Style/Titles/Part numbers

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Revision as of 00:09, 5 May 2007 by Gecks (talk | contribs) (grammar police! (Imported from MoinMoin))
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Style for PartNumbers

Alert.png Attention! This guideline is specific to Part numbering. General rules for appending numbering to a title are found in SeriesNumberStyle.

When a track is one of a series of identically named tracks with a defined order, separate the PartNumber from the TrackTitle by a comma and a space.

"TrackTitle, Part 1"

"TrackTitle, Part 1: PartName"

This guideline is a specification of the more general SeriesNumberStyle. See that page for principles (especially in which cases ArtistIntent overrides this guideline).

Alternative names for parts may be used, such as Section, or their non-English equivalents.

  • Note that if the title of a track is just "Part 1" or similar then this guideline should not apply, because then "Part 1" is considered being the MainTitle of the track and not the PartNumber.
  • Also note that the AbbreviationStyle says that you should not use abbreviations in titles. So "Pt." should always be expanded to "Part" (assuming the ReleaseLanguage is English).
  • Also note that the PartName must be formatted according to SubTitleStyle.

Example

"Flares, Part 3"

"09-15-00, Part One"

"Creepin', Parts 1 & 2" -- Two numbers are noted using an ampersand "&", the part indication in its plural form.

"Train to Lamy Suite, Parts 1-3" -- More than 2 numbers, which are in sequence are separated by a hyphen "-", the part indication in its plural form.

"This Is a Trackname, Parts 1, 4 & 5" -- More than 2 numbers, which are *not* in sequence are separated by a comma "," and the last one is added with an ampersand "&", the part indication in its plural form.

Details

Please see SeriesNumberStyle for details.

Discussion

I have releases where the first part of the track series has no part number, despite a second part existing. In this case I think we should leave that numberless, as it could be considered the 'original' or 'main' version of the song. --Gecks



Q: What if a track "Some Trackname (Pt. 1)" is featured with the said title on a compilation? Should it stick to the formatting as it were in sequence with the other parts of the series, e.g. "Some Trackname, Part 1"? I'm in favor of applying PartNumberStyle to all track names which have some notation of Pt, Pts and other variants. --Keschte

A: I believe that's the thing to do - I think tracks that intentionally have these abbreviations (for whatever reason) are a rare occurrence. --Gecks



Q: Should stuff not be added to TrackTitles in parentheses, like in TrackAttributesStyle and RemixStyle?

A: As long as it is consistent, use the format the artist uses. Parts are almost always shown with a preceding comma on tracklistings, rather than track attributes (e.g. mix names). Also, we consider PartNumbers to be more a part of the title than ExtraTitleInformation, they are special.



Yet another question :) What about tracks which combine different parts where every part has a name? See for example Angra's Rebirth and its entry in Discogs (they do this in comments). Often we seem to leave those parts out as they make the title to long and the part names are often not mentioned on the cover but only in the lyrics. But on this cover for example there are part names (not with the word "Part"). Discogs does this as before, in our release entry it is not mentioned at the moment. I really think we need to adopt more style guidelines from the classical guide. --Shepard

  • I don't think this guideline should cover this really. This is just for dealing with part numbers of separate tracks. For that example I would like to see it as something like "Unholy Wars: Imperial Crown / Forgiven Return". I seem to remember that being suggested back in the StyleDude days but there doesn't seem to be anything concrete in place. Anyway it's for another page :) --Gecks

Sentence "Applies to songs that have been split across multiple tracks." should go, because it contradicts the rest of the document. Opinions? --Zout

  • For it. Or at least reformulate it. --Shepard
    • Agreed, and done. --Gecks
      • But I still disagree :( Again: the last track on http://musicbrainz.org/showalbum.html?albumid=185132 only has those 3 parts so there are no other tracks that belong to this series. Also it does not say that this track can contain several parts of the series. I'd say: "If a track covers one (or several) part(s) of a work which is splitted to several parts ..." or something like that. --Shepard
        • I think with that, the title *implies* there's more parts to the series, regardless of whether they have ever been recorded or not. If not, then it's just a stylistic title and as such doesn't really come under this rule I think. Regardless, I think this is an exceptional case and I'd rather we didn't compromise the integrity of the rule that applies to 99% of cases. We can't cover every eventuality really. --Gecks
          • A stylistic title would not come under the rule? So I should write it like it's on the cover? That would be very inconsistent. Another example: http://musicbrainz.org/album/94d1641f-7c5a-4e11-acaa-2654f57986a4.html - see: it's not an exceptional case. And not an eventuality. --Shepard
            • If you can think of a way to incorporate this into the guideline without confusing things then be my guest. Personally, I can't, and I'd like to go with a simple (hah!) set of rules to cover most things, and let common sense prevail over the rest. --Gecks