Talk:Ballad

A fact from Ballad appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 11 April 2007. The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that the modern meaning of "ballad", a slow, sentimental tune or love song, often written in a fairly standardized form, came about from Tin Pan Alley and Broadway composers? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/April.

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Some older or moot discussion from this page has been archived. Future archivers, please link the archive page in this section, and add a summary of the material you archived.the lead section, a possible link to a Smithsonian site, and specific ballads to mention or not...—Turangalila (talk) 12:37, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article does not reflect a worldwide (or "time-wide") view. The ballad originated in the article). They are usually considered identical to the Swedish medieval "folkvisor" as well (see the Swedish wiki article), which in later centuries came to parallel the "broadsheet" phenomenon described in this article. --[[User:194.145.161.227|2006 (UTC)

See also the Britannia Concise articles Ballad. This is one of the (I guess few) topics where Wikipedia still lags far behind. --194.145.161.227 20:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this article as it stands adequately addresses the use of the term ballad in contemporary musical contexts. The traditional sense of ballad persists among folk musicians, but in pop and especially jazz it has a totally different meaning: it denotes a love song, or a sentimental song in a personal tone, or a slow song in general. This is vaguely alluded to in the artlce at present but not defined in all its variety.

I've created a new article called Ballad (music) which endeavors to address this. I know the traditional definition usually means a song, and I'm not married to the name, but I think some clarification/elaboration was necessary, and I'm not even sure ballad should redirect here. I've added {{main}} tags for that & other things to this article for now.

The confusion is demonstrated, I think, by "What links here" and especially by the lists in the article under "Famous ballads", particularly "Modern". People seem totally unclear about the difference between "Traditional" and "Popular" definitions; the list as a whole is just a mess. What exactly does "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" have in common with "Joe Hill"? How about "Stardust" and "American Pie"? What is "November Rain" doing on both lists? What are "On Top of Spaghetti" or "Space Oddity" doing there at all?! I think the relevant WikiProjects, or just interested editors, should try to address the whole issue. —Turangalila (talk) 18:08, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the article also ignores the rather substantial differences between ballads in different types of popular music. Some ballads are narrative stories, most pop ballads are love songs, while in heavy metal they are almost always about death (except in glam, whose status as metal is debatable anyway), and the different types differ in their musical structure as well--a tender acoustic pop piece bears little musical resemblance to the continuous crescendo and bleak, dirgelike tone of a typical metal ballad or the winding, progressive structure of Bob Dylan's "Hurricane". 75.66.80.108 (talk) 00:52, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A little more on poem type ballads may have been appriciated, as a lot is tied up in other sections, and the actually poem bit is only a few lines. Just a thought... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.67.55.204 (talk) 14:17, 13 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Why are there ballads in the list that have no article to go with them? Tythesly 21:08, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since Wikipedia discourageds lists perhaps the list could be removed to another page or a link to the category English Ballads. --Sabrebd (talk) 11:53, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rinaldo is a normal Italian opera. It does *not* have "racy and often satirical spoken (English) dialogue, interspersed with songs that are deliberately kept very short", as the text defines ballad opera (correctly, AFAIAC).--91.148.159.4 (talk) 14:46, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cannot find the source cited to check what it says but a quick search of sources suggest the confusion is that The Beggars Opera stole some of its music, but its not a ballad opera, but an Italianate one. Lets just delete it. If anyone ever finds different with a good source we can always put it back.--Sabrebd (talk) 16:09, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For discussion on the possibility of merger from Ballad (music) to here see Talk: Ballad (music)#Merger.--Sabrebd (talk) 14:02, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How does Meat Loaf not get a mention in the section on power ballads? His full name is Meat Power-Ballad Loaf. Aboctok (talk) 03:49, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would a lot of Dire Straights music be ballads? Particularly Romeo and Juliet and Telegraph Road? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.210.242.245 (talk) 23:36, 23 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Referring to the Native American Ballads section: The ballads of Jesse James and Davy Crockett are 19th and 20th century creations, not from the colonial era. James and Crockett were both 19th-century figures. 70.179.92.117 (talk) 16:45, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it should read "colonial and post-colonial", but its easier just to drop the terms so I have removed the word. I think the meaning (i.e. not in Britain) is still clear.--SabreBD (talk) 17:16, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But some loser keeps erasing it. so I put it here. I'm sure it will get erased as well. I think it's good.

Please note Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Also there is no need to duplicate text here that you have already added back to the article, even if it is removed that text can be found in the article history. If you add very large sections of unsourced text they are pretty much bound to be removed. It is a much better idea to work on them in a sandbox until they are ready and then post them, or you could flag up the fact you are going to add sources on the article talkpage first. If you are not used to providing citations you can always ask for help and some Wikipedian will almost certainly oblige. As it stands at this moment the added text just needs a few more citations and then it will be fine. I will wait until you have finished and then format the citations for you.--SabreBD (talk) 08:12, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also please note that citations need page numbers please.--SabreBD (talk) 08:32, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This section is still dubiously sourced and may have to be edited down to avoid WP:OR.--SabreBD (talk) 06:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've noted that you undid my revision of the ballad example in the Ballad article, with the reason being that "This [notation on meter] is the point of this example." However, this reason is not based on fact but on presumption, considering the context of the example:

Usually, only the second and fourth line of a quatrain are rhymed (in the scheme a, b, c, b), which has been taken to suggest that, originally, ballads consisted of couplets (two lines) of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables.^[1] As can be seen in this stanza from ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet’:

[example]

However, there is considerable variation on this pattern in almost every respect, including length, number of lines and rhyming scheme, making the strict definition of a ballad extremely difficult.

Despite the single sentence referencing meter prior to the given context, both the consideration of rhyme scheme before the example and the phrase after the example, which mentions far more than meter, allude the purpose of this example to be on rhyme, namely, and the variation in ballads. The emphasis of rhythm over other aspects contrasts this provision, insinuating that attention should be given to something already in accordance with the description in the preceding paragraph.

Furthermore, the example with notations is exhibited exceedingly poorly. The use of the letter "l" (rather than an emphasized |) to denote feet is poor practice and confusing in various circumstances, and in a context where rhyme scheme is discussed directly prior to the example, enunciation of stressed syllables — with an improper scansion system, mind — only adds confusion to those expecting that the momentary topic may be observed in the example. Pastaguy12 (talk) 16:07, 1 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is not presumption, given that I put the example in in 2009, I am pretty confident about why it was put in. The example does a variety of things, but stress was the major one. Using bold is one of the accepted ways of indicating stress, there are others but they are difficult to do with precision on Wikipedia. Nevertheless I am open to suggestions. As for the use of the letter "l", you are mistaken, it is not the letter but "|". I do not think there is any reason to put bold on this. It seems clear enough and the standard way of emphasising feet in verse.--SabreBD (talk) 17:28, 1 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A new article needed for Kentucky ballad collector Katherine Jackson French. Source 76.190.208.61 (talk) 22:29, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]