Talk:Song

"Songs"

en.wp: "In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing. A choral or vocal song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs. The lyrics (words) of songs are typically of a poetic, rhyming nature, though they may be religious verses or free prose."
Thus: A song includes voice/singing/lyrics and a music track/musical composition/musical work/instrumental work is not a song in general.
(Some not so intelligent people maybe call all music works "songs", but even so they are just not so intelligent and the meaning of the word "song" is unchanged, like "table" would still be a "table", even if some people call tables "chair".)
Are all musical compositions which Link learns during his journeys songs? Some are, at lest by its name (e.g. Epona's Song), though practically, when Links uses his Ocarina alone, he can only play the melody of the song and not sing the lyrics alongside playing. This results in Link playing the melody of e.g. Epona's song, but not performing Epona's Song. E.g. "Command Melody" is, by its name, not a song. Maybe 'cause of game context it is a song; is it?
Furthermore: Maybe the kind of musical compositions does change in different translations. Eg. "Frog's Song of Soul" became "Krötenrap" ("toad rap") in the (Moyseian) German text (=/= translation, as Moyse and such are often more like text writers than translatiors). A rap might be a musical work and even a song, but not every song is a rap, so the kind of music did change there. (Maybe one could argue, that a rap is not music at all and thus not a song, but instead maybe more like just fast speaking, but well.)
-Bernd 14:02, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

By real world definition, most of these "songs" are evidently nothing more than tunes, take any of those in Spirit Tracks for example. Regardless, the developers chose to call them songs (Song of Light, Song of Discovery, Song of Birds, etc.). According to their use of the word, the terms "song" and "tune" are interchangeable. Since we write everything in universe, Nintendo's definition of words is what counts, whether they're correct by real-world standards or not. They're songs because Nintendo says they're songs. Therefore, I don't see anything wrong with the way things are now (I'm assuming the point of you bringing up this up was to prove that there is something wrong and we should change it). — Hylian King ^[*] 17:29, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

That's clear (for me), but are ALL music compositions songs? Epona's Song and the songs you mentioned are songs; at least by the name and even though Link usually only plays the melody with his Ocarina. Prelude of Light maybe isn't a song (by name) (en.wp doesn't say anything about it, but mentions the German name and de.wp says it's instrumental, thus not a song) and Tune of Ages/Currents/Echoes, Command Melody, Farewell to Gibdos, Din's Power, Nayru's Wisdom and Farore's Courage aren't called songs by name too, but still could be songs. Maybe they all are songs, e.g. by getting called songs in the manual or in some ingame text, but I'm not having any indication or even proof for that.

If all the music compositions are called "songs", then there's a logical error as a prelude is always instrumental and songs are never instrumental, but that's just something for trivia or the like. If in the German version all compositions are called "Lied" (= song), then there would be the same logical error as there's a "Sonate" (sonata) and accourding to de.wp a "Sonate" is always instrumental. In other language versions there might be similar mistakes.

There also might be a second logical failure as a song has lyrics and when Link play his Ocarina he can't sing along, so instead of maybe "You've played <Whatever Song>." it should be "You've played the melody of <Whatever Song>." or something as he obviously didn't play the song (which would include the playing resp. singing of the lyrics), but just the melody.

Another point, maybe just for the trivia too: in different language version the music compositions have different names in the way that the names indicate a different type of music, e.g. "Prelude of Light" ~ "Kantate des Lichts" (cantata of light), where a cantata is always with vocals/singing and thus a song and a prelude (again) never is a song, or "Sun's Song" ~ "Hymne der Sonne" (hymn of the sun"), where a hymn always is a song, but a song isn't always a hymn, or "Frog's Song of Soul" ~ "Krötenrap" (toad rap), where rap might be a song, but a song isn't always rap. -Bernd 18:39, 20 November 2012 (UTC)