I will probably be changing jobs in a couple of months to something that will allow me to work more hours - both at my "day job" and on the site.

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 Re: Clarinet wiki?
Author: C2thew 
Date:   2007-07-31 23:29

well the benefit of doing making a wiki article database would be that you wouldn't have to dig so much through the clarinet board to find answers about questions. and it probably wouldn't have a large support base as the clarinet board, so I can only see this as a win-win situation (except for the exclusively moderating the wiki ad, i mean you CAN revert back to an older page if the new page has been trashed or junked)

why not just make a clarinet for advanced players wiki thread?

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. they are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive as railroads lead to Boston to New York
-Walden; Henry Thoreau

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 Re: Clarinet wiki?
Author: Mark Charette 
Date:   2007-07-31 23:43

C2thew wrote:

> well the benefit of doing making a wiki article database

It's much more difficult than even moderating here ... A BBoard doesn't pretend to be an authority on anything. A wiki does. In an intranet the company can assign subject matter experts to different areas and limit the authorship.

There's less agreement on clarinetistry than there is on modern China's history ...

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 Re: Clarinet wiki?
Author: rsholmes 
Date:   2007-08-01 02:05

Quote:

A BBoard doesn't pretend to be an authority on anything. A wiki does.


I certainly have never had either of those impressions. Some bboards do not try to be authoritative, and some wikis do, but in the end both are simply tools to be used or abused according to the needs and whims of their users.

Whatever path one takes, best to be sure it's one that doesn't depend on one or two or three people putting heart and soul into it, only to founder and atrophy if they move on to other things.

Wikis are great if the users are cooperative. When they start getting competitive, when feuds break out... it gets ugly. I've stopped contributing to Wikipedia because I've found myself getting too emotionally involved when others lay waste to my efforts. So I've gotten kind of jaundiced about wikis. But definitely having easily navigated, well written, cohesive articles about clarinet topics of interest would be far better than having to trawl through this bboard's archives looking for answers, as we do now.

One thing I find very odd about the OP's proposal:

Quote:

What I have in mind, then is a limited editing access wiki using the expertise found on this BBoard and maybe the Klarinet list as well. Anyone could view it on the internet, but only you folks could contribute.


Membership in this bboard and the Klarinet list is a very odd criterion, it seems to me, for dividing people allowed to contribute from people who are not. After all, anyone in the world can register here or on the Klarinet list, while I'm sure plenty of people with good expertise do not.

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 Re: Clarinet wiki?
Author: Mark Charette 
Date:   2007-08-01 02:20

Have you ever visited http://www.woodwind.org or http://www.clarinet.org? Both places have plenty of articles to browse through. You can search either or both from here.

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 Re: Clarinet wiki?
Author: rsholmes 
Date:   2007-08-01 03:18

http://www.woodwind.org: Maybe a couple dozen articles relating specifically to clarinets, plus some lists of links, retailers, etc. Not particularly well organized, I think -- there were more articles than I thought, at first, simply because I couldn't easily find them all, surrounded by lists and other stuff. No overall index of articles, no cross references or cross links, very limited categorization. A lot of the "articles" really appear to be cut and paste collections of text from bboard and mailing list posts. It's not clear how or whether new contributions are incorporated. I also don't like the look of the layout, but that's very subjective. It's a fairly useful site but not the sort of thing I think the OP had in mind.

http://www.clarinet.org/fests/archives.asp: Most of the articles there appear to be under one of two headings: "Clarinet Anthology" is a baker's dozen of articles dating from 1950 to 1964, good for what they are presumably but certainly limited, and "Past ClarinetFest® Presentations" which mostly are of narrow or specialist interest, e.g. "Linear Aspects of Harmony in New Orleans Clarinetists Sidney Bechet's Countermelodies (Abstract)" and "Zemlinsky’s Unfinished Final Masterpiece: The Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Viola and Cello". Again, not the kind of general resource with ongoing user contributions I think the OP was talking about.

Apologies if I've overlooked anything on either site.

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 Re: Clarinet wiki?
Author: claclaws 
Date:   2007-08-01 11:51

I like this Clarinet bboard best.. (sorry for a naive, quite childish comment). Wikis may be only one of the first search results an interested clarinet novice will get while browsing the internet. More serious clarinet lovers know this site, don't they?

Lucy Lee Jang


Post Edited (2007-08-01 22:32)

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 Re: Clarinet wiki?
Author: johng 2017
Date:   2007-08-01 13:41

RSholmes said: <Membership in this bboard and the Klarinet list is a very odd criterion, it seems to me, for dividing people allowed to contribute from people who are not. After all, anyone in the world can register here or on the Klarinet list, while I'm sure plenty of people with good expertise do not.>

In my proposal I was looking for some sort of filter and this group is the best I know of. That wouldn't mean that other, non-list, experts couldn't be invited to contribute as well.

John Gibson, Founder of JB Linear Music, www.music4woodwinds.com

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 Re: Clarinet wiki?
Author: EEBaum 
Date:   2007-08-01 19:40

The problem with a wiki as it relates to musical performance is that the topic is so darn subjective.

In a wiki, you generally make a page about something, then anyone can come in later and tweak things to make them more current, accurate, thorough, etc. Problem is, while Los Angeles has a recorded population and Disney Hall was built in a certain year, there is no one accepted way to adjust a reed.

If you wikify clarinet advice, you'd likely end up with certain situations...

- Someone (perhaps experienced and respected) posts a method that works for them. Someone else (perhaps also experienced and respected) thinks it's a waste of time to use reed rush when adjusting, changes up the article a bit to what they think works better. Someone else still thinks reed clipping is an absolute no-no and puts in a short blurb about that. Pretty soon you end up with a bunch of advice. Now, they may all be good pieces of advice in the proper context, but the bits and pieces might be horrible advice in that combination.

- To keep things in context, you sectionalize the wiki. Perhaps you have "EEBaum's guide to playing with proper time" and "Mark Charette's guide to playing with rhythmic accuracy" and "RSHolme's guide to proper rhythms on the clarinet". At that point, its being a wiki is pretty pointless.

- Of course, the obvious... lots of how we do things becomes almost a religious obsession. Could you imagine the page we'd make on Richard Stoltzman? At worst, it would be a frequently-vandalized page. At best, it would have a "this is why people like him" section and a "this is why people don't like him" one. In any case, someone randomly coming by for information would instantly be bombarded with everyone's two cents. Same goes for movement during playing, grading systems, etc. Worse yet, for controversial topics, even if you keep all the opinions around, it could end up with a "me too" page, where everyone feels the need to have their say. Keeping it purely factual would also be a disservice to the topic, as it would ignore those issues.

- Frankly, unless handled very carefully, I think it's a flamewar waiting to happen.


While the board format doesn't provide a happy digest to topics of interest, it *does* retain context and authorship information very well. I just find it hard to imagine how a wiki could address that type of thing. If you DO want a place for all the factual stuff, I might suggest contributing to the already-established Wikipedia on those accounts.

Speaking of which, and I hesitate to mention it due to the possibility of an edit-fest, Wikipedia does have a page on Richard Stoltzman. I recommend just having a peek at it and thinking of the ways people might see fit to edit it. Heck, I find the part about "has received little praise" quite inaccurate.

-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com

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