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:musical_score: ELVIS Database Web Application
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Number of voices should be a range #144

Open slhowes opened 9 years ago

slhowes commented 9 years ago

For pieces with movements with different numbers of voices, it would be great if the piece listed those differences as a range (e.g. 3-4 for a 4-voice dance suite with a single trio movement, or 4-5 for an SATB mass with an added voice in the final movement).

ahankinson commented 9 years ago

Why?

agpar commented 9 years ago

We talked about this in the last meeting. Piece P has movements m1 and m2. m1 has 3 voices, m2 has 4. What do you write as the voice count for P? We agreed a range would be better than a median or mode.

slhowes commented 9 years ago

Also, sometimes individual movements have an inconsistent voice count, e.g., a very long Gloria that switches between 6- and 4-voice textures. This is exciting, so there should be some way to represent it in the database so that it's searchable.

ahankinson commented 9 years ago

So you currently don't have the ability to specify voice numbers in movements? That would be a good thing to add.

I was more concerned about specifying multiple voice numbers inside pieces or movements (like @slhowes most recent comment). "Searchable" and "usable" are not necessarily equivalent.

Would you want to know where the voices changed? (e.g., measure numbers?) It would not be a big deal to add multiple values for the voices field, but then also adding location for voice changes would need significant re-engineering.

emilyhopkins commented 9 years ago

Number of voices can currently be changed for a given movement. ("Show Advanced" beside each movement title)

The suggestion at the meeting was that the Number of voices associated with the Piece would automatically account for variation from movement to movement -- if Mvt. 1 has 2 voices, Mvt 2 has 6 voices, and mvt. 3 has 3 voices, it would just say "2-6" for the Number of Voices in the Piece info.

For the Gloria mentioned above, I think "6" (the maximum) should be the number specified.

The "Number of Voices" in the database isn't really about texture. That's why so much music in the database has "0" as the number of voices -- whether it's a symphony or piano sonata, the "number of voices" is simply not as rigidly defined as it is in, say, a motet. We don't want to have to analyze pieces in order to upload them (that's what the analysis software is for!)

slhowes commented 9 years ago

By "searchable," I just mean that a long movement that alternates between 4 and 6 voices should appear in the search results whether the box for 4 voices or the box for 6 voices is checked in the faceted search. Would that work if the voice count for the movement was listed as a range instead of a single number (the maximum)?

AFFogarty commented 8 years ago

Has any progress been made on this?