h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi, I'm writing an entry on musical form. It's not finished yet but it can be viewed at A6811977.

Constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.

This looks very good. If you want it to eventually become an Edited Entry, you should remove references to yourself from the entry, as these are not allowed in Edited Entries.

There's a lot of stuff in this that I didn't know, so it could be very useful.

The first bit which offended me was "motive" instead of "motif".

Perhaps you're easily offended, SEF.

My dictionary certainly includes 'motif' as a standard meaning of 'motive'.

The entry looks very interesting to me. I hope it goes into Peer Review on its way into the Edited Guide.

Azara

I definitely intend to put it into the edited guide but it's nowhere near finished because there's a lot more that I feel needs covering.

To SEF: I was taught that it was 'motive' and all the books that I have read refer to it as 'motive' primarily - usually with a footnote that explains that it is sometimes called 'motif'.

Seeing as some people will always think of it as 'motif', I'll put both in.

Well "theme" is the most normal term.

A theme is usually made up of a set of motives.

It is the same length as a phrase but has more importance with regard to development of the piece. I was going to explain this when I got on to finishing 'variation form' (or 'theme and variation').

I'd agree. My musical dictionary gives it as "motive" in English and "motif" in French. A theme is different from a motive.

It also points out that Wagnerian motives are not strictly motives, in that they can be complete phrases.

Well we used "motif", though a later dictionary I have and have just checked does have "motiv" / "motive" too. I had deleted the end of the sentence before, where I originally said something like "whereas a motif is a smaller bit", because I thought that was getting too fussy (especially as I had to avoid saying "piece") and belabouring the obvious. But apparently not.

Belabouring the obvious is what writing entries is all about. Because what is obvious to one person is not to the next.

That wasn't about the entry itself though. It was to the few people here who allegedly knew.

I'm updating it, bit by bit...

Now it covers ground bass and the beginning of a section on sonata form.

You were the person who allegedly knew, SEF. I'm surprised at you - normally you're just spiteful; in this case you're both spiteful and ignorant.

Oops, sorry ChiefNautilus. SEF and I shouldn't carry on our bickering here.

I do know though. I've had my own web pages on the subject for a long time. Probably longer than the BBC has had h2g2 at all (looking at some of the file dates, though some have been updated since). Clearly longer than you've known, to judge by your own posts here saying as much.

I will gladly accept help from both of you. You don't have to prove yourself SEF.

If you're still interested, I just updated the entry. It now has a complete section on sonata form.

It's now being ignored in peer review if anyone wants to take a look at it...

chief nautilus just been to have a look and a scout has taken a look at it about 7 hours ago echomikeromeo U929375 this is the conversation thread http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/plain/F48874?thread=1666768&latest=1 so you could reply on the thread and say is there anything i need to do before it can be moved to the next step or pop over to echomikeromeo thread subject box A6811977 stucture in classical note and just add the same thing there