Talk:Buccin

Assessment, stub class for now

I assessed this as a low-importance article for the Wikiproject Musical Instruments, low being where I put instruments that are not widely known or are somewhat obscure. I rated it a start because it is the is still the bare beginnings of an article, but does have a reference and some images. It really needs better references and inline refs. If you improve it and want reassessment or need help or have questions, please drop me a line.Jacqke (talk) 20:56, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Headline text

I wrote to Douglas Yeo via his web page for permission to incorporate more of his text into this stub article. There's not much else out there. MaxEnt 20:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

After reading that Doug generally responds to most e-mail and discovering some additional sources, I took the liberty of quoting slightly more of Doug's text.

I also notified Dr Tom Gibson via e-mail that I quoted a sentence of his material. MaxEnt 22:55, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Still potting around. I also notified the non-profit Berlioz Historical Brass of my new stub on the buccin and drew their attention to the authentic performance content as well, which lies squarely within their own mandate.

Glancing at Dr Gibson's site again I noticed that he later attributes the passage from which I quoted, somewhat ambiguously, as "from the New Grove Dictionary". Hopefully, Dr Gibson will explore the link I provided him and clear up any misunderstanding.

I also spent more time reading general Wikipedia practice and discovered that the buccin is relatively obscure, and by the inclusion policies as stated might not justify an article here. It's primarily of interest as an offshoot of an important classical tradition, as one of the variations that disappeared rather than survived.

This sentence from Doug Yeo's web site would help to clarify the instrument's physical construction [emp. mine]:

But from descriptions in literature, we know it was a four-foot-long brass instrument created during the French Revolution and used for outdoor music.

The difficulty here is that Doug does not himself attribute the literature he surveys.

He also implies that music scored for the buccin can now be [reasonably?] performed by baritone horn, given no justfication for this; but stating at the same time that the serpent enjoys "no suitable modern alternative", again by an unknown criteria.

Here finally is the only musical classification I was able to locate, again from Doug Yeo unattributed [emph. mine]:

Berlioz utilizes each instrument for its known strengths - the buccin for a powerful middle register, the ophicleide for dexterity in the low range, and the serpent for its ability to blend with woodwinds and voices.

MaxEnt 01:25, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Grove Copyright

In private correspondence with Doug Yeo, he expressed a strong stance against linking this article to the following URL, which he regards as potentially being in violation of The New Grove Dictionary copyright.

http://www.trombonelessons.com/Trombone%20Handbook/history.html

The material is attributed there (somewhat weakly), but as no statement is provided that the material is used with permission, I'm inclined to agree that this source is unsuitable here. Neither should textual material from that page being incorporated into this article. Unfortunately, as there is exceeding sparse information about the buccin on the internet, this is one of the first pages anyone researching buccin will tend to find with a regular web search. Furthermore, Doug commented that this material is not very good in the first place. He feels later editions of Grove say less, better. MaxEnt 08:14, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

About clean up tone

Although the tagger did not leave an explanation for the tone clean up tag, it seemed obvious enough to me that it needed to be cleaned up. Phrases like "Anyone who's been to a parade" and "a sound that would wake up the dead" are clearly not appropriately toned here. Though I'm not completely satisfied with the way I cleaned up the paragraph about the sound of the instrument: it still reads like it would be more appropriate in an orchestration textbook. Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 20:29, 21 September 2007 (UTC)