March 18, 2006

LoveToKnow Music, a wiki devoted to all aspects of music

Seems like there's a lot of biggish new projects going live on the web of late, Newsvine being a good example. I wonder why. This new wiki looks pretty tidy and may turn out to be a valuable resource, if it doesn't vanish in the mire of music-related webjunk.

posted by tracicle 18 years ago
  • I didn't know Danny Elfman was from Oingo Boingo. I feel like I should've known that.
  • I went searching for Jelly Roll Morton, Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael, Woody Herman, Phil Harris, Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill, Noel Coward, Django Reinhardt, Stephen Sondheim, and then jazz, and all came up blank except for jazz which seemed to think rockabilly was a satisfactory response.
  • That's the thingabout wikis, bees: anyone can contribute so it's up to that special someone to inform the populace. I'm surprised there's no Coward or Irving Berlin, though. Surely everyone knows them.
  • Apparently not. This wiki is far from complete: also drew blanks on Mozart, Handel, Brahms, Grieg, Stravinsky, ragtime, concerto, Nutcracker, Benjamin Britten, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Eric Idle, Yehudi Menuhin, Glenn Gould, and Itzhak Perlman. Did find 1 entry for waltz, 2 for symphony. And 1 for Bach. But now I'm starting to wonder -- why is a special music wiki needed? What is the point of fragmenting information sources? Seems as if this information could fit just as well into the Wikipedia itself. Or am I missing something?
  • I've found the wikipedia articles on any given band I've cared to look up have been excellent, certainly more detailed than this. Not to mention the extensive discussion on wikipedia about the various subgenres of something like heavy metal, where there's nothing like that on this site. Is there really a need to reproduce all the work that's already been done? Just to have it be hosted on some other site?