Talk:Ten-string extended-range classical guitar/Archive 1

To split or not to split

This article is in the process of being split from the ten-string guitar article, and may well end up being merged back there... we'll see how it turns out. Splitting was a suggestion of another contributor at talk:ten-string guitar, and does solve for example the problem of what to do with the Partial bibliography section from that article, which has become the Further reading section here. Andrewa (talk) 20:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

One of the potential problems with this approach is that it could become a content fork. That's obviously not a danger right now as I'm the only active editor of either article. Andrewa (talk) 23:22, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The split is looking a better and better idea... The section on history is already larger than appropriate for the more general article, and the sections on repertoire and references should expand to be so. Andrewa (talk) 17:07, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Some things to do

Repertoire

It would be good to list some specific pieces under some or even all of the modern composers who have written specifically for this instrument. Andrewa (talk) 17:07, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Tunings

Details of scordatura tunings, in particular those reputedly used by Yepes himself for his lute music transcriptions. Andrewa (talk) 17:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. Andrewa (talk) 09:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

References

I've said the question of to what extent these various other stringings and tunings compromise this aim is somewhat controversial, but is it really? Frankly, this is currently based on the archives of talk:ten-string guitar and the history of that article, in which one particular contributor took a soapbox stand defending the Yepes tuning and attacking all others, as he has also done in various blogs and discussion groups. A reliable source to show that this view has support would be good. In particular, something by someone who realises (as Helmholtz pointed out long ago) that the theory of music is based on physiology not just physics.

The original Yepes tuning appears to me, like the ten-string itself, to be something of a fringe view at present. Most classical guitars still have six strings, even those sold by the Ramírez company, whose most noted luthier invented the modern ten-string. And most ten-string players use other tunings. I could be wrong here, and I don't want to stray into WP:OR. But mainly, some evidence would be good. Andrewa (talk) 17:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I've changed my mind about that... my best guess following a great deal of ongoing discussion at http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/10string/ is that the Yepes tuning is most common, followed by baroque/romantic, with Marlow last of the common three stringings. Still a bit speculative, and no reliable secondary sources to cite. Andrewa (talk) 17:43, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Janet Marlow's Approach Guide: Self-published, not published by Mel Bay

Marlow's list of publications with Mel Bay (including no "Approach Guide"): http://www.melbay.com/authors.asp?author=1675

Amazon.com lists the publisher as "Janet Marlow Music LLC (April 2005)", not Mel Bay: http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Ten-String-Guitar-Approach-Guitarists/dp/1599752611/

I happen to have a copy of Marlow's Approach Guide in its DVD format: clearly self-published.

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 03:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Quite right, thank you, and my mistake evidently. Mel Bay has published work by Marlow, and cites her as something of an authority on ten-string guitar, but the method does appear to be self-published. Andrewa (talk) 09:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Mel Bay may cite Marlow as "something of an authority on the ten-string guitar", but also as something of an authority on the ten-string guitar I have reviewed her approach guide and found it misinformative in the following respects:

1. In the front matter, Janet Marlow claims that "Narciso Yepes [...] heard that there were four tones with less sustain due to missing sympathetic resonance on the six-string guitar". In truth, Narciso Yepes always, verifiably stated that there are eight notes (from the twelve that make the chromatic octave) that do not have string resonance (i.e. a sympathetic response from an adjacent string). This can be verified in practically any of his various articles and interviews as well as in his Speech of Ingression into the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando delivered on 30 April 1989: "The strings that I have added incorporate all the natural resonance that the instrument lacked in eight of the twelve notes of the equal tempered scale." That is not only on six-string guitars. Also ten-string guitars that do not have the specific tuning invented by Yepes cannot lay claim to having unison sympathetic string resonances for all the twelve notes in all positions on the treble strings. This is an indisputable fact of acoustics, a science, which as such cannot be fudged.

2. Marlow does not define the term "resonance", which is used in this book in the lay sense rather than in its acoustic/scientific sense. This is evident from the chapter on "Controlling Resonance" in which controlling "resonance" is equated with a vibrating bass string that has been actively plucked. In fact, this is not string resonance, but simply a vibrating string. Resonance is the tendency of a system (like a string) to vibrate sympathetically at a particular natural frequency in response to energy induced at that frequency (that is, on another string).

3. No adequate explanation of how this resonance actually functions is offered anywhere in this book. In fact, the singular tuning that adds all eight missing resonances is relegated to an aside comment in parenthesis. In addition, it is claimed that the author's "own" method of tuning "satisfies the needed sustain" (Preface). As a fact of acoustics, the author's tuning system does not provide sympathetic string resonance for all the notes of a chromatic scale, nor does it thus equalize the sustain, resonance, timbre, or volume among the twelve notes of the octave (which is the entire primary purpose behind the invention of the modern 10-string guitar). The tuning system used in this method, for example, supplies no resonance for the notes of F-natural and B-flat, neither does it offer any resonance for C's.

4. In the Preface, Marlow claims that "In my own process over twenty five years I have developed the tuning" that forms the basis for this method. In fact, this method of tuning had already been fully developed by 1982, not "over twenty five years". Records of this are in the March 1982 edition of Guitar Player magazine, in an interview with Marlow by Allan Kozinn. Furthermore, this concept is therein attributed to Oscar Castro-Neves (March 1982: 20), not to Janet Marlow's "own process".

5. The transcriptions of baroque music (by Bach and Weiss) offered in this book are fraught with stylistic problems too numerous to list but for a few. For example, the ornaments (which are an integral part of baroque music) have been inexplicably omitted (eg. trills in bars 8 and 15 of the Weiss Courante). Furthermore, stylistically inappropriate melodic intervals have been introduced in the bass line. For example, in bars 1-3 of the Courante, instead of the smooth bass line moving by steps from A2 to G#2 [minor 2nd] to F#2 [major 2nd]) - as intended by Weiss in good baroque style - we find erratic leaps of an augmented octave [A2 to G#1] and a minor 7th [G#1 to F#2]. Where this descending line should be structurally mirrored in bars 36-38, we find again an erratic undermining of the formal and stylistic elements of the composition, simply to keep the bass notes on open strings. As such it seems rather insincere that the author lists "the correct use of octaves and bass lines intended by the composer" as a justification for using the 10-string guitar when this is clearly not the case in her own use of the instrument. Also, very little consideration seems to be shown for open basses ringing together where they should not, for example, the first three bass notes of the Courante all continue to ring together forming two dissonances (augmented octave and minor 7th) where the composer intends a clean line in the bass. That is, the bass line should be a melody, not a cacophany of dissonant harmonic intervals. (I refer also the the DVD version of this book, now discontinued, on which Marlow performs her transcription.)

6. Contrary to what this method claims, transcriptions of baroque music are not the best place to start one's ten-string guitar repertoire. As the abovementioned problems with this book illustrate, the results speak for themselves when individuals fail to be acquainted first with the actual acoustic workings of the ten-string guitar's resonance and second with the technique of playing the low basses at their correct pitches as stops on the 7th string (which should correctly, and with good reason, be the lowest in pitch). Baroque music, which is very difficult to play well with a sense for its ornamentation and style, is certainly no place for anyone to begin to approach the ten-string guitar.

Finally, this method has zero to do with the ten-string guitar as invented by Narciso Yepes or with the latter's approach to playing the instrument. There is simply no justification for Stephen B. Rekas of Mel Bay Publications to claim (as on the back matter) that this is "carrying the legacy of Narciso Yepes [...] into the 21st century."

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 05:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Disagree with much of this, but it seems to have little relevance to the article anyway. Andrewa (talk) 17:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Article name

I thought long and hard about this longish name. The obvious altenative is ten-string classical guitar, currently a redirect here. I didn't choose that because it would include harp guitars and the decacorde, but I wouldn't be all that upset if the other name were chosen, and the article rescoped to match the name. Andrewa (talk) 03:15, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The name is, to be blunt, nonsensical. No actual 10-string guitarist or authority on this instrument uses this terminology, which is entirely Andrewa's own creation. Why the anachronistic "classical"? Neither the 10-stringed harp-guitar of the 19th century nor the modern 10-string guitar is an instrument from the Classical period, and an acoustic guitar is as little limited to the performance of so-called "Classical" music as an acoustic piano is. And what exactly is meant by "extended-range"? Extended from what? This is assuming that the guitar had a fixed range, which is a fallacy considering most of the notable guitarists of the 19th century (Sor, Carulli, Coste, Mertz, Legnani, Manjon, etc.) also wrote for/performed on guitars with more than 6 strings, many of which had a treble range that was extended beyond the 19th/20th fret that is the norm on today's guitars. All in all this is a nonsensical title for an article that should simply be called "ten-string guitar" that that should include only historically significant instruments (i.e. not things like the Marlow 10-string guitar). And there should be a separate article for the "Yepes 10-string guitar", which this article currently simply continues to confuse with unrelated developements that have nothing to do with the primary defining characteristic of the Yepes instrument: its singualr tuning which uniquely gives sympathetic string resonance in unison with any note fretted on the treble strings.

Viktor van Niekerk [[1] www.tenstringguitar.INFO] Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 05:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, so are you suggesting we also rename the classical guitar article to guitar? (;->

I'm a bit surprised - the ten-string guitar article has described the Yepes guitar as a classical guitar since last April. Hmmm...

I think splitting the article further is unnecessary. The particular tuning invented by Yepes is of course important and still popular, but the current instruments produced by Ramirez and Bernabe to this pattern are also tuned by some players to Baroque, Marlow of their own tunings (Perf for example). Andrewa (talk) 17:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikispam

These edits by Viktor appear to be promoting his POV with regard to ten-string tuning. (said Andrewa)

• RESPONSE TO ABOVE ACCUSATION: No, these edits removed a link to a site that contains proven false and misleading information (as Andrewa despite his pretense, which is all a personal vendetta against me). See WP:LINKSTOAVOID article 2 about linking to articles with misinformation. For a discussion of this claim that the link Andrewa posted contains misinformation, see [2] and [3]. Also see the problem page in question [4] and compare Narciso Yepes's actual, verifiable statements [5] as well as my own explanation/defence of Yepes's statements based in the science of acoustics [6].

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 10:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The link he has added to his personal website is wikispam IMO. (said Andrewa)

• RESPONSE TO ABOVE ACCUSATION: More of Andrewa's abuse of wikipedia and his status as admin in his vendetta agaisnt me. The link is clearly not wikispam but a link to a relevant resource - the ONLY one, in fact, that applies the science of acoustics as well as Yepes's autograph documents to illucidate the claims of Narciso Yepes, rather than using speculations from discussion groups or websites with vested commercial interests to merely distort Yepes's words.

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 10:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The link he has removed is the best I can find to set out the various tunings. I'd love to find a better one. While I don't wish to comment on the rest of the site, there is no misinformation on the particular page to which I linked.

Both sides are describing the same eight notes being provided by the same four resonant strings. Whether that is four "resonances" or eight is a non-issue.

I'm not for the moment going to remove the links or even update them... I'm thinking carefully about how this is best handled.

See edits to:

• Narciso Yepes
• Ten-string guitar
• Ten-string extended-range classical guitar

and possibly others. Andrewa (talk) 02:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests#Administrator has been misusing his status to launch a personal vendetta which may be an attempt to prevent me from removing his new links. As I said above, I'm not yet decided whether I should or not. Andrewa (talk) 19:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The allegation was dismissed, and archived here. Andrewa (talk) 19:37, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE CLAIMS:

According to WP:LINKSTOAVOID article 2: "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research" cannot be included in wikipedia. Andrewa has purposefully breached this policy in his continuing personal vendetta against me. Here is the proof:

After repeatedly being warned by myself against the misleading and factually inaccurate material presented on an external webpage Janet Marlow's site admin Andrewa still intentionally linked to this misinformative page in the following edit:

• [7]

Andrewa has since made the (above) statement: "there is no misinformation on the particular page to which I linked. Both sides are describing the same eight notes being provided by the same four resonant strings. Whether that is four "resonances" or eight is a non-issue."

Not only is Andrewa mistaken in claiming that there is no misinformation on the page, or that the two sides in the argument are describing the same thing, he has clearly been abusing his status as an administrator. Let us first consider the contents of this argument:

The page to which Andrewa linked makes the following claims:

"Therefore, there are four missing sympathetic resonances on the six string guitar. If you play a C, Bb, Ab, and Gb on the first string E, there will be less sustain from these notes than the others because there are no sympathetic resonant strings. This was Maestro Yepes’ primary reason for conceiving the ten-string guitar. By adding these pitches in four extra bass strings, now provides each half step with the sympathetic resonance making a more physically completed instrument." (Janet Marlow Janet Marlow's site)

Now, in western classical music there are 12 notes in the octave: C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B. If it is claimed (as above) that four of these notes lack resonances, then logically/mathematically, this means that the other eight out of the twelve do not lack resonances. Marlow lists the four missing resonances as C, Bb (=A#), Ab (=G#), and Gb (=F#) and states that "there will be less sustain from these notes than the others". Any person who is a competent speaker of the English language will understand this as meaning that these four listed notes have more sustain (more resonance) than the other notes, the "other notes" being C#, D, D#, E, F, G, A, B. In other words, Marlow is claiming four notes don't have resonance and eight do.

However, Narciso Yepes (who invented the modern 10-string guitar) always, ubiquitously and verifiably talked about eight missing sympathetic resonances on the guitar, not four as claimed by Marlow. Yepes lists the eight missing resonances as C, C# (=Db), D# (=Eb), F, F# (=Gb), G, G# (=Ab), A# (=Bb). He lists the other four notes that do have resonance as D, A, E, and B. Yepes's quotes from numerous articles/interviews can be read here [8] with references to follow them up. There is also further information on my site www.tenstringguitar.INFO about the acoustics, the science behind Yepes's statements.

Janet Marlow (and Andrewa) are clearly, in fact, not saying the same thing as Narciso Yepes (and Viktor van Niekerk). Both sides are certainly not "describing the same eight notes being provided by the same four resonant strings", as Andrewa is falsely claiming. If they were describing the same thing, Marlow would have to speak of eight missing resonances (C, Db, Eb, F, Gb, G, Ab, Bb) not only four (C, Bb, Ab, Gb).

Andrewa only goes on to claim that "Whether that is four "resonances" or eight is a non-issue" because to admit the truth - that it is very much an issue and a source of misinformation - would reveal his involvement in not only deliberately promoting misinformation on wikipedia (going against WP:LINKSTOAVOID article 2), but also misusing his status as an administrator to abuse me in his ongoing personal vendetta over an edit disagreement. This defamatory conduct includes, but is hardly limited to his claim (below) that Janet Marlow "is a more authoritative figure than Viktor", despite the fact that Marlow has been proven to publish misinformation while my website www.tenstringguitar.INFO is presently the only online resource that faithfully represents Narciso Yepes's statements about his invention as well as a scholarly explanation of the science informing those statements.

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 07:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Sources

It would be great to find a reliable secondary source for the Yepes/Modern, Baroque/Romantic, and Marlow tunings.

Here are some relevant websites, none of them perfect:

• http://www.tenstringguitar.info/ is Viktor's new site. This particular page only describes the basic Yepes/Modern tuning, and not the variations to it that even Yepes himself used, let alone the other common tunings; I have not explored the rest of the site to see what else might be there. (said Andrewa)

RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE ACCUSATION: It describes the invention of Narciso Yepes in its totality, including scordatura. The re-tuning (not re-stringing) is discussed on the "Lute Music" page [9] of my site. (Did you simply not read this, Andrew, or are you being dishonest?)

Other (what you claim/presume to be) "common tunings" - by which you mean string configurations, not "tunings" - are not mentioned as these are not a reflection of Narciso Yepes's invention, which is the subject of my site - a subject for which there is presently no other reliable reference source on the internet. There are already plenty of sources for misinformation and for 10-stringed guitars that have nothing to do with Yepes's invention or his approach. I need hardly contribute to this. Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 07:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• http://www.tenstringguitar.com/tuningsforthe10string.html is Janet Marlow's tunings page, poorly formatted, but gives all common tunings including her own, which are probably the least used of the three sets. Marlow's method for the ten-string, self-published, seems to be the only one yet available, and she has some works for it published by Mel Bay Publications. So she is a more authoritative figure than Viktor, at this stage. (said Andrewa)

RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE OPINION: Which works are these exactly, Andrew? Previously you were claiming her method book was published by Mel Bay - which I corrected to self-published (like the majority of her books/CDs). So what exactly has Mel Bay published of Marlow? Which "some works" for ten-string guitar? As far as Mel Bay's catalogue is concerned, Marlow has one little piece "Of the Sea" in an anthology (not edited by her and not for 10-string guitar, ISBN: 0786674563), and some arrangements for flute and SIX-string guitar of easy/light classics (ISBN: 078664687X). This is hardly anything to base a claim on of someone being an authority on the TEN-string guitar. Also, anyone with musical knowledge can compare the quality of my own editions on my site and those by Janet Marlow and see who is the authority.

Anyway, I have the support of Fritz Buss, who studied with Yepes between 1960 and 1986 and whom Yepes considered "an excellent guitarist with a wonderful technique but also a deep musician aware of his responsibility and always in search of more knowledge and perfection" as well as considering Buss one of the three best guitar teachers in the word [10]. And Fritz Buss has written that "Viktor van Niekerk is a conscious artist with a total understanding of the ten-string guitar as envisioned by Narciso Yepes." And I have the autographed documents to prove it. So, Andrew, if you have something constructive (some actual knowledge) to contibute, then please do so. But this is nothing more than a personal vendetta against me for speaking out against individuals who have been publishing misinformation. Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 07:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• http://tunings.pbwiki.com/ is one of my own personal wiki websites, titled The Online Encyclopedia of Tunings. It specifically exists to publish information that isn't verifiable to Wikipedia's standards, so it's not much use to us here obviously! And it's early days yet, but it does already have what so far as I know is the best page on the web on ten-string tunings, see http://tunings.pbwiki.com/Ten-string-guitar for these. It even cites some of its sources, mainly in the public archive of the ten-string guitar Yahoo! group.

• http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/10string/ is Stephen Bright's Yahoo! group, on which tunings have been a frequent subject, partly owing to my asking questions. Many knowledgeable and/or notable performers on ten-string belong to this group.

I'll try to get to a paper library sometime... Andrewa (talk) 19:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I should point out that Marlow's site is the only one of the four above that doesn't fall foul of WP:LINKSTOAVOID. Viktors' site fails criteria 4 and 11, my site fails criterion 12, and Stephen's fails criterion 10. All three could be argued to fail other criteria as well, but that's enough IMO. Maybe in a year or two my wiki might scrape in... Andrewa (talk) 13:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

False, my site tenstringguitar.INFO is neither intended to promote a website nor is it a link to a blog. This site promotes scholarly information about the 10-string guitar as envisioned by Narciso Yepes. So Andrewa's claims against me/my site are simply dishonest. (Not unexpected.) Along the same vein, Andrewa's claim that Janet Marlow's site does not fail any criteria of "links to be avoided" is also false. According to criterion no. 2 "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research" must be avoided on wikipedia. Yet Andrewa supports this site knowing fully that it is involved in the spread of misinformation.

Compare the claims made by Marlow [11] with the verifiable statements made by Yepes [12]. Andrewa's claims that these are saying the same thing are clearly mistaken or dishonest. That is, Marlow claims "there are four missing sympathetic resonances on the six string guitar ... C, Bb, Ab, and Gb" which have less sustain "than the others". While Yepes states that "On the six-string guitar only four notes of the scale have natural resonances or overtones, E, A, B, an D" and that the other EIGHT sympathetic resonances are missing.

What Andrewa is doing here is not scholarship, it is not honest and it is discrediting wikipedia, but I need hardly say it because it is abundantly clear to readers. He gets away with it simply because he is an administrator. Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 07:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Time to act

I don't wish to attack Viktor personally, but as he's replaced a link to another website with one to his own personal website, with the edit summary removed site with proven MISINFORMATION, I think we're justified in asking what his authority might be to make this particular judgement.

I've done a couple of Google searches, each on a name plus the word "guitar"... Note that your results may differ in the details:

Viktor gets 469 ghits, most of them relating to his own personal websites, and the first few pages of these hits mention no publications other than self-published ones.

Janet Marlow gets 1390 ghits, including Mel Bay Publications, Amazon, and many other seemingly independent sites.

RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE OPINION: What kind of scholar judges artistic merit or authority by the number of google hits? Compare the quality of scholarly information on the Yepes 10-string guitar between Marlow's www.tenstringguitar.com and my own www.tenstringguitar.info. If Marlow is such an authority, then why has she never uploaded to her website even the most basic underlying principle governing the resonance of the 10-string guitar? That is, that the four additional strings tuned to C, A#, G#, F# add the EIGHT missing resonances of C and G (from string 7, C), A# and F (from string 8, A#), G# and D# (from string 9, G#), and F# and C# (from string 10, F#). And if I am no authority, why am I the only person who has ever published an explanation of Yepes's statements about resonance that, rather than distort them, makes sense of them, drawing on the laws of the science of acoustics? Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 08:12, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting questions in their place, indeed. But at best, it makes this claim of yours original research, so please stop repeatedly making it here. This is simply not the place for it (even once). Andrewa (talk) 18:27, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

So I tried Amazon:

Viktor gets no hits at all.

Janet Marlow gets four, including her self-published method and a volume of music published by Mel Bay.

This web page gives a bit of Viktor's biography... Viktor van Niekerk (b. 1981, Johannesburg) is presently a Doctoral candidate at he University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He has been active as artist and academic in various performative, visual, and literary disciplines. Since 1995, he has concertized exclusively on the modern 10-string guitar. He studied performance with guitarist Fritz Buss (a long-term student of Narciso Yepes), Belgian conductor Bruno Brys, and Australian musicologist Dr. G. Florian Messner. Committed to both standard and contemporary art music, he devotes time each year to the transcription of baroque lute and keyboard music or guitar as well as supporting new music. Composers from South Africa, Australia and the U.K. have written works specifically for him. In addition to musical activities, he has lectured on mythology in contemporary art, literature and cinema at the University of Johannesburg. His interdisciplinary doctoral thesis examines the confluence of music and myth as performative tropes and structural elements in the novels of Nobel laureate. JM. Coetzee. Another ongoing research topic involves the acoustics of the modern 10-string guitar and the technical innovations of Narciso Yepes. He has been invited to Madrid by Yepes's heirs to continue his research in the late maestro's personal library.

This is very carefully worded, and there's no information there at all about his level of attainment in the relevant fields. This is not to say he has no expertise, he obviously does. But there's nothing here to support his authority to pass judgement on Marlow.

Now to his new website, the target of the links he has added. It gives little useful information. Only Yepes' basic tuning is given. The site does not even give the retunings that Yepes himself used. And it criticises other tunings, but it does not even say what these might be. Marlow's page on the other hand lists all the common tunings. My own web page lists several others in addition, all of them used by noted performers, supported by links to such sources as interviews with the performers themselves.

Viktor's autobiography reads Viktor van Niekerk has taught at universities in South Africa and Australia, and has been active as a scholar and artist in a number of visual, performative and literary disciplines. Since the age of fourteen he has concertized exclusively on the Yepes 10-string guitar, inspiring new works and dedications from a number of composers, including the late David Hönigsberg's four-movement African Sonata. Presently a Doctoral candidate, his inter-disciplinary work on mythology, music and the writings of Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee has attracted praise as a "challenging, innovative, important" thesis. Another ongoing research project centres on the acoustics of the ten-string guitar and the technical approach of the late guitar master Narciso Yepes (1927-1997). He has been invited by the heirs of Yepes to continue his research in the master's personal library, Madrid. Van Niekerk studied the ten-string guitar with Yepes's long-term student Fritz Buss between 1995 and 2007.

Again, there's nothing to support his right to pass judgement on Marlow there. It's much the same information as above.

The point of all of this is, IMO the link to Marlow's tunings page should go back. It's not the best website in the world, but for our purposes it's far more useful than Viktor's.

I'd prefer to leave the other pages, and the links to Viktor's new site, alone for the moment. I don't think anyone will mistake Viktor's links for anything other than wikispam, and I hope that anyone interested in tunings for the ten-string classical guitar will come to this article to find them.

Nor do I propose to link to my own tunings website. It fills a need, but a reference for a Wikipedia article is exactly what it was not set up to provide. Andrewa (talk) 14:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Resolution

I left this for a few hours, and another editor has done what I proposed above. Thank you! It really does help.

As indicated above, Viktor has supported this latest attempt to promote his POV by a personal attack against me, claiming at Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests Administrator has been misusing his status to launch a personal vendetta. This claim is false, there's strong consensus to that, the entry is now marked Resolved - content dispute; no use or abuse of admin tools and should shortly be archived.

And it now is, see this archive. Andrewa (talk) 19:37, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not the first time that Viktor has claimed that I have a vendetta against him, both on Wikipedia and on other Internet forums, and I don't want to give the claim any credence. But nor can we allow him to restore his soapbox to Wikipedia, which appears to be his goal. Quite apart from the POV itself, I keep finding more newbies who have left Wikipedia after experiencing Viktor's personal attacks in defence of "his" articles on Yepes and related subjects over the past year or so, and we are now rapidly approaching double figures.

Obviously, the involvement of other editors is critically important if more of this is to be prevented. And it's happening, see his last edit from his IP before it was blocked for a month for (strongly) suspected sockpuppetry.

See also Talk:Ten-string guitar#Wikispam and Talk:Narciso Yepes#Wikispam. Andrewa (talk) 16:20, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Viktor is back

And has made a number of edits, some of them constructive, others just expressing his well-known POV.

• RESPONSE: You, Andrew, are the one with a POV. I, on the contrary, have researched this topic for far over a decade and am expressing the verifiable facts about the instrument invented by Narciso Yepes.

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 05:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't really want to discard the wheat with the chaff... Hmmm... Andrewa (talk) 18:18, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

See also User talk:Andrewa#General reply if you're interested in our discussions! Andrewa (talk) 18:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I've undone this edit, there seems no reason not to give both names, particularly as the older one still seems the more common, and even if that were not the case it still would be found in older documents. Andrewa (talk) 19:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

And this one... A short chapter is an extract. Viktor's version sounds like the whole book is online, which it is not. Not all that important, but certainly not a good edit. Andrewa (talk) 19:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• RESPONSE: Andrew, you called this an "extract" and you distort my response to you. I gave no impression that the entire book was online. I corrected your inaccurate description of this link. The text it links to is the entire text of Ramirez's chapter on the ten-string guitar from his book. It is not an "extract" from a larger chapter, which is what your phrasing miscommunicated.

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 05:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I have not reversed this edit, but really... the (short) chapter given as a general reference for the section reads in part by using a special technique, they can be easily muffled with the right hand whenever necessary (Ramirez quoting Yepes, my emphasis). Do we really need to cite every clause? Is this mere disruption, or is there some other explanation? Andrewa (talk) 19:14, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• RESPONSE: I insist, if you're going to make claims, you need to reference them. And there is far more than just "a" (single) right-hand technique to damping resonances. There are multiple right and left-hand techniques. Didn't you know that?

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 05:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Objective Expert musician needed to resolve: Editor abusing his admin status in personal vendetta, supporting misinformation

I hope that an objective administrator/editor without vested interest in the guitar could please help resolve an adit war in which I (as an authority on the topic) am being attacked by an administrator who does not seem intent on the truth, but more on a personal grudge...

According to WP:LINKSTOAVOID article 2: "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research" cannot be included in wikipedia. Andrewa has purposefully breached this policy in his continuing personal vendetta against me. Here is the proof:

After repeatedly being warned by myself against the misleading and factually inaccurate material presented on an external webpage Janet Marlow's site admin Andrewa still intentionally linked to this misinformative page in the following edit:

• [13] (the link added at the bottom by Andrewa)

Andrewa has since made the statement: "there is no misinformation on the particular page to which I linked. Both sides are describing the same eight notes being provided by the same four resonant strings. Whether that is four "resonances" or eight is a non-issue." [[14]]

Not only is Andrewa mistaken in claiming that there is no misinformation on the page, or that the two sides in the argument are describing the same thing, he has clearly been abusing his status as an administrator. Let us first consider the contents of this argument:

The page to which Andrewa linked makes the following claims:

"Therefore, there are four missing sympathetic resonances on the six string guitar. If you play a C, Bb, Ab, and Gb on the first string E, there will be less sustain from these notes than the others because there are no sympathetic resonant strings. This was Maestro Yepes’ primary reason for conceiving the ten-string guitar. By adding these pitches in four extra bass strings, now provides each half step with the sympathetic resonance making a more physically completed instrument." (Janet Marlow Janet Marlow's site)

Now, in western classical music there are 12 notes in the octave: C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B. If it is claimed (as above) that four of these notes lack resonances, then logically/mathematically, this means that the other eight out of the twelve do not lack resonances. Marlow lists the four missing resonances as C, Bb (=A#), Ab (=G#), and Gb (=F#) and states that "there will be less sustain from these notes than the others". Any person who is a competent speaker of the English language will understand this as meaning that these four listed notes have more sustain (more resonance) than the other notes, the "other notes" being C#, D, D#, E, F, G, A, B. In other words, Marlow is claiming four notes don't have resonance and eight do.

However, Narciso Yepes (who invented the modern 10-string guitar) always, ubiquitously and verifiably talked about eight missing sympathetic resonances on the guitar, not four as claimed by Marlow. Yepes lists the eight missing resonances as C, C# (=Db), D# (=Eb), F, F# (=Gb), G, G# (=Ab), A# (=Bb). He lists the other four notes that do have resonance as D, A, E, and B. Yepes's quotes from numerous articles/interviews can be read here [15] with references to follow them up. There is also further information on my site www.tenstringguitar.INFO about the resonance, the science behind Yepes's statements.

Janet Marlow (and Andrewa) are clearly, in fact, not saying the same thing as Narciso Yepes (and Viktor van Niekerk). Both sides are certainly not "describing the same eight notes being provided by the same four resonant strings", as Andrewa is falsely claiming. If they were describing the same thing, Marlow would have to speak of eight missing resonances (C, Db, Eb, F, Gb, G, Ab, Bb) not only four (C, Bb, Ab, Gb).

Andrewa only goes on to claim that "Whether that is four "resonances" or eight is a non-issue" [[16]] because to admit the truth - that it is very much an issue and a source of misinformation - would reveal his involvement in not only deliberately promoting misinformation on wikipedia (going against WP:LINKSTOAVOID article 2), but also misusing his status as an administrator to abuse me in his ongoing personal vendetta over an edit disagreement. This defamatory conduct includes, but is hardly limited to his claim [[17]] that Janet Marlow "is a more authoritative figure than Viktor", despite the fact that Marlow has been proven to publish misinformation while my website www.tenstringguitar.INFO is presently the only online resource that faithfully represents Narciso Yepes's statements about his invention as well as a scholarly explanation of the science informing those statements.

Viktor van Niekerk tenstringguitar.INFO Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 06:00, 16 March 2009 (UTC)Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 08:26, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: links to my own website for evidence: I do so simply because my website lists numerous articles and interviews published in reputable books/journals and these contain verifiable evidence of Narciso Yepes's statements, including that the 6-string guitar lacks eight resonances, which his 10-string guitar's tunign adds. The admin who has been waging a personal vendetta against me has again on 8 March defended his support of links to misinformation, pages that contain verifiably incorrect information, like claiming that Yepes heard that the guitar lacked four (not eight) resonances. I will follow your recommendations. Thank you. It is just that I am not au fait with the ins and outs of wikipedia red-tape, while the administrator is. I feel that he has been abusing his status and know-how of wikipedia policy to get his way in something that is nothing more than a personal grudge against a more authoritative editor. For example, he has accused me of sock-puppetry, simply because it sometimes appears (incorrectly) that I am signed in because I haven't refreshed my browser. He has also on 15 March accused me of attacking him. It is quite the contrary since he is the one involved in making defamatory statements about my authority on the subject of the 10-string guitar, while I am defending certain historical/scientific truths as well as wikipedia's policy on linking to misinformation by objecting to his continuing desire to link to a page that contains proven misinformation.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 06:00, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I would value input from other editors on this. Viktor's charges above are I think simple harassment, and I am not the first editor he has abused in this way. See also Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests#Editor abusing his admin status in personal vendetta, knowingly supporting misinformation. Andrewa (talk) 08:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I am most certainly not abusing anyone personally, but I am maintaining scholarly information and excluding misinformation. Andrewa would prefer not to focus on the contents issue (his continuing support of inappropriate links), so he makes false allegations against me. This is not the first time: On the contrary, here, under Sources, Andrewa makes a false accusation against me that: "Viktors' site fails criteria 4 and 11" of the WP:LINKSTOAVOID policy. Note, site (singular) and with reference to my site www.tenstringguitar.info. In other words, Andrewa has falsely accused me of breach of article 4 "Links mainly intended to promote a website" and 11 "Links to blogs, personal web pages and most fansites, except those written by a recognized authority".

Firstly, my website is a non-commercial scholarly resource about the instrument invented in 1963 by Narciso Yepes. Everything there can be verified from published interviews/articles in music journals, textbooks on acoustics, and published sheet music, with only the exception of a few things passed directly from Yepes to Fritz Buss to myself. (These autograph manuscripts are a valuable resource in themselves.) Calling this website a promotion of itself rather than of factual information about Yepes's invention is unfounded.

Secondly, the site (singular) is not a blog, personal webpage, or fansite, nor is it a discussion group (such as the yahoo one Andrewa has previously linked to). So there also Andrewa has made a false accusation.

So how seriously should we take his claims that I am attacking him when he has previously cried wolf? This is a contents issue and Mr Andrewa is on the losing end of the contents argument, so he makes this personal in the hopes of getting me banned from wikipedia so he has no one to stop him from linking to unreliable sources and writing these articles about the 10-string guitar accordign to his POV.

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you should consider mediation or going to WP:ANI? Of course if a musical question is involved and you both like to summarize your opinions then I'm sure we will be happy to help. --Kleinzach 08:47, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I second Kleinzach's sage advice. I must admit, Viktor, I read your post and the article several times over, and for the life of me I can't figure out what the fuss is about. You say you object to a link that Andrewa added, but in the edit you point to I find no added link. What's more, there are numerous tags in the article which make no sense to me. For example, there is a tag on the lead that clarification is needed, but the lead seems perfectly clear to me; there is a tag [cite this quote] on a sentence that doesn't contain a quote; a [citation needed] tag on a section head, something that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I'm not saying that either you or Andrewa are harrassing, but without a clear and concise explanation of the differences, with vituperation expunged, I don't think anyone on this page can help out. --Ravpapa (talk) 15:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Now raised at WP:ANI#Viktor van Niekerk. Thanks for the comments above, and the time you have spent on them. The tags in question are probably pure disruption on the part of Viktor. I have removed a couple, see the talk page.

I'm trying to avoid edit warring with Viktor, but if someone else felt that they could revert to this version and this version of the two articles concerned, I think overall it would improve both of them! Please comment on the relevant talk pages if you do, of course. Otherwise, it's quite a lot of work to untangle what he's done. Andrewa (talk) 19:03, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Some musical questions are raised at User talk:Andrewa#Specific points of fact, but I think the behavioural issues need to be sorted out as a first priority, sadly. Andrewa (talk) 19:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

You might want to survey some other wikiprojects for the technical aspects as well as this one. It looks like there are a number of issues pertaining to musical temperament that are involved and that particular subject can be discussed with incredible complexity. The other Guitar tunings articles look messy as well. Try Wikipedia:WikiProject Musical Instruments (not sure how active that project is, though).DavidRF (talk) 19:59, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes... guitar tunings is a can of worms, and not just on Wikipedia. See MOS:TUNINGS, which is a start I hope. I have previously posted several other WikiProjects including that one and the more active WP:WikiProject Guitarists, with no result so far. Whether this is due to the inactivity of these projects or the fear of Viktor or both is hard to say.

Why would there be temperament issues here? The Yepes design assumes equal temperament, as do all other current ten-string guitar tunings AFAIK. Movable frets are one important difference between the contemporary ten-string guitar and the lutes for which much ten-string music was originally written, but I think this is cheerfully ignored by current players. Andrewa (talk) 20:33, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh. I read "resonance" and "sympathetic" and immediately assumed there was some sort of issue with which temperament scheme was used. Equal temperament isn't going to have any true sympathetic resonance (except for unisons and octaves). I'm probably wrong on this case, though. I'm otherwise ignorant about guitars, maybe there's a difference between how the strings themselves are tuned and how the frets are spaced. I'm by no means a temperament expert, either, (just know how complicated it can get) so I'll clam up now. Sorry to cloud the discussion :-) DavidRF (talk) 23:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

What is very relevant is the fact that (in equal temperament) the fifths and twelfths etc are close enough to resonate, but the major thirds etc are not. (And the major second is, but that's not helpful for other reasons.) But we diverge! Andrewa (talk) 02:52, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The argument between myself and Andrewa is simple. He is essentially claiming that 4=8, which is of course absurd. Naturally, he will deny this, but this is what is implied by his support of [18] which he had posted on the Ten-string extended-range classical guitar page until I removed it. He has repeatedly claimed on wikipedia and elsewhere that there is no misinformation on this page, but there is, and he knows it because I've discussed this with him in quite some detail. The link claims that the six string guitar lacks four resonances (C, Bb, Ab, Gb) that have less sustain than the other notes that do not have this resonance. That is under a discussion of the Narciso Yepes 10-string guitar. However, Narciso Yepes ubiquitously (in verifiable articles listed here (bottom of page) speaks of eight (not four) resonances that are missing on the 6-string guitar. As editor DavidRF (above) very accurately points out (thank you!) temperament of the fingerboard means that only octaves and fifths resonate. So Yepes added 4 strings to the guitar tuned C, A#, G#, F# because these add the EIGHT missign resonances (the octaves and fifths): C and G, A# and F, G# and D#, F# and C#. Andrewa has, however claimed Talk:Ten-string_extended-range_classical_guitar#Wikispam that the link he has been supporting (i.e. this one contains no misinformation, that it says the same thing as Yepes (that there are EIGHT missing resonances on the 6-string guitar), and that it makes no difference whether one says "four" or "eight". Now, for pointing this out I am being accused of attacking Andrewa on various pages of wikipedia, despite the very clear fact that I am the one upholding truth/factual information while Andrewa defends misinformation and makes false allegations against me. (For the contents pertaining to this argument, please see www.tenstringguitar.INFO and its "Resonance" page, which contains the correct information as per Narciso Yepes's statemetns and the laws of physics). Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 04:40, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I say we ignore this and move on. If Viktor wants to amuse himself with continued attacks, fine by me but I want an article justified by reliable sources. Andrewa, the prior versions are badly sourced too so I don't think those are appropriate either. I'm going back with my hatchet and leaving whatever I can see. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:42, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Ricky. On the contrary, I do not wish to amuse myself with attacks! I want exactly what you want: scholarly articles with verifiable references/quotes from scholarly sources not in breach of WP:LINKSTOAVOID and other breaches of policy. Andrewa has simply falsely accused me of harrassment because that way he gets me banned and he gets to express his POV without me removing his links to yahoo, myspace and unreliable websites. Please restate the above also on [19]. I do not see sufficient reason for me to be banned from wikipedia for promoting scholarly, well-sourced work, albeit sometimes in a curt way. It is very hard to assume good faith when you have been through an argument with an editor ad nauseam, on and off wikipedia, and even met him in person, and he still insists on claiming that there is no difference in saying "four" or saying "eight" resonances. I think I am understandably frustrated about this. Thanks again!

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 05:54, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

You know, for someone who wants verifiable references, you don't seem to provide many. If you are serious, provide some and we can finally move forward. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:00, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm just so delighted to finally have someone other than Viktor and myself who is not scared to edit these articles that I almost don't care what you do. We'll get there in the end. Long term the objective is to have people like Jake Marais (a newbie who plays ten-string, and this is what happened to his one contribution attempt), 11-string, Joe Dario (this is what happened to his contributions), dare I say Janet Marlow (this was her welcome to Wikipedia, and this is what Viktor then did to her user page) and many more will come back, will be welcomed and supported in learning how Wikipedia works, and collaboration can then produce a good article, and gain some new Wikipedians perhaps in the process. Or at least not lose any more... Andrewa (talk) 08:56, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Um, I'd probably actually agree with reversing those edits as well. However, that user is in violation of WP:BITE but it's a moot point now and we need to go forward. So anyone have any reliable sources to work with? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:11, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Look not just at the dif, but at the sorry state of the article at the time. Some of these edits (not all) were actually improvements! But yes, Jake signed his post, it should have gone to the talk page not the article. Joe did some good stuff IMO. Janet just wanted equal time for her site; Viktor's was already there remember. Andrewa (talk) 09:38, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Please, let's just move on. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:55, 18 March 2009 (UTC)