Talk:Roger Nichols (musical scholar)

Proposed edits

Hello,

My husband, Roger Nichols, is the subject of this article and has suggested some amendments to the current text. I'm unfamiliar with Wikipedia protocols and am wondering how best to submit them. Is it acceptable simply to submit all the edits (mostly minor) as a single change, or are multiple smaller changes preferred? Thanks for your attention - if there's no objection I'll submit the changes for review. Kind regards,

SarahAnneNichols (talk) 19:51, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for announcing your intentions here. I personally don't have any problems with careful, factual, and sourced edits by the subjects or people close to them, but Wikipedia has a guideline for this case: Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, which is overwhelming. The important parts of that are at WP:COIEDIT which says, "you are strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly", and WP:COISELF which says the same thing and further refers to WP:COIREQ. There, the use of the template {{request edit}} on an article's take page (here) is recommended. Again, I think this is too convoluted for people of good will, but daily experience here shows that not all people are, so there is some point to it. Also, this process will place this page into the Category:Wikipedia conflict of interest edit requests which may alert some editors to provide assistance. It's also probably good form to notify the creator of this article, User:Tim riley, of this discussion in case it has dropped off his watchlist. Cheers, Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:03, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Good afternoon, Mrs Nichols. If you list the proposed changes here, I can Wikify them as long as you give us a reliable published source for each. Your husband's books have been a superb source for more of our articles on French music than I can count, and I raise my hat to him with thanks. Tim riley talk 13:13, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Ditto for the thanks - I still have a couple of the Chabrier programmes he made for Radio 3 with Clive Swift as the composer, on cassette - educational and entertaining! Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 20:10, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that kind offer - and he's delighted by these comments, and passes on his thanks to all. I have a set of annotations with suggested edits (on paper, of course!) which I'll type up here; I hope these make sense.

BEGIN EDITS

From: including books about Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and the Parisian musical scene

To: including books about Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Francis Poulenc and the Parisian musical scene

Delete: Nichols was decorated by the French authorities... French musical studies.

LIFE AND CAREER

Rearranging to use chronological order:

He was educated at Harrow, where he read Classics, and at Worcester College, Oxford, where he studied music under Edmund Rubbra. In 1964, he married Sarah Edwards, a teacher; they have two sons and a daughter. After graduating he became a schoolmaster at St Michael's College, Tenbury (1966–73), after which he was a lecturer for the Open University (1975–76) and the University of Birmingham (1978–80). In 1982 He studied piano in Paris with Magda Tagliaferro.

Prepend to: Nichols's first book:

After research into the songs of Claude Debussy,

From: a study of Claude Debussy

To: a study of that composer

In para beginning "Later books", change

From: Ravel (1977)

To: Ravel (1977 and 2011)

Typo:

From: is the English version

To: are the English versions

Insert before: In 2002 Nichols produced The Harlequin Years:

, and of Harry Halbreich's Arthur Honegger (1992), published by the Amadeus Press under the same title (1999).

Insert before: For the 1980 Grove Dictionary:

This volume grew out of a series of the same name for BBC Radio 3.

From 1980 to 1992 Nichols also presented the drive time programme Mainly for Pleasure, now called In Tune.

The BBC maintain an archive of the 297 programme listings:

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?order=first&q=%22Mainly+for+Pleasure%22+%22Roger+Nichols%22

Amend: "appointed Nichols as Chevalier" - elide "as".

Append to that para: His sponsors were Madeleine Milhaud, Henri Dutilleux and Pierre Boulez.

END EDITS

There are some more substantial additions required to the bibliography section, including a total of 15 authored books and 9 published translations. I have looked at the format for including these and would be happy to submit these in "Wikified" form - would that list be better submitted here on the Talk page, or as an edit to the Main page?

Thanks again for the offers of help and support!

SarahAnneNichols (talk) 18:27, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Dear User:Tim_riley,

Please do let me know if there's anything further I can add - and if it would be more appropriate for me to submit these edits directly, I can ask grandchildren for help!

Many thanks,

SarahAnneNichols (talk) 15:46, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I have this on my to-do list for the weekend. Looking forward to it. More anon. Tim riley talk 20:31, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Suggested tweaks now duly twuck. Only one reservation: Wikipedia requires a published or otherwise accessible reliable source for any statement, and I can't find one for the fact that Mme Milhaud, Dutilleux and Boulez were RN's sponsors for the Legion of Honour. It isn't contentious, but nonetheless I have thought it best to relegate it to a footnote. It would be well worth unrelegating it into the main text if a reliable source can be cited. As to the bibliography, if you feel happy about posting it into the article I'll tidy it up if necessary (13-digit ISBNs, wiki-links and so forth). Alternatively, if you prefer to post it on this talk page I'll happily do the necessary. Over to you. − Tim riley talk 10:04, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Marvellous - thank you! I'll ask him for a reference and get back to you.

SarahAnneNichols (talk) 17:54, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Dear User:Tim_riley,

With a little assistance I now have Roger's bibliography in what I hope is Wikified form - I have published it to my own Talk Page in order to avoid unnecessary clutter here. May I ask whether you'd be happy to transfer this to Roger's page? Apparently there are some notes in comments.

Do please let me know if there's anything you'd like to query - and thank you again for all your help.

Kind regards,

SarahAnneNichols (talk) 20:36, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Good evening, Mrs Nichols! I'll look in this week, do what I can and report back here. I look forward to it. Tim riley talk 20:40, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Done. Very little Wikifying needed. All good stuff. Tim riley talk 19:41, 6 September 2022 (UTC)