Wikidata:Property proposal/motif (music)

motif edit

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Creative work

   Done: musical motif (P6686) (Talk and documentation)
Descriptionshort recurring melodic or rhythmic musical phrase in this musical work, in LilyPond syntax
Representsmotif (Q908349)
Data typeMusical Notation
Domainmusical work (Q2188189)
Example 1Symphony No. 5 (Q188709)
 
Example 2String Quartet (Q1635257)
 

Motivation edit

Most musical motifs are not already notable on their own, so it may be appropriate to simply add them directly to the items for the compositions which contain them. LilyPond is not a canonical format for musical notation by any means, but neither is MathML for mathematical notation, so I think solely using LilyPond to represent motifs would be appropriate.

I don't know what conventions would be appropriate for this property, so I've just copied and pasted the LilyPond code from w:en:Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven) as a rough example. If playback is enabled then rough tempo markings might also be appropriate for pieces that don't have BPM measurements.

The only LilyPond properties that presently exist are the sandbox property and the generic property. (The datatype was only enabled on Thursday.) I'm not sure if this property should also encompass other related concepts such as figures, ostinati and riffs.

I don't think there would be any significant issues with using this for copyrighted works, since the property would only indicate short excerpts.

It could be possible to create new items for all musical motifs and use a generic property to indicate their notation. However, it's probably extremely rare for two otherwise unrelated works to coincidentally share a motif (I could be wrong), so there are probably few advantages to be gained from linking compositions through their use of the same motif. Jc86035 (talk) 10:57, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion edit