Talk:Singer-songwriter/Catalogs

Alphabetical order

Before we go any further, I'd like to suggest alphabetical order for popular music be by first name of act (ignoring The). I was pleased to receive a chart book some years ago organised along those very lines. Also it's common practice for Portuguese people: many have very long names & it can be hard to tell where the family bit begins - I mention these as mere precedents in case the suggestion sounds weird. It solves the problem of name of group/band versus name of person (Alice Cooper, Manfred Mann) and makes scanning lists far easier. Ro Thorpe 22:28, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you intend one listing for all languages? Or, put differently, should French, German, etc. singer-songwriters be included here or separately? --Peter Schmitt 22:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

[Aleta desperately searches memory banks] As I recall, Peter, catalogues, like the rest of the cluster subpages, were intended to organise extraneous information in ways that make sense. Much depends on using our best judgement. If you look at various catalogues, some simply have one catalogue on the page, others have several catalogues listed on the catalogue page, then you have to click on the individual pages to see the catalogue. It all depends on how much info has to be listed and how involved the subject area is.

In this case, I'd suggest separate lists, and if they're not too long they can go on the page. How long is the catalogue of French singer-songwriters on the english citizendium likely to be? These things only get developed if you've got someone with a specific interest, most of the rest of us can probably only name one or two....

Like everything else, it's flexible and would change if circumstances changed...like a French music Eduzendium class...although, they'd probably need to write in French, making this moot. Ah well....

Aleta Curry 22:58, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Aleta, you are right with everything you say. All is flexible and can be adapted (but changes need an effort, of course.) I just wanted to know what Ro thinks -- now. The question was a reaction on his remark on Portuguese names, by the way :-)

Another question is the claasification according to periods -- some may be difficult to fit in. One might consider sorting by year of "first appearance", instead.

--Peter Schmitt 23:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I just saw that Ro hesitates to mix languages. --Peter Schmitt 00:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me of that, Peter. Yes, I suppose the French article would be Chanson. But German? Lieder being Schubert & co. Aleta's points are very well made; yes, it's always a work in progress, we must keep it flexible. So my comments about alphabetical order are only for the anglophone stuff. It's already very inclusive, but I don't see how that can be avoided, as we can't turn the clock back to the seventies (no, quite). Also to go in are the others Aleta mentioned previously (Yarrow, etc.) Ro Thorpe 00:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

German term is Liedermacher, but French? Chanson is only the song. --Peter Schmitt 01:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Is that the German for 'songwriter'? I know a fair number of French words translating as writer, author, composer etc. etc. but do the French have a specific term for singer-songwrtier as we do in English? Anyone? Aleta Curry 02:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you have to start with auteur & then get more specific - chanteur, compositeur, poète... - so, not really. Ro Thorpe 02:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

"Liedermacher" is literally "maker of songs", but it is used for a certain type of singer-songwriters (of mostly German language songs). Some names are Udo Lindenberg, Herbert Grönemeyer, Reinhard May, etc. I am not sure if Falco could be called Liedermacher. "Singer-songwriter" is quite usual for the general case. (In German, or "Denglisch", many English terms are used.)