IMSLP:Score submission guide/Manual of Style

Free public domain sheet music from IMSLP / Petrucci Music Library

This is the offical guide to correct submission style on IMSLP. It is targeted at IMSLP moderators/admins, and anyone who wants to help with the maintenance of IMSLP. It is also very helpful for file submitters.

Contents 1 Work Page Related 1.1 Page Title 1.2 Description Fields 1.3 Other

Work Page Related

Page Title

• Basic
  • Canonical Syntax: Work Title, Catalogue Number
  • Example: Eroica Variations, Op.35
• Common stylistic mistakes
  • Improper upcasing of page title
    • Severity: High
    • Example: EROICA VARIATIONS, OP.35
    • Correction Rationale: While I understand that this is allowed in some languages, it is considered shouting in others, and thus it is a good idea to avoid this to be more considerate of others.
    • Exceptions: This applies only to improper UPCASING, and not lowercasing: some languages lowercase nearly everything after the first letter; this is acceptable.
  • Using words instead of numeric numbers
    • Severity: Medium
    • Example: Ten Pieces
    • Sample Correction: 10 Pieces
    • Correction Rationale: Having numbers instead of words make the title easier to understand to people who do not speak the language of the title.
  • Not having a comma after the Work Name
    • Severity: Low
    • Correction Rationale: The comma helps clarify the separation between catalogue number and the work title.
  • Having a space between the catalogue prefix (ex. "Op.") and the catalogue number
    • Severity: Low
    • Correction Rationale: The dot (.) is similar to a space; so having a space after it is not so visually pleasing.
    • Exceptions: For catalogue prefixes without a dot (ex. "BWV"), a space is necessary.
  • Having sort-related changes to the title
    • Severity: Low
    • Example: Piano Sonatas, 100
    • Correction Rationale: This is generally a leftover problem from when IMSLP did not have an automatic generated custom sort key for each page. But this has been fixed, so sort-related changes to the title is unnecessary.
• FAQs
  • Q: Which language to use for a work piece title?
    • A: Depends on the title:
      • If it is a "common" title (Sonata, Symphony, etc.), the prefered language is English, because most of these titles are already in English. However, if you want to use another language for some reason, that is acceptable.
      • If it is not a "common" title, the prefered language is the language of the original title. However, it should be transliterated to an alphabet that is similar to most European alphabets, just so that most people can at least know the alphabet. This applies to, for example, the Cyrillic alphabet (it has to be transliterated), because most people cannot read the Cyrillic alphabet unless they know a language which uses that alphabet. This is a purely practical solution, and is not at all meant to be offensive. The original name should be written in the Alternate Title field, so that the piece will also be searchable by the original title.
      • Note: This problem should disappear entirely when I implement the page title translation feature in a few months.

Description Fields

This is generally not a major problem, except for factual inaccuracies.

• Common stylistic mistakes
  • Forgetting to put the catalogue prefix (ex. "Op.", "BWV") before the catalogue number
    • Severity: Low/Medium
    • Correction Rationale: While it is sometimes obvious, it is still a good idea to put the category prefix in order to be clear.
• [Editor field] Arrangers, Editors, Orchestrators, Transcribers and Translators

All should be entered into the "Editor" field, with dates if possible, along with a brief description of the person's contribution, e.g. "Franz Liszt (1811-1886), transcriber"

Other

• Common issues
  • Having more than 15/20 submissions per page
    • Severity: Medium
    • Correction Rationale: The page becomes overcrowded and finding files becomes difficult.
    • Correction Guidelines: Generally, a page should have a maximum of 15 submissions, with a hard limit of around 20. More than that, and the page should be split. For piece sets, the number of pieces per page should be between 6 and 12 depending on the size of the pieces, to leave room for alternate editions. If the pieces are small enough (say, less than 500kb per piece on average), they may be submitted with each file having more than one piece in it to prevent overcrowding. The optimum file size on IMSLP is between 2MB and 6MB, though obviously there are many cases where having this size is impossible.