Talk:Scott Joplin

Recordings

This list could be expanded massively by an hour or two in my vinyl collection. When The Sting , with incomplete snatches of Joplin's good stuff led to the Joplin Revival of the 70's, several good recordings were released.

One was a Biograph Release of Rolls Played on a Bechstein upright, with a committee to agree on tempos, as these tended to vary on the rolls as well as between instruments. When listening to rolls there is the barely-perceptible sound of the tempo rising as the pin rolled to the bottom. In my neighborhood pizza parlor there was a well-maintained upright player and many Joplin rolls, some recorded by Joplin himself. I found it interesting how often he played lovely "grace notes" that were NOT included in his scores, and which he often reminded artists NOT to play.

Nonesuch released two LPs of Joshua Rifkin playing the best arrow-straight, (non-stylized), recordings of Joplin's piano I ever heard. I saw Rifkin in concert in La Jolla California, and he was as good or better at interpreting Joplin live as anyone ever recorded.

The release that brought me to appreciate Joplin was Gunter Schuler, and the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble recording of "The Red Back Book." These were orchestral arrangements by Joplin. KPBS in San Diego played, "Sugar Cane", and "The Easy Winners", and for the first time in my life I went directly to Tower Records and bought the LP. Schuler later released, "Palm Leaf Rag", an album of his own orchestral arrangements, (played by the NECRE), of Joplin Piano Music. User:W8IMP 0524, 05 January 2007 (UTC)

Protection warranted?

The article seems to continually attract vandals. Maybe 99% of the time they're IPs, so page protection should help. I have a feeling that this article will need continual protection based on the number of different IPs and types of edits, mostly rude kids. --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 08:13, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

the ship

One of his songs "solace" is used in the video game the Ship. It is mostly used in the main menu theme. I can tell because of the main piano piece. You can recognize that anywhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.216.249.141 (talk) 01:55, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I'm not sure this information can be used here. Perhaps if there is a page for "the ship" that would be relevant. Ben (Major Bloodnok) (talk) 22:07, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Scott Joplin/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jezhotwells (talk · contribs) 22:58, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.

Disambiguations: none found.

Linkrot: two found and fixed.[1]

I aim to post a substantive review within 48 hours. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:04, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for starting this so promptly! Ben (Major Bloodnok) (talk) 07:25, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Checking against GA criteria

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   The prose is not reasonably well written. It needs some serious copy-editing. Some examples from the first few sections below:

   Joplin was given a rudimentary musical education by his musical family, Florence playing the banjo and singing, and Giles playing and teaching the violin to Scott, Robert and William; at the age of seven he was allowed to play piano in both a neighbor's house and at the home of an attorney while his mother worked Over complex sentence, also "musical - "musical" - poor word choice.

   sometimes playing the classics for him along with describing the great composers. Clumsy and ungrammatical.

   it is possible he played his own compositions; biographer Curtis describes an eye-witness, Zenobia Campbell, recalling him playing his own compositions; clumsy.

   In the late 1880s, having performed at various local events as a teenager, Joplin chose to give up his only steady employment as a laborer with the railroad and left Texarkana to work as traveling musician. again very clumsy.

   He was soon to discover that there were few opportunities for black pianists, however; besides the church, brothels were one of the few options for obtaining steady work. Again rather clumsy.

   The March was described by one of Joplin's biographers as a "special... early essay in ragtime" "March" should not be capitalized here.

   The College records were destroyed in a fire in 1925 again capitalization.

   Inconsistency in spelling: US English would have "traveled" not "travelled"

   Similar problems abound throughout.

   The lead does not fully summarize the article, no mention of marriages, no summary of his legacy. Please check out WP:LEAD and apply.

   Please get this copy-edited throughout. Articles should not be nominated until they meet the GA criteria.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   References such as #45[2] need author attribution.

   Although the World's Fair was "not congenial to African Americans," needs direct attribution and citation, as do all quotations.

   References appear to be RS. I assume good faith for off-line sources.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   His grave at Saint Michaels Cemetery in East Elmhurst was finally honored in 1974. How was "it honored"? Also needs a citation.

   I think the section on Treemonisha could be covered better in a summary style. The Revival section also seems some-what over detailed.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   NPOV

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   Appears stable

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   File:Scott Joplin, Garden City, KS, Museum IMG 5894.JPG has the wrong license. Other images check out. Audio files check out.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   Having re-read the article several times, I feel that the prose problems prevent it from reaching GA status at this time. It really needs a thorough copy-edit and some application of summary style. This will take longer than a week. After that has been done I would suggest getting it peer reviewed before renomination. Jezhotwells (talk) 20:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

GA prose suggestions

Rereading the article after a long pause, I tend to understand some of the issues listed. Unfortunately, calling sentences "clumsy" doesn't explain problems with precision. But IMO I think some serious pruning would help. However, pruning facts is tricky since they were added by someone who felt they improved the article, and becomes a subjective edit.

My guess is that about 15 - 20% of the article can be pruned and consolidated. I see a lot of complex sentences, many relying on semicolons to expand details. More than a few have unnecessary minutia, trivia, or irrelevant details, and trimming them might help unify and simplify the readability. Taking a few sentences from the 1st paragraph of the 1st section gives an example:

Although for many years his birth date was accepted as November 24, 1868, research has revealed that this is almost certainly inaccurate – the most likely approximate date being the second half of 1867.[3] In addition to Scott, other children of Giles and Florence were Monroe, Robert, Rose, William, and Johnny.

The 1st sentence can be simplified, and the 2nd one doesn't need the name of his siblings, IMO. I don't mind helping a bit, and would have no problem with anyone undoing anything. Joplin is an icon of American music history and deserves a GA designation if possible. --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 22:07, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

All good ideas - the Peer review and the GAN review are very useful guides how to improve the page. Thorough copy-editing and judicious pruning are esential things to do at this point. Extraneous detail can be removed as long as there is a reference to indicate where more information can be found. As ever, it is a group effort that is needed.

Thinking about it quickly I think the first 5 sentences could be reduced from:

Scott Joplin, the second of six[1] children, was born in eastern Texas, outside of Texarkana,[2] to Giles Joplin and Florence Givins. His birth, like many others, represented the first post-slavery generation of African-Americans. Although for many years his birth date was accepted as November 24, 1868, research has revealed that this is almost certainly inaccurate – the most likely approximate date being the second half of 1867.[3] In addition to Scott, other children of Giles and Florence were Monroe, Robert, Rose, William, and Johnny.[4] His father was an ex-slave from North Carolina and his mother was a freeborn African American woman from Kentucky.[5]

to something like:

Scott Joplin, the second of six children, was born in eastern Texas, outside of Texakarna at some point in the second half of 1867, and not as previously believed November 24th 1868[3]. His father Giles Joplin was an ex-slave from North Caroline and his mother, Florence Givins, was a freeborn African-American from Kentucky.

I'd want to leave in the reference to the birthdate debate, since that's one of the things that gets changed most often by anonymous editors. I think there are other web-sites which still put the date as 24th Nov. Ben (Major Bloodnok) (talk) 09:48, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Infobox

I've replaced the musical artist infobox with the Classical composer infobox. There is much discussion Wikipedia:WikiProject_Composers#Biographical_infoboxes here and elsewhere in the projects' pages. It seems sensible to replace the infobox with a shorter one as much of the information in the previous infobox is available in the lead or is subject to qualification - having it in the infobox is misleading. Ben (Major Bloodnok) (talk) 15:53, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

The stated purpose of the removal of the longer infobox style for musical composers is as follows:

1. They often give trivia undue emphasis and prominence at the head of the article 2. They tend to become redundant (by duplicating the lead) 3. They can, conversely, become over-complex and thus vague, confused, or misleading, often compounding errors found elsewhere in the article, e.g. by confusing style and genre, setting forth haphazard lists of individual works, or highlighting the subject's trivial secondary or non-musical occupations.

However, none of these are the case in the "Scott Joplin" article: several of the instruments played by the composer are never mentioned elsewhere in the article, none of the occupations listed are non-musical or biographically trivial, and the historical era -- 1895-1917 -- is much more accurate and precise than simply "20th century". This infobox does not duplicate the lead; rather, it summarizes it in less than 50 words, vs. 500 words. In addition, there is no argument to be made concerning music genre vs. style, as the Wikipedia articles of Ragtime and march define both as "genres". Please discuss. 99.232.8.194 (talk) 03:05, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi there 99. Thanks for your contributions; assuming you aren't an existing editor and simply forgot to sign in, please do consider setting up an account - I do hope you stay. You are right to say that these are the guidelines for infoboxes. It does also say elsewhere in relation to these things that infoboxes are not compulsory but should be agreed by consensus (I don't off-hand remember which page said that). The infobox as it stands at the moment, the one you reverted back to, has been on the page for quite some time, and I was following WP:BOLD by trying to improve it.

Essentially, I'm not wedded to either version, but here is my reasoning. Much of the information in the current iteration is already in the Lead, so there is duplication, and therefore redundancy. In addition, I don't think that having a list of all the instruments we have note of Joplin having played at some point in his life is especially helpful (I may even have added to that list at some point in the past, I don't recall). He is known as a composer, and not as an instrumentalist. It is misleading to have that list in the infobox as it implies (amongst other things) that he is known for playing the mandolin, which he demonstrably is not. At various points in his life he was a travelling musician, and so it was likely that he turned his hand to a variety of instruments. I don't feel that this the best information to put into the infobox as it all requires clarification and caveats. Others (including you I think) disagree. That's fine. Lets discuss this and come to a consensus. An infobox is a useful tool, but not place to put uncertain or unclear data. In this instance, less is more.

With this in mind, having is occupations down is unclear to the general reader too; he is known as a composer, not a music teacher. In any case it seems that towards the end of his life he lost his students and with his 3rd wife ended up running a boarding house which became some kind of unofficial brothel. That certainly should be put into the article (I will when I have time), but not in the infobox as this is not the most notable thing about him.

I think you have a stronger case when it comes to the "genre"; I was just following the guidance on the infobox I put into place; I would prefer to leave in Ragtime at the very least. Ragtime and March, sure, but why not Waltz? Isn't this form of dance a genre too? Joplin wrote many waltzes.

If the lead does not summarise well the article that follows it, then the lead should be improved. In addition there are many aspects of Joplin's life which need to be enlarged and developed (especially the New York period), please feel free to get involved with that. I think the infobox is not a great place to have this information.

Although there is room for discussion here, I will not in the first instance be reverting your reversion as I don't want to escalate this. Ben (Major Bloodnok) (talk) 20:32, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

List of recordings

Would it make sense to have a list of significant recordings of Joplin's music? we have mentioned a number of them in his article, but i think a list would be nice.(mercurywoodrose)75.61.130.86 (talk) 06:49, 1 June 2012 (UTC)