Style/Titles/Part numbers

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Revision as of 22:08, 26 October 2005 by Gecks (talk | contribs) (discussion (Imported from MoinMoin))
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Style for PartNumbers

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 AlbumLanguage is English).
  • Also note that the PartName must be formatted according to SubTitleStyle.

Example

"Flares, Part 3" --http://musicbrainz.org/track/36bd10fa-3214-4876-ab75-55b59f31606d.html

"09-15-00, Part One" --http://musicbrainz.org/track/9a414931-0cb3-48ec-861e-0c4c344199c5.html

"Creepin', Parts 1 & 2" --http://musicbrainz.org/track/d5590ff3-51d4-44db-89c6-0a2372524199.html Two numbers are noted using an ampersand "&", the part indication in its plural form.

"Train to Lamy Suite, Parts 1-3" --http://musicbrainz.org/track/fdd06153-56d0-420d-9130-8103723b2989.html 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 albums 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: Is it ok to have numbers spelled out?

A: Yes it is ok to have the spelled out - see the examples on SeriesNumberStyle.


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. --g0llum

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


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

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


Imho this old style guideline needs to be extended. I have several issues which are to be discussed: On http://musicbrainz.org/album/3b27a16a-1016-4cf9-9c10-51bd0cbf5e8d.html you can see I applied the "," style also to the prologue as it is also a "part" of "The Embrace That Smothers". What you can also see here: just like it's written on the cover the items of the title are grouped "Part title (Group title, Part X)". I though applied another style on Symphony X as the titles as they were directly led to this: see album http://musicbrainz.org/showalbum.html?albumid=51058 - I there changed from "A Winter's Dream - The Ascension (Part II)" to "A Winter's Dream, Part II: The Ascension". So here (mostly derived from the cover) the style is "Group title, Part X: Part title" which I prefer more but I think we could just stick to the cover. Nevertheless part titles are not yet included in this guideline and need to be standardized. Maybe we can stick to the classical rules here. :)

  • Part titles *are* included in this (new!) guideline - see it's parent, SeriesNumberStyle. -- Gecks
    • Ok, this question is cleared, i felt over a guideline that is marked official but was not linked before. Added it above. --Shepard

Another flaw is the first sentence in this guideline: "Applies to songs that have been split across multiple tracks." This is not always the case! Look at http://musicbrainz.org/showalbum.html?albumid=185132 - the last song has no more parts, all of them are in one track but yet it includes parts! Or take Dream Theater's album "Metropolis, Part 2: Scenes From a Memory" - there was no album 1 but a track "Metropolis, Part I: The Miracle and the Sleeper" though we intuitive apply PartNumberStyle. Ok this could be explained with SeriesNumberStyle but imho the whole thing needs to be more formalized. -- Shepard

  • I agree, it's too restraining to apply it only to series of tracks, because the tracks could either be split on multiple discs, or even releases -- G0llum SeriesNumberStyle is the general rule - PartNumberStyle simply applys a few specific instructions for parts, which we did because PartNumberStyle and VolumeNumberStyle are largely governed by the same principles (ie SeriesNumberStyle). Regarding these specific examples - I think common sense should prevail in this case, and outlining specific rules for these would muddy the waters for 99% of applications of this guideline. Remember we do have a democratic system in place for 'grey' areas :) -- Gecks
    • Well, how big is the difference between SeriesNumberStyle, PartNumberStyle and VolumeNumberStyle anyway? Would it not make sense to merge them all into SeriesNumberStyle? --DonRedman
      • I think the WikiNames make most sense the way they are split currently. If merged, it would lead to a rather big and confusing page. Personally I wouldn't want to attempt to do that but people are welcome to try :) -- Gecks

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 album 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 seperate 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 comprimise 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 incosistent. 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
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