Teaching Items of the Week

I was asked by people on the 'Net to continue my series of educational posts. So, et and voila: today's entry on proper capitalization, italization, and underline-zation of titles, etc.

I wholeheartedly believe in not reinventing the wheel. Therefore, when someone else can pull together a style guide, I will borrow from it ad nauseum.

Let me reiterate. I did NOT create this style guide. I am pilfering from others who thought long and hard about what would best serve the institution for which they write. They in turn borrowed from a variety of other sources. Go buy your own reference books from an independent bookseller or a big huge chain store which I will not name.

This [excerpted series of notes] is intended to help standardize the way [the institution] use the English language in [their] publications. It is based on a number of sources, including The Chicago Manual of Style, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, The Associated Press Stylebook, D. Kern Holoman's Writing About Music, and the good old English Dictionary (American Heritage College, Third Edition). The blend of these sources results in our own "house style." While there are exceptions to all rules, the goal is for our publications — catalogs, newspapers, brochures, pamphlets, etc. — to conform to one style.

A final note: Usage changes with time. New words come into the language, or th emeanings of old ones change. (Today, "web" means something different to most people than it did 20 years ago.) For much of this, there's no absolute "right" or "wrong" (to go back to "web," you'll see Web site written many ways in different publications: Web site, web stie, website, Website). We're not aiming to be "right;" we're aiming for consistency.

[For the record, the institution has this for “web” and other electronica]

W: Web site; Webmaster; World Wide Web
E: e-mail (only capitalized at beginnings of sentences)
O: online

Newspapers and magazines:

If a newspaper includes 'The' in its masthead, then 'The' should be capitalized. If, like the New York Post, 'The' is not included in the newspaper's title, then 'the' should not be capitalized. The complete title is rendered in italics.

An article in The Junkyard Journal. An article in The Journal.
A report in the New York Post… A report in the Post.
As a corollary, if "Magazine" is included in a magazine's title, it should be capitalized. If, as in the case of New York magazine, it is not, then it should be neither capitalized nor italicized.

Titles of works and parts of works

• Acts/Scenes: Capitalize and use numerals (Act 2, Scene 2)


• Articles, chapters, etc.: titles in quotes (e.g."Luxury in Hard Times" was the cover story of The New York Times Magazine.


• Books: titles in italics; chapters in quotes.
  
• Courses, class names: capitalize only if unique title, not generic subject (Arts in Education; music history, Classical Music in an Age of Pop; dance notation)
  
• Musical works (see Musical Terms section below)
  
• Newspapers, magazines: titles in italics (capitalize "the" if officially part of the masthead: An article in The New York Times; a report in the New York Post). Similarly, capitalize and italicize "magazine" if part of the title of the periodical: PC Magazine surveyed 100 laptop users. New York magazine has good theater listings.
  
• Organizations: capitalized (but do not capitalize "the" in an organization's name)


• Performance series: capitalize only; no quotes or italics: Lincoln Center's Great Performers series.


• Plays, movies, TV shows: titles in italics: The Merchant of Venice; 60 Minutes


• Recordings, CDs: capitalize but do not italicize if generic; italicize if descriptive title (his recording of sonatas by Bach; his recording The Art of the Countertenor)


• Roles: capitalize only, no quotes or italics. (He played Romeo in the production of Shakespeare's classic love story.)

Musical Terms
Most of the style rules regarding musical terminology are consistent with D. Kern Holoman's book Writing About Music, so if something doesn't appear in this manual, please refer to it. (One notable exception: Capitalize Op. when abbreviating opus.)

TITLES OF WORKS

Generic titles are not italicized, only capitalized (Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 or Beethoven's Second Symphony; Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1).

Generic titles include, but are not limited to, symphonies; sonatas; concertos; suites; trios, quartets, quintets, etc.; names of dances (e.g. waltzes, mazurkas); fugues; inventions; canons; masses; etc.

When not referring to a specific title, do not capitalize: Mozart's symphonies; Beethoven's sonatas, etc.

Movements of works are not capitalized: The first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Descriptive titles are italicized when the name was given by the composer (Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue; Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz); otherwise, nicknames follow in parentheses and quotes: Schubert's Symphony in B Minor ("Unfinished") or Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony.

Songs and Arias - In quotes ("Summertime" from Porgy and Bess. They all sang "God Bless America.")

KEYS, PITCHES, ETC.
Major, Minor: Both are capitalized only in titles (Sonata in C Major, Concerto in E Minor; hyphenate only if in adjectival use: E-Minor Concerto). If not part of a title, capitalize the pitch name, but lower case "major" and "minor": He transcribed the work from E minor to G minor.

Sharp, Flat: Do not capitalize in titles; do not hyphenate unless adjectival or compound (Sonata in B flat; Nocturne in C-sharp Minor)

Pitches: Capital letters, spell out "sharp" and "flat" (B flat, C sharp)

Opus numbers, Kochel numbers, etc.: Abbreviate, with a space between the period and the number (Op. 46, No. 2; K. 449, etc.; an exception is BWV, which takes no periods).

PERIODS OF MUSIC HISTORY
When referring to a specific era in musical history, the name of the period is capitalized: Baroque music; Classical; Romantic; etc. However, classical music is lowercased when referring less specifically to music of the Western European tradition (classical music as opposed to rock music). Do not capitalize medieval music, or modern or contemporary music.

SPELLING OF COMPOSERS' NAMES

Use accent marks in names. Use transliterated, Americanized spellings: Rachmaninoff (not Rachmaninov); Tchaikovsky; Prokofiev; etc.For names with "von," usually the "von" is dropped: Weber, not von Weber; Gluck, etc. (There are exceptions, however: von Bülow, for example.)