18

During a fairly short period of time since I started visiting the "Musical Practice & Performance" stackexchange site, I saw and answered a couple of - IMO - excellent questions:

All of these questions were marked "on hold" and "closed as off-topic" on the following ground: "Questions on identifying (or finding) a particular song, genre, instrument, etc. are off-topic since they are rarely useful to future readers."

Respectfully, I wish to contest this practice and ask for a revision of the policies regarding this matter, not only for these questions but also for future questions of this type.

In short I have 2 objections:

  • these questions are not about identifying a particular song - they are about finding examples of a class of compositions, based on a common, well-defined property
  • the assumption that such an identification is rarely useful to another user seems an ad-hoc conjecture, esp. in the light of the fact that this is not about identifying one particular song, but about a collection of compositions that can be identified with a generic definition rather than an exhaustive enumeration. In other words, the actual examples may aid the OP in gaining a better understanding of the common property that unites these compositions in their particular class.

Apart from these objections, there are more reasons why these questions should not have been closed IMO. Each of the questions above has more detailed arguments in their respective comments section.

The last 2 questions in particular are not about finding a particular song, they are about getting examples of a well-defined class of compositions based on some aspect of the method of composition. These examples are useful since they illustrate a particular aspect of musical composition, which can add enormously to understanding.

The first question is also about finding a well-defined class of compositions, with the objective of finding pieces to perform. It seems completely absurd to state that finding pieces written by one of the most revered geniuses of western classical music for an enormously ubiquitous kind of ensemble is of little interest to other users, especially since this particular information is not that easy to obtain by googling.

Therefore I respectfully ask that the decision to close these questions is reverted, and that future questions of this kind are more closely scrutinized to do justice to the true nature of such questions.

Thanks in advance,

Roland

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  • 4
    On meta, a down vote generally indicates disapproval or disagreement. While it can be handy to have comments, we can not force anyone to comment.
    – Doktor Mayhem Mod
    Apr 26 '14 at 23:15
  • 7
    The problem I have with these types of questions is that they are often quite undefined. When an OP asks for an example of a class of compositions, there can be countless compositions in that class. There is no single right answer of answer that is better than another in most all cases.
    – American Luke
    Apr 27 '14 at 12:51
  • 2
    To go along with @AmericanLuke, only one of the questions above can have a finite list of pieces the "Is there a song by W. A. Mozart written for a SATB choir?" as he specifically wrote a finite number of pieces. The other two could have infinite answers and will never be complete as more pieces can be written to satisfy their request not to mention a backlog of pieces that satisfy the criteria that is pretty hefty. The last two questions could have been reworded to ask how to accomplish those goals in an composition and then a specific example could have been used instead of asking for a list
    – Dom Mod
    Apr 27 '14 at 15:56
  • 2
    I'd have to agree with AmericanLuke and Dom, but I may not be qualified enough to know when the question is like the Mozart one and answerable or not.
    – Doktor Mayhem Mod
    Apr 27 '14 at 16:08
  • 2
    Dom, @AmericanLuke, the point is not whether the question "could be reworded". The point is simply that a list of examples is a valid answer that is much more useful than a generic description. Take any music theory or composition textbook. They are full of examples! The objection that a the list of examples may not be exhaustive is silly and academic. The point is that a few examples, preferably with some to the point text, is simply better than an abstract wording of The Answer(tm).
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 27 '14 at 16:43
  • 3
    @Dom, I'm having trouble to apply your algebra example to music. Are you seriously arguing that "How to add 1 and 1?" and "How to add 1 and 2?" is in any way similar to "What are a capella SATB works of Mozart?" and "What are a capella SATB works of Schoenberg?" I don't see how you could argue that "the core question is the same"
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 27 '14 at 17:17
  • 1
    The point of an example being an answer is you want to use the example in some way. The two examples you gave are not what my example was suppose to demonstrate. It was for the last two questions you listed. It is obvious in those questions the user wants to learn a concept and is using a list as a vehicle for the real question.
    – Dom Mod
    Apr 27 '14 at 17:21
  • 2
    It's a question that belongs on the Music Fan's SE one it starts. It's about being a fan of a composition type. If they wanted to learn "How to compose retrograde song and inverse songs." they could ask that instead. This site is about practice, performance, composition, and theory and not all music related questions belong here.
    – Dom Mod
    Apr 27 '14 at 17:46
  • 3
    @Dom Are you seriously arguing that "How to compose retrograde song and inverse songs?" is answerable in a single, best satisfying way, and the questions to have some examples of said practice is not? I have no hesitation to immediately say that that is untrue. The number of examples of retrograde is very small, the number of possible ways to compose them is infinite.
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 27 '14 at 17:50
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    @Dom, you're dismissing my argument based on statements I never made. That's silly. I never argued the list should be made exhaustive. On the contrary I argued that in nearly all cases a exemplary list that satisfies the OP can be constructed and serves as a valid answer. With regard to retrograde/inversion, people generally understand the concept, they just don't know where they can listen to those types of compositions. So, a very, very valid question.
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 27 '14 at 17:59
  • 3
    I'm planning on contributing an answer to this question shortly, but just want to jump in on the math analogy -- I believe this was misinterpreted. Asking "What is 1 + 1?" is answerable, but "What two numbers add up to 2?" is not. The comparison was to be drawn between asking a question like "How do I do a retrograde inversion?" vs. "What pieces are composed with retrograde inversions?" Always good to make sure debates happen with clarity if we want them to be constructive.
    – NReilingh
    Apr 27 '14 at 18:41
  • 2
    NReilingh Fine. Now that we're clear on what analogy @Dom was using, I'm still going to argue that the question "how to do a retrograde" is trivial - people already know what a retrograde is or they wouldn't be asking it in the first place. Coming up with examples of successful retrogrades however, is not trivial, and has the potential of showing why it would be an interesting compositional device. I don't see how that could be shown without referring to examples. Therefore, asking for examples is relevant and valid to anyone that wants to use it in their compositions.
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 27 '14 at 18:48
  • 1
    @Dr Mayhem - of course you can force people to make comments when they downvote. Rules are made about various other factors on the site.Suggestion - without a reason stated, a downvote will not be counted. I don't mind being downvoted, fired or whatever, but feel I have a perfect right to know the reasons behind it. It's part of being able to improve. Just saying, in a way, 'I don't agree,' is pretty spineless.
    – Tim
    Apr 28 '14 at 15:56
  • 3
    Tim - no. That is just not how meta sites on stack exchange work. All votes are anonymous. Upvotes indicate approval/agreement. Downvotes indicate the opposite. Pretty clear. People can comment if they want, and it can be helpful, but we can't force it.
    – Doktor Mayhem Mod
    Apr 28 '14 at 16:00
  • 2
    I'm far of knowing exactly the policies of the site, but I know my question is going to be useful for other users as there is not other place where anyone find that information (non a musician at least). However, my question wasn't about a particular song not a genre not an instrument, its about a particular style that caught my attention and I wanted to know more about it, I don't know if I should have asked something like "how to retrograde/invert a song?". I wouldn't have what I wanted.
    – Hans
    Apr 28 '14 at 22:27
9

(TL;DR at bottom.)

I think there are a few different aspects to this, and these different aspects don't all need to be treated in the same way. I want to break this question out into the following:

  1. Close reasons
  2. Specific examples
  3. Repertoire lists

Close Reasons

In my opinion, the prescribed collection of close reasons are all just simplistic attempts to codify the same thing while simultaneously offering constructive feedback to the asker.

The close reasons most relevant to this discussion usually amount to "not about music", "too broad", or "too localized". Obviously on Music.SE we deal with "too localized" questions in a much different context from the programming-related StackOverflow on which the principle was designed, but the basics still apply. These are:

  • Questions at their core should be about a discrete problem you are trying to solve
  • These problems should theoretically be applicable to another person at a different time with different circumstances.

The objective of these principals is to keep StackExchange more like a Q+A site than a forum, and that all user contributions (answers and questions) contribute to a perpetually useful knowledge base for the benefit of all.

Questions that need to be closed usually fit within one of two categories:

  1. Questions that have musical problems, but are not being asked in a manner that addresses the issue at hand.
  2. Questions that look like musical problems, but once you get to the root of the issue at hand, they are actually about something different.

In the second category, often it's impossible for someone to realize this without musical training, and as such, comments allow us to point the asker in the right direction as we send them on their way. For questions in the first category, the whole purpose of renaming [closed] to [on hold] was to communicate that the question could be a good one, but it needs to be revised or clarified by the asker before being reopened.

This is also where most of the close reasons come into play, and why they tend to amount either to "too broad" or "too localized". For example:

Let's say you are an inexperienced choir director and you need some help programming a spring concert. Some lousy questions you could ask in this situation might be "What music should I program for a middle school choir concert?" or "What piece should I use to balance a choir program consisting of piece x and piece y?"

The first question would be closed as "too broad" since it is completely open-ended, even if it was "well-defined" as to include the choir's current ability level and each child's range. (Being well-defined does not mean the question is a good one.) The second question would be closed as "too localized", since it would be useful only to you at this particular moment in time. The right question to ask might be something like "What aspects of repertoire should I consider when programming a concert for a middle school choir?" This question sits right in the sweet spot, on top of the problem at hand, and a really great answer will probably include some examples of repertoire you might be able to use, or some resources for you to peruse, while still being useful for other people who have the same problem in the future.

In light of this and my first point about close reasons being simplistic, I'd very much agree that the "song identification" criteria can be applied too broadly and in a non-constructive way. The "off-topic" close reasons that we have access to can be edited by a moderator, but we only have a default reason and three custom ones to choose from, so we have to choose based on the highest-volume types of closes that arise. Of course, this is also open to discussion on Meta, and if our high-rep users decide that different reasons would be more appropriate, we will change accordingly.

As it exists now, the "song identification" close reason is meant to be used for questions where the asker provides a description or recording of some music and expects an answer of how to find it or music like it on record. These questions typically come from brand new users with little musical training, and they occur very frequently. Furthermore, the questions hold almost no value to future readers, and the only way to answer such a question is to guess properly. The community has been pretty clear that this is not what they want the site to be about, so the close reason exists as it does.

Aside: In researching this answer, I came to the realization that our reputation limit for the privilege of casting close votes is still set to that of a day 1 beta site, even after THREE YEARS in Beta. (Incidentally, happy belated birthday to Music.SE!) This has not scaled up with the general reputation of our user base, and so many more people have the ability to cast a close vote than would typically be the case were we out of beta (500 rep instead of 3,000). I think this is something that myself and the other mods should consider when reviewing questions closed by non-moderator vote.

Specific Examples

I'd say of your three examples, this one has the most merit: I think it is potentially useful to future readers, and the question itself was well-asked and well-answered. There are some valid points for closing; the root of the question really isn't about music so much as it is "How do I find and navigate Mozart's catalogue?" But, I would agree that the "song identification" criteria was incorrectly applied here. Personally, and in light of the low-rep votes that caused the question close, I would like to see this question edited to remove the limitation of excluding arrangements, nominated for reopening and made community wiki--more on that later.

In this case, while the subject matter is more interesting than the typical song identification question, it is pretty clear to me that the asker heard a single example that he became fascinated with, and is now coming to us to try to find more music like it (the asker asked the same question in the comments of the YouTube video he linked). In other words, a textbook example of a song identification question. The reasons I detailed above apply to this, and I agree with the close. There are certainly lots of good questions that could be asked about retrograde or inverted melodies, and those answers could conceivably (I hope) include examples, but this question is pretty clearly off-topic according to the site's criteria.

This question, to me, is very confusing. The close reason probably should have been "Unclear what you're asking", since it is unclear what problem the asker is attempting to solve with the question--instead, it just seems like academic trivia. There's nothing wrong with academic trivia, of course, but that is more suited to a forum (or chat) than it is a StackExchange Q+A site. Again, there are certainly interesting questions that can be asked about vocal harmonization in popular music!

I want to also give a reminder here that close votes and edits go both ways -- none of the questions that were linked got any "reopen" votes, nor were any of them edited after the close to improve them. Any user able to cast a close vote (reputation >500, at present) should be able to cast a reopen vote. (I don't believe there are any systematic things I'm missing that prevent this, but correct me if I'm wrong.) It's far more common that closed questions simply need to be improved than it is that the site's definition needs to be modified.

Repertoire Lists

This has been on my mind for some time as an aspect of the site's scope that I think we should modify. Generally, questions looking for repertoire recommendations tend to be closed as "too localized" or "opinion-based", but I think a case can be made for accepting certain questions like this in our subject area. Not every site needs to be run exactly like StackOverflow (certainly, many other sites have deviated significantly), and I think we should try to take into account the nature of classical music when thinking about these questions. What I mean by this is that repertoire moves VERY slowly in the classical and academic worlds, and questions about what that repertoire is are both long-lasting and objectively answerable. If I speak to any other classically-trained trombone player in the world, the words "Grøndahl" or "David" (provided you pronounce them properly) mean exactly the same thing -- a trombone concerto that everyone has either played or heard in studio class dozens of times. To this end, I would love to see us adapt the Community Wiki feature. This would allow us to keep useful lists of important repertoire itemized by popularity, but prevent undesired gains in reputation resulting from the simple contribution of the name of a piece.

Conclusion/Short Version

I hope this sheds some light on what we are trying to make Music.StackExchange into, and why. Examples and responses to various questions are included above, but it is important for us mods to keep an eye out for questions that are closed by low-rep close votes. At the same time, users should be proactive in figuring out how to edit, improve, and reopen questions so that meta discussions can be more specific and efficient instead of long-winded and overarching. Finally, I would like to see Music.SE embrace Community Wiki for repertoire list questions that are well-asked, objectively answerable, and perpetually relevant. Looking forward to seeing what people have to say about this in the comments!

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  • 1
    Thanks for taking the time to reply. I would like to discuss your answer in depth, but am unsure how to do that. Comments don't cut it, they are too brief. And I'm not trying to "answer my own question". What can I do? Condensed my feedback is: 1) You seem to feel "low rep" votes are less worth than high rep votes. If that is the case, then why are they allowed to vote? 2) "remove the limitation of excluding arrangements" < What? That would make the question completely useless, since you could easily google that. 3) Re. the retrograde question, why do you care what the intention is of the...
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 28 '14 at 11:05
  • 1
    ...OP. Does that make their question less good? 4) "The community has been pretty clear that.." where does it say so? This wording makes me feel excluded. Also, I wonder how it can be that what a community happened to want at some point should somehow be preserved throughout time. Isn't community a dynamic thing?
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 28 '14 at 11:10
  • @RolandBouman I agree about your second point. 1) As far as the other points, reputation privileges are always (AFAIK) the same for beta sites and remain the same until they graduate. 3) When the intentions of the OP show that they are not on-topic, it will show through in the question and answers 4) meta.music.stackexchange.com/a/127/1678 and other discussions.
    – American Luke
    Apr 28 '14 at 13:57
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    @RolandBouman I'm curious. Would you want music appreciation integrated into this site rather than just have it be about music practice, performance, and theory?
    – Dom Mod
    Apr 29 '14 at 1:43
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    @Dom I'm not sure what you mean by "music appreciation", but I got a feeling you're using this term in connection to hans "being a fan of" music with retrogrades/inversion. I think my point is quite simple: I do not think music SE should be a place where we can have pissing contests about how is the greatest guitarist, rock band, baroque composer etc. But I think it's totally acceptable to ask for an example, or list of examples, illustrating a particular technique. I think the retrograde question is doing exactly that. I don't think it should matter why the OP asks for such examples.
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 29 '14 at 7:58
  • @RolandBouman Generally on Meta anything goes, but it's usually easiest to edit your existing question (or answer) if you want to add in-depth discussion. Some quick responses: 1) That's just the way SE is structured -- we'll outgrow it eventually. 2) The thought is it would make it more useful to future readers. Upon further consideration, I've reopened, though I've made a small tweak to the question title. 3) I do think OP intent is important -- if we run with a q that is unclear just because it has an interesting topic, OP (and future readers) won't get the real answer to their problem.
    – NReilingh
    Apr 29 '14 at 14:47
  • 4) The community is indeed constantly in flux, and this discussion we are having right now (along with the votes it generates) is important to it. I come to the conclusions of what the community wants based on observing site activity, commentary, and voting over a long period of time. We reference older decisions because they make for greater stability, but they are by no means perpetual law.
    – NReilingh
    Apr 29 '14 at 14:53
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    The general feeling about "music appreciation" is that it would be contrary to a more academic and practical nature of the site that we are trying to build. It's important that questions teach rather than show. In Hans's case, the qualities that made his example attractive to him had less to do with the fact it used retrograde/inversions than the fact that it had lots of interesting rhythmic suspensions as a result. So, our answers probably wouldn't have helped him in the first place, hence my point about OP intent.
    – NReilingh
    Apr 29 '14 at 15:13
  • And teaching, of course, happens at all levels -- this shouldn't exclude people with less experience or skill. Hans could have asked about the qualities of sound that he was hearing in that example and what was causing them from a compositional perspective.
    – NReilingh
    Apr 29 '14 at 15:17
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    @NReilingh I am at a loss how you discovered that Hans was only interested in the "rhythmic suspensions". I don't see any comment that indicates it. Even if that was his primary interest I still don't see any harm in asking about it on SE. He would have found out by checking the examples we provide, and he would have learned and maybe be inspired by them. Seriously I think the attitude towards how to treat the OP is excessively patriarchal. And not in a good sense.
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 29 '14 at 18:51
  • @RolandBouman: In school, there were primarily theory, performance, and history. Music appreciation was an elective class that involved listening to and identifying various pieces of music, so I would say it's closest to history. I guess I would ask whether we are interested in allowing music history questions.
    – BobRodes
    Apr 30 '14 at 22:10
  • @RolandBouman Sorry, that was a legitimate typo on my part. I should have prefixed that thought with a "probably" or "my guess is", which is informed by extended discussion with OPs on questions I've seen in the past (that type of confusion is not uncommon). I should hope I'm not being patriarchal in ANY sense... perhaps the word you meant was patronizing? All I can say about that is that this discussion is with you, not with that question's OP. To get back on topic, my question for you is, What musical problem is solved by having a list of recordings of inverted/retrograde popular songs?
    – NReilingh
    Apr 30 '14 at 22:31
  • @BobRodes thanks for the clarification re. appreciation. I didn't realize this was meant as a technical term. W/re to music history, personally would love to read questions and answers on the domain of musicology and music history.
    – Roland Bouman
    May 1 '14 at 19:09
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    @NReilingh The "problem" that it "solves" is that it allows you to experience how it sounds so that you may be inspired to try to use this device in your own composition. For many questions with regard to composition, arranging and theory the abstract formulation of an answer is not nearly as interesting as experiencing the phenomenon directly through sounding music. It is IMO the nature of this domain that in many cases, an example is a valid answer.
    – Roland Bouman
    May 1 '14 at 19:13
  • @RolandBouman So would I. I would think that such questions could be construed as questions about musical practice, say in a given time period.
    – BobRodes
    May 1 '14 at 19:31
8

I think we should focus on the problems we are trying to solve when closing issues. We don't have an issue with being spammed with very low quality questions. The ones that appear are closed quite quickly and deservedly. In my mind, all three of the example questions has answers with useful information. This is what I am looking for in this site.

I think they should be allowed. If this should be achieved by being less trigger happy on the "close" button, or relaxing the definitions I do not know. But there should be room for them, without turning this QA into a forum.

All in all, in my mind Music SE is moderated a bit too harshly compared with the traffic it receives. ("Moderated" includes all members, not just moderators.) One way forward could be to try a more relaxed attitude and see where that will lead us...

4
  • 1
    I think you're making a couple of very sensible points. Thanks for chiming in!
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 29 '14 at 8:35
  • 1
    I agree. @RolandBouman is not the only one that has reacted to this. See this response by @AllanK. to a meta question about attracting more expert questions.
    – awe
    Apr 29 '14 at 9:24
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    @awe: Yeah, that's a bad loss. It is easy to get into the zealous mindset, I have been affected by it too. I think we need to realize that it sometimes is harmful.
    – Meaningful Username
    Apr 29 '14 at 9:29
  • There are other examples as well, but this was the only one I was able to find again, because I had an answer myself to the same question.
    – awe
    Apr 29 '14 at 10:15
5

I would like to share some light on the reason behind why this type of questions are off topic:

StackOverflow

Most questions like these you point to have symptoms that are very similar to a type of questions that has ended up as proven to be problematic in StackOverflow over some time in the early days. This is often known as "shopping list" or "popularity list" that tend to be overly popular and not very useful to the intent of StackOverflow. This proved to be a real problem at StackOverflow as these questions became very visible on the site because they were very popular, but they hide the most useful questions for developers trying to find good technical solutions to specific programming issues.

The problem was tried to be solved by converting these types to "Community Wiki" that would release the question to be editable by more users, and removing reputation on votes for it. It turned out to not solve the problem, so it ended up with all those type of questions were banned as off topic, which I think is a good thing - both for StackOverflow, and most other StackExchange sites. This strict moderation has been one of many factors to make StackOverflow the number one reference to quickly find good answers to a programming problem you might have.

Musical Practice & Performance

It is in the nature of music that we should not execute the same harsh rules here as on a programming site. This is something that we all need to think about before we hit the close button on a question.

In many cases the questions can be improved to be a better fit without changing the goal of what the OP wish to get answered. My opinion is that these type of questions would benefit from having a base that asks for help on how to recognize the type of music in question, and end with a request to also back up with examples. This way, the answers are less in risk of being a dumb list of references. The result of adding more depth to the question is that the answers have more context so that people that does not know too much about the type of music that the OP has interest in, will also get more insight by just reading the question/answers without having to do an in depth study themselves to just get a basic understanding on what the question is all about.

In the examples you refer to, I agree that the reason behind those questions might very well be on topic here. They just need a slight editing to not become in risk of resulting in something that looks like an advanced Google search result. I have already slightly edited the two last. Specially the last one ...harmonization that does not move in parallel motion did have a content that I feel my edit has helped to be a good fit on the site. Actually, the answers that have already been provided are very good, and have good theoretical explanations that are helpful to everyone, and examples to go with that (so the OP gets what he wants at the same time as the content is useful in a more generic aspect).

8
  • Thanks for chiming in, much appreciated. I would like to point out that changing the questions so that they ask "how to recognize" will, IMO, make no difference at all. It is perfectly clear how to recognize Mozart's a capella SATB works, and it is perfectly clear how to recognize a retrograde. The challenge is to actually spot instances that fit the query. I am pretty sure that no amount of google foo sophistication will get you these answers.
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 29 '14 at 11:36
  • @RolandBouman: I am willing to agree with this. The problem is that if we allow this without setting some standard on how to phrase the questions, it can very quickly make the impression that the site can be used as a lazy Google search for anything related to music. I am open to allow these kind of questions that are not easily answered by a Google search, but the risk of this escalating to a level that might end up hurting the site is a difficult task for the moderators.
    – awe
    Apr 29 '14 at 11:48
  • 2
    I get that it may be a difficult task. I would argue that that is what makes - or breaks - the value of the site. I got the feeling that these questions were too quickly dismissed based on a checkbox judgement: "song identification is a nono". That said, I think I gave a pretty clear criterion under which circumstance "song identification" should be allowed. If identification is phrased in terms of a particular method of composition, then it should always be fine IMO.
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 29 '14 at 11:55
  • NReilingh said in his answer about allowing low-rep users to cast down votes might be problematic, because they might not know where the fine line is between a valid request and what is potentially problematic on this particular site. The reason this limit is so low, is because it is in beta, and for new beta sites, there are not enough high rep users because the site is too young, but Music has been around for so long that the user reputations are closer to what it would be on a site that is "graduated". I am hoping Music-SE will come out of beta soon!
    – awe
    Apr 29 '14 at 11:56
  • 1
    That said - there is another reason for these questions might be closed: This site is for music practice, performance and theory - not music appreciation. So unless these question cannot be linked to one of those (for example theory), it will be off topic because of that.
    – awe
    Apr 29 '14 at 12:02
  • The "appreciation" argument sounds incredibly silly to me. Are you telling us that you can't ask for Mozart a capella SATB works merely because you appreciate Mozart, whereas it would be fine to ask about them because you're interested in performing said works? If I'm just curious what something sounds like, then I need exmaples to experience that. Are you telling us it is in appropriate to ask for places to experience what a certain kind of music sounds like? If that is the case then I am clearly visiting the wrong site.
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 29 '14 at 12:34
  • 1
    Good explanation behind the rationale for these type of restrictions. While the answers risk becoming a list, in my experience they don't become that on the questions where closing has been debated. It's the other way around, that they contain a lot of valuable insight. The user base at this SE is apparently able to handle these type of questions.
    – Meaningful Username
    Apr 29 '14 at 12:44
  • Regardless of what the verdict is on "appreciation", I can see (and defend) clear links between the questions we're discussing here and either performance, or theory.
    – Roland Bouman
    Apr 29 '14 at 13:03

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