IMSLP Forums

For the last two years IMSLP's categorization system has placed original works and arrangements in different genre categories (listed at the top and bottom of each work page). For example:

• For violin, piano = works originally composed for violin with piano
• For violin, piano (arr) = works originally for other instruments that were later arranged for violin with piano

If you're browsing for works that can be played by a particular combination of instruments, do you find this distinction useful, or is it inconvenient to search two categories instead of one? We'd be grateful if you'd take part in our poll to decide whether the genre categories for original works and arrangements should be merged or remain separate.

In the event of a "No" majority vote the "Arrangements and Transcriptions" sections would still remain on the work pages, but genre categories like "For violin, piano (arr)" would be merged with "For violin, piano". A "Yes" majority vote would continue with the present category system.

I can understand the irritation associated with having to browse two separate categories, but I think it might be better to come up with some kind of intermediate solution rather than completely removing all that information. Back when I was regularly doing tag category realization, one of the things I generally made sure to look for to put in the 'See also' section was the arrangement version of the page - and vice versa, of course (so the two pages would be cross-linked). This is a bit cumbersome, however, because it is not a built-in functionality and therefore has to be manually updated. The reason I mention this is because I think it might be a better idea to find a way to bring the two category systems closer without actually removing the distinctions between the two, similar to what I tried to do but hopefully much more expansive. Here are a couple thoughts/ideas:
-The catintro template could automatically search for an arrangement/non-arrangement version of the page it's used on and link to it somewhere in the heading. To get rid of irrelevant results, there could be some kind of code to check whether the category name starts with 'For ' (including the space)
-Instead of just a plain link, there could be some kind of prominent 'expand' feature to include or exclude the other category's contents? Maybe this would have to lead to the creation of a supercategory to hold both arrangement and original instrumentation versions, which would then be sorted into two subcategories
-On the CW (and VG?), there could be a similar 'expand' feature, maybe in the form of a new button '+arr' or something to appear to the side of the list

Actually, I think I would support something like this even in the event of a 'Yes' majority - we may be able to get the best of both worlds this way. Thoughts?

Thanks, KGill. Could you maybe say a little more about why you think it's important to keep arrangements in separate categories?

I note that the Library of Congess musical subject headings differenciate between arrangements and original works.

@Homerdundas. Yes, that's why we've done the same. But do our users find this helpful or not?

Davydov wrote:Could you maybe say a little more about why you think it's important to keep arrangements in separate categories?

I think that, as a site that strives to precisely catalogue everything, it would be a substantial disappointment if we were to remove any difference between works that were originally scored for completely different forces and just lump them all together. Integrate the systems as much as possible for user convenience, sure, but for the sake of preserving what has become an extensive and carefully constructed system of instrumental designations I do not think this would be a desirable eventuality. And also, what if a user wanted to search specifically for, say, piano trio versions of orchestral works for some reason? Couldn't the 'inconvenience' work both ways? And does the mere fact that there are two separate category systems really create that much of an inconvenience, or is the problem in their presentation?

I think, it is not so bad to look up two categories for a certain instrumentation instead of one. But it may happen, that one of the two, for example the one with
arrangements, is very small and the other is one is big. The bigger one is announced immediatly in the catgory walker, whereas for the small one you may often have
to click at the "next" button, so it can easily be ignored. With merged categories this can be avoided. But perhaps it is possible to connect the categories, so
that the arrangement category appears directly under the category with the original works.

My reasoning, apart from correct cataloguing procedure, is one that probably no one else uses or needs, but when I run my university chamber music class, or the yearly chamber music workshop for high school students, I prefer to use music that is not an arrangement. In some cases it is allowed, but I prefer to work with original instrumentation. It is useful to me to have the two categories, because I only look in the arrangements if I can't find anything original for the instrumentation I need.

A system where the arrangements would be a sub-category of the group, so I could exclude it, would work well.

As a type of experiment for the organization schema mentioned, I have been organizing the sound files this way (no arrangements and transcriptions tab) for the last couple of weeks while doing the routine copyright tagging. Since all synthesized renditions - whether in MIDI format or an audio format - are technically arrangements anyway, it seemed like a good place to see what such an organization system would actually look like in real life.

Well the arguments so far are heavily in favour of keeping the present separation of arrangements, but the poll doesn't close until the weekend so there's still plenty of time to express your opinion if this is something you feel strongly about.

Not keeping the "present separation of arrangements", but "keeping a separation of arrangements", that´s what i would see as the "gcd".

Thank you to everyone who contributed, and the decision is unanimously to keep separate categories for arrangements.

Because no-one expressed the view that the present system was inconvenient, I don't propose to make any changes for the time being, while noting the carefully considered comments on how things might be improved in the future.