this has probably been asked already, so apologies. give me a link to the initial answer, maybe.

so, is a track instrumental if it includes:

1.a choir

2.a scream or something similar

3."aah"s

4.voiceover or movie dialogue snippet

5.total silence

?

thanks again

I'd personally say that #4 is instrumental while the rest are not. I mean, an instrumental song is one that lacks vocals, so if it has any at all which were recorded for the album, even a choir or whispered hums, I'd consider it to not be instrumental. In my opinion #5 wouldn't be "instrumental" either, since it literally doesn't feature instruments...

That's just my two cents, though. I'd wait for more people (lke mods) to give their thoughts.

A little question on the side, how do I label a song as instrumental? I've looked around quite a bit, but I couldn't figure out how.

In your case, you need a higher rank to be able to mark songs as instrumental. I believe it's the veteran rank that first allows it.

You'd be accurate.

Ah, thanks.

I pretty much agree with MalignantThrone's thoughts on this.

I also agree. Though the silent track in Type O Negative's debut is marked as an instrumental.

Not anymore. An idea, but in addition to the "instrumental" option, perhaps "silence" or "other". That way, one can view an album page and not falsely assume that the song doesn't have lyrics available or known, or incorrectly mark it as instrumental ... (Essentially understanding that said song is total silence or whatever ...)

thanks everyone for your input

Okay, I beg to differ when it comes to the "must have instruments to be considered an 'instrumental'"...

Wikipedia has a good summary of what're considered "borderline cases" of instrumentals. I don't think tracks of pure dead silence, whether included as a point of artistic merit, or simply a tracking mistake, should differ from any other "song" without clear instruments (e.g., droning ambience, field recordings, static waveforms, etc).

So my definition of an "instrumental" is simply any track that doesn't feature any vocalised lyrics in the recording, or serves as some sort of interlude.

Which seems to comply with the dictionary's own definition of the word...

I don't have much of an opinion on this matter, but I tend to agree with Alhadis.

Wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental

From Oxford:
2 (of music) performed on instruments, not sung:
a largely instrumental piece

relating to musical instruments:

brilliance of instrumental color

Dictionary.com:
2. performed on or written for a musical instrument or instruments: instrumental music.

Ditto.

... uh yeah, that's the definition of "instrumental" as an adjective, dude. I'm talking about "instrumental" as a noun.

Alright. I guess it would make sense in our context and simplify matters to regard everything without "vocalised lyrics", as Al put it, as an instrumental. Tracks only containing silence may not technically be instrumental in an accurate sense, but if we treat the definition as strictly complementary to any non-instrumental, i.e. songs with sung lyrics (that aren't samples from a third party/source), then they are. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assert that people looking through the database see "instrumental" more as "does not feature singing" and less as "does not feature singing but instruments", if you catch my meaning.

Also in accord with Alhadis/Morrigan/Evenfiel.

What about karaoke tracks that retain a few of the original vocal lines, as sort of guidelines for the listener? I've been tagging them as instrumentals so far. (On some Animetal-cd's.)

In my opinion, even these songs should be labeled as instrumental, since they are all, as one can imagine, fully instrumental. Probably the lyrics are featured in the booklets, but the actual tracks are karaoke ones and so they have no sung lyrics at all.

If it's mainly karaoke tracks with minor vocal lines, then yes.

What about this song? Is it OK to tag it as instrumental?

Yes.

Honestly chaps, if you need to use your intuition. If it sounds like it focuses almost solely on instruments, then it's safe to call it an instrumental.

Don't think there's such a thing. "Instrumental" as a "noun", as you refer to it, is a shortened version of "instrumental music/song", where it poses as an adjective.

Anyway, I'm joining the "instrumental = no vocalized lyrics" club. The human voice can be considered as an instrument as far as I'm concerned when no lyrics attached, so we have "choir, scream, aahs" covered; the movie dialogue snippet falls under "samples" so we have that covered as well.

The last in your list - total silence - is a tougher call though, and might be worthy of a dedicated discussion.

When a consensus is reached, I think a link to this thread in the "Is it instrumental?" field will certainly help users correctly tag them.

Sorry, but there pretty obviously is such a thing. Just because it derived from a noun phrase where "it" "was" the adjective doesn't mean that as the shortened version it still acts as such. You're confusing form with function.

And you'd be wrong.


Has this discussion not been dedicated enough already?

Probably, yeah. Are you sure "form" also includes "colloquial form" in it though?


I don't see where it even existed (I speak of total silence, not the definition of instrumental. Total silence is different because it doesn't feature vocals nor instruments, so referring to it either as "instrumental" or not has a degree of merit while being quite a stretch at the same time).

EDIT: Oh, just saw it. Must have my eyes checked.

It wouldn't make any difference (if I understand you correctly). But the fact remains that "instrumental" as a noun is an accepted term for what we're talking about here. It's not some edgy, trendy neologism language purists wrinkle their noses at. Saying "there is no such thing" is silly, especially with language. It's like saying "sabbatical" isn't (also) a noun since there's also "sabbatical year". (not the best example, but for some reason the only one I can think of right now)

I'll explain myself better then, to make sure you understand me correctly - the usage of "instrumental" (or "sabbatical", or "mental" etc.) as a noun is, to my utmost understanding, not grammatically correct regardless of how accepted the term is; therefore applying grammatical rules on words that defy said rules in the first place comes off as somewhat odd to my eyes. It's kinda like referring to "fucking" as an adjective just because of the common use in this fucking language (see what I did there?).

Also, if we're talking language already - I never said that "there is no such thing" but merely that I "Don't think there's such a thing" i.e. I expressed doubt about something that doesn't make sense to me and not some kind of superior knowledge I most probably lack.

Well, it is grammatically correct. That's really all there is to it, simple as that. English is pretty flexible there. Sure, there are some similar adjectives that can't be used that way (your example of "mental", for instance), but language is an ever-changing entity and prescriptive rules don't always completely overlap with reality. (they do in this case, though ) Same for "fucking", in that usage it is a participle verb form used in an adjectival fashion. It can also function as a noun, adverb, part of an interjection, etc... Not to mention the millions of other uses for the stem "(to) fuck". Are you seriously saying that using it that way is incorrect English?

Anyway, I don't want to derail this thread any further, so let's just agree to disagree, I guess?

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definitio ... strumental
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definitio ... sabbatical
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sabbatical
http://www.dict.cc/?s=instrumental


Fair enough. I still think it's a bit strange and counter-intuitive considering reality. I guess that's the linguist in me.

Yeah, I guess we should leave it at this point. And it's not that I "disagree" per se, I'm just a little bit confused.

English is a dumb language. Get over it.