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Lap steel guitar

The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of playing a traditional acoustic guitar, in which the performer's fingertips press the strings against frets, the pitch of a steel guitar is changed by pressing a polished steel bar against plucked strings (from which the name "steel guitar" derives). Though the instrument does not have frets, it displays markers that resemble them. Lap steels may differ markedly from one another in external appearance, depending on whether they are acoustic or electric, but in either case, do not have pedals, distinguishing them from pedal steel guitars.

The steel guitar was the first "foreign" musical instrument to gain a foothold in American pop music. It originated in the Hawaiian Islands about 1885, popularized by an Oahu youth named Joseph Kekuku, who became known for playing a traditional guitar by laying it across his lap and sliding a piece of metal against the strings to change the pitch. The instrument's distinctive portamento sound, characterized by a smooth gliding between notes, became popular throughout the islands. American popular culture became fascinated with Hawaiian music during the first half of the twentieth century – to the degree of becoming a musical fad. Americans were curious about the lap steel instrument featured in its performance, and came to refer to it as a "Hawaiian guitar", and the horizontal playing position as "Hawaiian style". Hawaiian music began its assimilation into American popular music in the 1910s, but with English lyrics; a combination Hawaiians called hapa haole (half-white). In the 1930s, the invention of electric amplification for the lap steel was a milestone in its evolution. It meant that the instrument could be heard equally with other instruments, that it no longer needed a resonance chamber to produce its sound, and that electrified lap steels could be manufactured in any shape (even a rectangular block), with little or no resemblance to a traditional guitar.

In the early twentieth century Hawaiian music and the steel guitar began to meld into other musical styles, including blues, jazz, gospel, country music and, particularly, the country music sub-genres Western swing, honky-tonk, and bluegrass. Lap steel pioneers include Sol Hoopii, Bob Dunn, Jerry Byrd, Don Helms, Bud Isaacs, Leon McAuliffe, Josh Graves, Pete Kirby, and Darick Campbell.

Conceptually, a lap steel guitar may be likened to playing a guitar with one finger (the bar). This abstraction illustrates one of the instrument's major limitations: its constraint to a single chord that is not changeable during a performance without re-tuning the instrument. An early solution was to build lap steel guitars with two or more necks, each providing a separate set of differently-tuned strings on a single instrument. The performer's hands could move to a different neck at will. Although in the early 1940s, elite players recorded and performed with these multi-neck guitars, most musicians could not afford them. The problem was addressed in 1940 by adding pedals to the lap steel to change the pitch of certain strings easily, making more complex chords available on the same neck. By 1952, this invention revolutionized how the instrument was played, in many ways making it virtually a new instrument, known as a "pedal steel". An overwhelming majority of lap steel players adopted the pedal design, and, as a result, the lap steel became largely obsolete by the late 1950s, with only pockets of devotees in country and Hawaiian music remaining.

Early history
Spanish guitars were introduced into the Hawaiian Islands as early as the 1830s. The Hawaiians did not embrace the standard guitar tuning that had been in use for centuries. They re-tuned the guitars to make a chord when all the strings were sounded together, known as an "open tuning". This was called "slack-key", known in Hawaiian as "kī hōʻalu", because certain strings were "slackened" to achieve it. Hawaiians learned to play fingerstyle this way, creating melodies over the full resonant tones of the open strings, and the genre became known as slack-key guitar. About 1885, after guitar strings made of steel became available, Joseph Kekuku, on the island of Oahu developed and popularized playing an open tuning while seated with the guitar across his knees while pressing a steel bar against the strings. Following Kekuku's lead, other Hawaiians began playing in this new manner, with the guitar laid across the lap, instead of in the traditional way of holding the instrument against the body. Once the horizontal style became popular throughout the islands, the technique spread internationally, and was referred to (typically outside of Hawaii) as "Hawaiian style".

Hawaiian music, with the sound of the steel guitar as a marked featured of it, became a popular musical preoccupation or fad in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1916, recordings of indigenous Hawaiian music outsold all other U.S. musical genres. This popularity initiated the manufacture of guitars designed specifically to be played horizontally. The archetypal lap steel guitar is the acoustic Hawaiian guitar. Despite incorporating a resonant chamber in their body, these early acoustic versions of the instrument were not loud enough relative to other instruments. However, in the early 1930s a steel guitarist named George Beauchamp invented the electric guitar pickup. Electrification not only allowed the lap steel guitar to be heard better, but it also meant that their resonance chambers were no longer essential, or even required. The result was that steel guitars could be manufactured in any shape – even in the form of a rectangular block bearing little or no resemblance to the traditional guitar shape. This led to table-like instruments in a metal frame on legs called "console steels".

Types of lap steel guitars
There are three categories of lap steel guitars:
 * Acoustic lap steel guitars: These are traditional acoustic steel-string acoustic guitars modified to be played on the performer's lap. The modification is to raise the strings higher off the fingerboard than a traditional guitar, which can be done by inserting an adapter on the instrument's bridge and its nut. This prevents the steel bar from hitting against the frets.
 * Dobro-type guitars or National guitars: These are typically acoustic steel guitars with a large aluminum cone under the bridge, called a resonator, that increases volume output. Wood-body resonator guitars are called "Dobros" and steel bodied ones are called "Nationals".  The types do not sound the same — the Nationals are brassier and are usually preferred by blues players.  Either type offers round necks (Spanish) or square necks (Hawaiian).  Square necks are sometimes necessitated both by the use of thicker strings and by the increased force the instrument is subject to as a consequence of its raised strings.
 * Electric lap steel guitars: Describes instruments that are specifically designed to be played horizontally and feature an electric pickup so that they do not require any resonance chamber. Guitars in this category may differ markedly from one another in external appearance, and include instruments made from rectangular solid blocks of wood. Some may be small enough to be played on the lap; others may have more than one neck (making the instrument heavier), and may be built on a frame with legs, which is then known as a console steel.

Tunings
Over centuries in Western countries, the traditional Spanish guitar developed a near-universal tuning of ascending fourths (and one major third) consisting of E–A–D–G–B–E; however, no such standard existed for the Hawaiian "open tunings" (guitar tuned in a chord). The Hawaiians simply tuned to a chord that suited the singer's voice. Beginning in the days of slack-key guitar in the 1850s, Hawaiian tunings came to be as closely guarded as any trade secret, handed down in families. Many players de-tuned their instruments when they were not playing them to keep others from discovering their tuning.

The tuning chosen for these instruments is a crucial foundation on which steel guitar style is built. The tuning used determines the notes that the player has available in a chord, and affects how notes can be played in sequence. Experimenting with different tunings was a widespread practice of the Hawaiian music of the 1930s and provided templates that became a foundation for the playing style of later musicians. Scores of tunings are available for lap steel players. The addition of a sixth interval into a tuning had a dramatic effect on the steel guitar because it created numerous positions and playing pockets which were not accessible in a simple major chord. The C6 was a common tuning for six string lap steels in the 1920s and 1930s. Tunings with a sixth interval are popular in Western swing and jazz, while tunings containing flatted sevenths are often chosen for blues and rock music.

A fundamental challenge of lap steel guitar design is the inherent constraint it places on the number of chords and inversions available in any given tuning. To address the meager array available to them, some early players would simply have a second lap steel at hand, with a different tuning, ready when needed. Another strategy was to increase the number of strings on the instrument (the more strings available, the smaller the pitch intervals between them, and therefore more notes available when the bar is placed straight across the strings). A third strategy was to add additional necks to the same instrument, thus providing separate sets of strings that could each be tuned differently.

The Hawaiian "craze" in the United States
In the U.S. Mainland in the early 20th century, after the 1898 annexation of Hawaii, the Hawaiian "craze" was in full force, as evidenced by radio broadcasts, stage shows,  and motion pictures  featuring Hawaiian music. Hollywood films perpetuated the musical image of an idealized island lifestyle. Hawaiian guitars and lessons for youth were widely available. For example, the Oahu Music Company sold their Oahu-brand guitars and lessons to young people by door-to-door sales, canvassing nearly every city in the United States.

The steel guitar was the first "foreign" musical instrument to gain a foothold in American pop music. Pioneer lap steel players between 1915 and 1930 included Sol K. Bright Sr., Tau Moe, Dick McIntire, Sam Ku West and Frank Ferera. Ferera was the most-recorded of any lap-style guitarists in that time period. Hawaiian music began to meld into American popular music in the 1910s – a combination Hawaiians called hapa haole (half-white) – which was essentially Hawaiian music, sung in English, intended for white audiences. As an example, Honolulu-born Dick McIntire and his Harmony Hawaiians recorded Hawaiian songs sung by American pop crooner Bing Crosby in 1936. Tin Pan Alley obliged the demand for Hawaiian songs by publishing a large supply of hapa haole music. Many amateur and professional musicians throughout America formed Hawaiian combos in the 1930s and 1940s. The introduction of electrified guitars in the 1930s had a profound effect, boosting commercial Hawaiian music.

Lap steel pioneers
In the development of lap steel guitar in the early twentieth century, many innovators contributed; among the most prominent were:

Sol Ho'opi'i (pronounced Ho-OH-pee-EE) was perhaps the most famous Hawaiian musician whose work spread the sound of instrumental lap steel play worldwide. He was the first steel guitarist to combine Hawaiian music with American jazz. Born in Honolulu in 1902, Hoopii was a gifted talent on lap steel from an early age. When he was a teenager, he stowed away on a Matson liner on its journey from Hawaii to San Francisco. After his arrival in California, he formed a trio and became well known in clubs, theaters, movie appearances and recordings from 1925 to 1950. He combined Hawaiian music with the jazz he heard from clarinet and horn players. He was a trendsetter in his use of the metal-bodied National Tricone guitar and, later, the Rickenbacker Bakelite (see photo above) and Dickerson electric steels.

Bob Dunn was the first steel guitarist of renown playing Western swing. Born in 1908 in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, he quit school in the eighth grade to join traveling musical troupes. Considered a musical revolutionary, according to music writer Michael Ross, Bob Dunn played the first electrified instrument of any type on a commercial recording. It was a Western swing tune released in 1935, performed by Dunn in collaboration with "Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies". The guitar he played was a Rickenbacker A22, nicknamed the "Frying Pan". Formerly a trombone player, Dunn's guitar playing introduced horn-like solos, with the staccato phrasing of jazz players, and, according to historian Andy Volk, was of indelible influence on subsequent generations of steel players.

Jerry Byrd was born in Lima, Ohio, in 1920. As a youth, he attended a traveling tent show that came to town; it was a troupe of Hawaiians playing Hawaiian music and featured a polished National steel guitar. Byrd was smitten by the sound as well as the physical appearance of the instrument and said, "That was the day that changed my life". In a musical career divided between Hawaiian music and country music, Byrd helped lay the foundation for the Nashville steel guitar sound. He is credited with developing the C6 tuning that became the standard of C6 pedal steels. With Hank Williams, Byrd recorded songs like "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", "Lovesick Blues" and "A Mansion on the Hill". Byrd also recorded with Marty Robbins, Hank Snow, Ernest Tubb and others. After his Nashville career, Byrd made Hawaii his permanent home.

Western Swing
In the early 1930s, the newly electrified lap steel guitar took a prominent position in a type of dance music known as "Western swing", a form of jazz swing that combined elements of country music and Hawaiian music. Pioneers of the genre include bandleaders Milton Brown and Bob Wills. Wills in turn hired and nurtured innovative players, who subsequently influenced the genre, including Leon McAuliffe, Noel Boggs, and Herb Remington.

In October, 1936, Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys and McAuliffe, performing with a Rickenbacker B–6 lap steel, recorded the remarkably well selling record, "Steel Guitar Rag". Due to the need to have different chords or voicings available, the design of the lap steel and the way it was played underwent continual change as the style evolved. McAuliffe had two Rickenbackers, each tuned differently. The instrument's constraints caused leading steel guitarists to add additional necks with different tunings on the same instrument. Lap steels were the first multi-neck electric instruments. The added size and weight meant that the instrument could no longer be reasonably supported on the player's lap and required placement in a frame with legs known as a "console" steel guitar, that is still ostensibly a lap steel. Prominent players of that era, including Herb Remington and Noel Boggs, accommodated by instrument maker Leo Fender, eventually played instruments with four different necks.

Honky-tonk
By the late 1940s, the steel guitar featured prominently in the emerging "honky-tonk" style of country music, developed in Texas and Oklahoma bars and dance halls (called honky-tonks). The style features a simple two-beat sound with a prominent backbeat. Honky-tonk singers who used a lap steel guitar in their musical arrangements included Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell and Webb Pierce.

Don Helms (1927–2008), born in New Brockton, Alabama, played a double-neck Gibson lap steel using an E6 and a B11 tuning on recordings by all three of these artists, as well as on more than 100 Hank Williams songs, including "Your Cheating Heart", "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)" and "Cold, Cold Heart". Helms' playing style helped move country music away from the hillbilly string-band sound popular in the 1930s and toward the more modern electric style that took over in the 1940s. His guitar intros, leads, and fills have been widely imitated for 50 years. Other classic country recordings featuring Helms' work were "Walkin' After Midnight" (Patsy Cline) and "Blue Kentucky Girl" (Loretta Lynn). Many recordings of that era (1950s) were made using a steel guitar tuning in a sixth chord, often a C6, which is sometimes called a "Texas tuning".

Dobro
The Dobro or resonator guitar is a uniquely American lap steel guitar with a resonator cone designed to make a guitar louder. It was patented by the Dopyera brothers in 1927, but the name "Dobro", a portmanteau of DOpyera and BROthers, became a generic term for this type of guitar. The dobro never became popular with blues players, who generally prefer the National guitar, which has a similar resonator design but uses a metal body. In the opinion of music writer Richard Carlin, the dobro probably would have disappeared from the musical scene had it not been for two influential players: Pete Kirby and Uncle Josh Graves (Buck Graves).

Beecher "Pete" Kirby (1911–1992), known as Bashful Brother Oswald, was born in Sevierville, Tennessee. As a member of Roy Acuff's "Smoky Mountain Boys", in 1939 his dobro playing on the Grand Ole Opry helped define country music in its formative years. Kirby introduced the instrument to a nationwide radio audience. He played a Dobro Model 27, and sometimes a steel-bodied National guitar. He was known to perform a comedy act dressed as a yokel, wearing a wide-brim slouch hat and overalls. His dobro attracted interest and fascination; he said, "People couldn't understand how I played it and what it was, and they'd always want to come around and look at it." He stayed with Acuff for 53 years.

Buck "Josh" Graves (aka "Uncle Josh Graves"), born in 1927, played dobro in the pioneering Bluegrass band "Flatt and Scruggs" in 1955. Graves played a role in establishing dobro as a common fixture in a bluegrass band. He honed a style that elevated his dobro skills to rival the prowess of his bandmates. To do so, he abandoned Hawaiian stylings and adopted hammer-on and pull-off notes to combine open strings with fretted notes rapidly; additionally, he adopted a three-finger picking style taught to him by Earl Scruggs. Dozens of other bluegrass groups added a dobro after hearing Graves' lightning-fast solos that fit into the bluegrass instrumental style. He took lap steel guitar to a new level, able to complement the banjo, fiddle, and mandolin.

Dobro fell out of favor in mainstream country music until a bluegrass revival in the 1970s brought it back with younger virtuoso players like Jerry Douglas, whose Dobro skills became widely known and emulated.

Sacred steel
This gospel music tradition, now called "sacred steel", began in the 1930s church services in the "House of God", a small African-American denomination where the steel guitar emerged as an alternative to the church organ. Darick Campbell (1966–2020) was a lap steel player for the gospel band, The Campbell Brothers, who took the musical tradition from Pentecostal churches to international fame. Campbell played a traditional Hawaiian lap steel: a Fender Stringmaster 8-string (Fender Deluxe-8). He regulated the volume up on top of the guitar with his hand as he played and used a wah pedal. Born in Rochester, New York, Campbell was a master at mimicking the human singing voice with his guitar. He said, "My method is to always think of my guitar as a voice". Campbell played many music festivals, but his renown in rock and jazz circles was not well received by church leaders. The Campbell Brothers parted ways acrimoniously with the Nashville-based House of God Church, Keith Dominion, because the Pentecostal church wanted to keep the band's music within the church walls. Campbell recorded with The Allman Brothers and Medeski Martin and Wood.

Lap slide guitar
Lap slide guitar is not a specific instrument, but a style of playing lap steel that is typically heard in blues or rock music. Players of these genres typically use the term "slide" instead of "steel"; they sometimes play the style with a flat pick or with fingers instead of finger picks. Pioneers in lap slide include Buddy Woods, "Black Ace" Turner (who used a small medicine bottle as a slide), and Freddie Roulette. Turner played a National Style 2 square neck Tricone guitar on his lap.

Another blues guitar playing style is called "slide guitar", a hybrid between steel guitar and conventional guitar. It is played with a conventional guitar held flat against the body, fretting the bass strings in the usual way (for rhythm accompaniment), while using a tubular slide (or the neck of a bottle) placed on a finger of the same hand to slide against the treble strings. In 1923, Sylvester Weaver was the first to record this style. In the 1940s, blues players like Robert Nighthawk and Earl Hooker popularized electric slide guitar this way, using a traditional guitar in standard tuning. The term "bottleneck" was historically used to describe this type of playing. Early blues players used open tunings, but most modern slide players use both standard and open.

Lap steel obsolescence
The expense of building multiple necks on each guitar made lap steels unaffordable for most players and a more sophisticated solution was needed. Many inventors sought a mechanical linkage to change the pitch of strings on the steel guitar. Gibson introduced a pedal steel guitar as early as 1940, but it never caught on. About 1946, Paul Bigsby created a new design for the pedal action, greatly improving it. Bigsby, working alone in his shop, made guitars for leading players of the day, including Joaquin Murphey and Speedy West. Nashville guitarist Bud Isaacs received one of Bigsby's two-pedal guitars in 1952. It was a wooden double–eight string model. Isaacs experimented with the new pedals in an E9 tuning, trying to imitate the sound of two fiddles playing in harmony. In doing so, he came upon something new – he innovated pushing the pedal while the strings were still sounding. This practice had been strictly avoided by other players of the era, because it was considered poor technique and "un-Hawaiian". Isaacs' intent was to use the pedal mechanism itself as a feature of the music. The technique created a triad chord, where two lower notes bend up in glissando counterpoint from below, to harmonize with a third note on top that remains unchanged. The pedal facilitated the move in perfect synchronization and pitch, which was consistent and reliable.

Isaacs tried it in a 1953 recording session on a Webb Pierce song called "Slowly". The song became one of the most-played country songs of 1954 and was No. 1 on the Billboard's country charts for seventeen weeks. Isaacs' guitar became the first pedal steel guitar on a hit record. More importantly, the sound was immediately recognized by lap steel (non-pedal) guitarists as something both unique and impossible to produce on a non-pedal lap steel. Dozens of instrumentalists rushed to get pedals on their steel guitars to imitate the unique bending notes they heard in Isaacs' play. In the months and years after this recording, instrument makers and musicians worked to duplicate the innovations of Bigsby and Isaacs. Even though the instrument had been available for over a decade before this recording, the pedal steel guitar emerged as a crucial element in country music after the success of this song. The pedals allowed playing more complex and versatile music than it was possible on lap steel.

The pedal steel design was adopted by an overwhelming majority of lap steel players in the early 1950s. The resulting new and distinctive style of playing became a defining characteristic of the country music coming out of Nashville for decades thereafter. In accordance, the non-pedal lap steel became largely obsolete, with only pockets of devotees remaining in country and Hawaiian music.

Jimmy Day was an example of an established lap player who was able to make a successful switch to pedals in mid-career. Other prominent lap steel players—including Noel Boggs, Jerry Byrd and Joaquin Murphey—refused to switch. According to music historian Rich Kienzle, this decision hindered Boggs' later career. Speaking about the pedal steel in a 1972 interview, Jerry Byrd said: "Mechanically, there were a lot of bugs, you couldn't keep them in tune, and that drove me crazy" ... So I decided to stay with what I had and keep my identity and ride it out... I never made the change-over."  Joaquin Murphey stayed with the non-pedal lap steel long after his contemporaries had switched over,  and with his C6 tuning. He felt that the Nashville-standard E9 was, in his words, a "gimmick".  He stated in a 1995 interview, "I can't do all that fancy Nashville stuff and I hate it anyhow".

title: Lap steel guitar


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Baler, Aurora

Baler, officially the Municipality of Baler (Bayan ng Baler; Ili ti Baler), is a 3rd class municipality and capital of the province of Aurora, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 43,785 people.

Baler is located 231 km northeast of Manila and is accessible by bus and private vehicles via a mountain pass. It is host to spectacular geographic formations and is situated on a vast plain at the south end of Baler Bay, a contiguous segment of the Philippine Sea.

It became the capital of Aurora on June 14, 1951, under Republic Act No. 648 signed by President Elpidio Quirino. It remained the seat of government of Aurora on November 21, 1978, under ''Batas Pambansa Blg. 7'' signed by President Ferdinand Marcos.

On August 6, 2023, Republic Act No. 11957, also known as “An Act Recognizing the Municipality of Baler in the Province of Aurora as the ‘Birthplace of Philippine Surfing,” became law without President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s signature.

Spanish colonial period

In 1609, seven Franciscan missionaries, led by Fray Blas Palomino, founded the settlement of Baler, which was later converted into a pueblo (town) by the Augustinians and the Recollects in 1658. Due to scarcity of religious missionaries, the Franciscans again took over the administration of the settlement in 1703.

On December 27, 1735, a great storm came and a huge wave called tromba marina devastated the old town settlement, then located in Barrio Sabang. Among the survivors were the Angaras, Bijasas, Bitongs, Lumasacs, Carrascos, and Pobletes who swam toward the nearby Ermita Hill. A new community sprang into what is now the Poblacion of Baler, leaving "Kinagunasan," the place of devastation. A mural depicting this wave can be found in the Museo de Baler in town.

On June 27, 1898, 15 days after the Philippine Declaration of Independence, 54 Spanish soldiers of the Baler garrison, under the command of Captain Enrique de las Morenas y Fossi, made San Luis Obispo de Tolosa Church, named in Spanish for Louis of Toulouse, their barracks. When de las Morenas died on November 22, 1898, Lieutenant Saturnino Martín Cerezo replaced him. On June 2, 1899, the last Spanish garrison in the Philippines surrendered after the Siege of Baler, effectively ending over 300 years of Spanish rule in the country.

American colonial period
In 1902, the Americans incorporated the town into the province of Tayabas. Before the Americans came, Baler was under the district of El Príncipe from Nueva Ecija.

The Comedia de Baler of Aurora mounted its first production in 1927. It was supported by then President Manuel L. Quezon and enjoyed the collaboration of artists Fortunato Esoreña and Alejandro Ferreras and arnis expert Antonino Ramos. Still alive today, it features a group of colorfully attired performers using authentic weapons, like swords and knives, in their plays. Manuel L. Quezon was the governor of Tayabas, which was renamed Quezon in his honor.

Japanese occupation
In 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army entered Baler, where they made the Baler Elementary School building their garrison under the command of a certain Captain Hattori. The general headquarters and camp base of the Philippine Commonwealth Army from January 3, 1942, to June 30, 1946, and the Philippine Constabulary from October 28, 1944, to June 30, 1946, were stationed in Baler.

In 1945, Filipino and American troops landed in Baler, including Filipino troops of the 3rd Infantry Division, the 5th Infantry Division, the 51st Infantry Division, and the 52nd Infantry Division of the Philippine Commonwealth Army, the 5th Constabulary Regiment of the Philippine Constabulary, the local recognized guerrilla unit, and the American troops of the 6th Infantry Division of the United States Army. The retreating Japanese troops destroyed the San Luis Obispo de Tolosa Church in Baler.

Post-war period
On June 14, 1951, by virtue of Republic Act No. 648, Baler became the capital town of the sub-province (and later, province) of Aurora which was made out of Quezon. Baler is the birthplace of Manuel Quezon and his cousin and wife Aurora Aragon-Quezon.

In 1956, the barrio of Dingalan was converted into a municipal district within Baler and later became a town in its right.

In 1976-7 the helicopter attack and surfing sequences of the film Apocalypse Now were filmed at Baler. The film is credited with having created the Philippine surfing culture and the headland at Baler is known as "Charlie's Point" from a line in the film.

Cityhood
In the 19th Congress of the Philippines, house bills were filed by various representatives which seeks Baler including other capital towns of provinces with no current component cities, independent component cities or highly urbanized cities to automatically convert into cities.

Geography
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the municipality has a land area of 92.55 km2 constituting NaN% of the 3147.32 km2 total area of Aurora.

Barangays
Baler is politically subdivided into 13 barangays. Each barangay consists of puroks and some have sitios.

Demographics
People with connections to the town are referred to as Balereños. Prior to the arrival of Spanish missionaries in Baler in 1609, settlements by Aeta people and Bugkalot in Baler's coast and mountain areas already exists, along with Kapampangan settlements in coast and plains. Tagalogs, some originating from Palanan and Infanta, Quezon, came in to the area to trade by boat. Some Tagalogs settled in Baler and married with the Aeta and Bugkalots. Kapampangans assimilated to the Tagalog settlers.

The Spanish brought in Filipino acolytes from other areas of Luzon from 1609 to 1899. During this period, Baler can only be access by sea though the town saw increase migration from other parts of Luzon such as Laguna, Tayabas, and Bicol from the south.The opening of the Baler-Bongabon Road allowed easier migration of people from Ilocos and Isabela areas from the north. The road also allowed Igorot people and Batangueños to settle in Baler. In 1896, a group of Ilocanos from Aringay, La Union came to settle in San Jose, now called Maria Aurora. In 1906, another group of Ilocanos arrived from La Union and Pangasinan. The guerrilla movement during the Japanese occupation brought Novo Ecijanos (people from Nueva Ecija) to Baler; Novo Ecijanos include Tagalogs, Ilocanos, and Kapampangans, with quite large number of Pangasinenses. The Balereños learned trade from the Batangueños and the Novo Ecijanos; where before they used to share what they have, now they would sell coconut to their neighbors.

In the 2020 census, Baler had a population of 43,785. The population density was undefined PD/km2.

Languages
The Tagalog and Ilocano languages are the main languages spoken in Baler. The province of Aurora is claimed to primarily speak a Tagalog dialect that is closely related to the Tayabas Tagalog of Quezon, with some Ilocano influences. In Baler, for example, the variety is called Tagalog-Baler (Balereño). The Tagalog dialect of Balereños is also known for distinctive expressions like akkaw, used to express surprise, wonder, disgust, and objection; it is also akin to the English term "Wow!" Other regional term expressions spoken in Baler are are(h), used to express a negative feeling of surprise; anin, used to express regret or pity for a situation; and many other words are also spoken similarly to neighboring Quezon, like adyo, meaning to climb, and puropur, which pertain to rain with gusty wind. Manuel L. Quezon, who was from Baler, was called the Father of the National Language for approving the recommendation of the Institute of National Language for Tagalog as the basis of the national language. Other languages spoken in Baler are Kapampangan & Pangasinan.

Local government

The current officials of Baler, Aurora (as of May 19, 2019)

Culture
Baler annually observes the Philippine–Spanish Friendship Day which commemorates the end of the Siege of Baler and celebrates the bilateral relations that have developed since then. It is held every June 30 and the rites which was first done in the provincial capital are also observed in other parts of the country, as well as parts of Spain.

Tertiary education

 * Aurora State College of Technology
 * Mount Carmel College of Baler
 * School of Health Sciences, campus Baler, University of the Philippines Manila

Secondary education

 * Aurora National Science High School
 * Baler National High School

Media
Baler has 1 TV station - GMA 5 Baler, & 1 radio station - DZJO Spirit FM (Catholic Media Network/Radio Veritas). 1 media network (both radio and TV) is based in the town named RTV Baler.

Notable personalities

 * Manuel L. Quezon, first president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines
 * Aurora Quezon, former first lady of the Philippines, wife of President Manuel L. Quezon
 * Eunice Pablo Guerrero-Cucueco, the first female governor of Aurora province
 * Edgardo Angara, former senate president, former University of the Philippines president and longest-serving senator in the Philippines
 * Bella Angara, the first and currently only female majority floor leader of the House of Representatives of the Philippines
 * Sonny Angara, incumbent Philippine senator
 * John Arcilla, veteran actor

title: Baler, Aurora


text:
Talk:Dryas monkey

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title: Talk:Dryas monkey


text:
Talk:Orchestration

Mussorgsky
Are we sure about this Mussorgsky stuff? It's true that Rimsky re orchestrated and retouched quite a few of Mussorgsky's pieces (notably Night on Bare Mountain and Boris Godunov), but these were pieces which had already been completed (including orchestration) by Mussorgsky. If Rimsky (or anyone else for that matter) did complete unfinished works by Mussorgsky, what were they? Rimsky Korsokov didn't so much re-orchestrate as in the case of Boris Godunov, but to rewrite the opening to make it more desirable to listen too. Mussorgsky was an accomplished concert pianist and came from both a wealthy and educated class. Rimsky Korsokov has very little accomplishments, and pales in stature to the likes of Mussorgsky.

I've removed mention of posthumous orchestrations of Mahler, by the way. The only piece that's been touched after his death is his Symphony No. 10, but that was more a process of reconstruction and completion than simple orchestration. I've put in Bartók and Berg instead, which make better examples, I think. --Camembert

 * Okay, sounds fine for replacing Mahler. Might want to keep it short and just have the links to the composer pages though (assuming mention of the posthumous orchestration is available on the composer page...).

 * For Mussorgky stuff, I didn't know that he had already orchestrated Pictures. I know the Ravel orchestration is based on Rimsky's edition of the piano score.  Some of the song cycles have been orchestrated by RK, Glazunov, and more recent contributors, but I'm not sure whether Mussorgsky ever intended them to be more than piano and voice arrangements.  I'm sure I have read program/liner notes of Mussorgsky operas mentioning Rimsky's (or others') completion and orchestration of some sections.  In fact, isn't the orchestration for Dance of the Persian Slaves, the most famous fragment of Kovanshchina, commonly attributed to RK?  I'll check into the facts more later, but if someone else is working from something better than memory of program/liner notes, then go for it.

 * Chinasaur 21:42, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)

 * I admit I don't know Khovanshchina very well, and I don't have anything very conclusive to hand on it, so you might be right on that point. On the others, though: it's true, of course, that Mussorgsky never orchestrated Pictures, but then I don't think he ever intended to do so did he? As far as he was concerned it was a piano work. I'm reasonably certain this is also the case with his songs - he never intended to orchestrate them.

 * Anyway, I'll check into all this more later as well (I have Calvocoressi's shorter biog here, but it's not yielding up too much on a quick check). We'll get it cracked between us, I'm sure :) --Camembert

 * I guess one thing we should recognize in the article is that not all posthumous orchestration is truly waranted in many people's views. These are complicated issues and most of this should be dealt with in the composer article, where it's easier to go into the intricacies of whether an orchestration was really ever in the original composer's plans or whether a particular case is more an orchestration or a larger reworking, etc..  I do feel that people looking up this orchestration article might be looking for this phenomenon specifically, so I think we should say something, but I think an introduction to the idea and some handwavey examples is good enough for here. Chinasaur 19:08, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi, are we sure that Mussorgsky actually orchestrated anything? I had the impression that the only composer of the group of five that knew orchestration was Rimsky Korsakov, and that the others, however talented, were actually folk musicians rather than (i)academic(/i) ones. If this is a mistake could anyone give me examples of orchestral music written by Mussorgsky, or any of the others?

Thanks!--Cha daniels 04:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Yes, Mussorgsky orchestrated a lot of things, including Boris Godunov itself. However, for a long time others considered orchestrations of Mussorgsky's music, for example those by Rimsky-Korsakov, superior to his own work (it's an issue of occasional controversy).  Antandrus  (talk) 04:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Rimsky-Korsakov may have turned out to be the most skilled orchestrator of "The Five," but his comrades were not incompetent as orchestrators. (Admittedly, a few of Cui's orchestral works had help from Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Glazunov.) Balakirev -- who had been the only trained musician among them by the time they all had met -- evidently learned orchestration before R-K did. (Listen to Balakirev's Tamara, Overture to King Lear, and the two symphonies, if nothing else.) None of the members of "The Five" started out as "academic" musicians; nevertheless, all of them had been drawn to "classical" music, and taught themselves that tradition (notably under Balakirev's leadership in the 1860s, while the Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories were being established). Rimsky turned out to be the only kuchkist who actually became a professional in academic music. Mademoiselle Fifi (talk) 01:12, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Definitions
This article seems to assume the term orchestration applies only to works not originally written for orchestra which strikes me as very strange. It also seems to me the distinction it attempts between what it calls "orchestration" and arranging is properly the distinction between transcription and arranging.

Re: "Instrumentation deals with the techniques of writing music for a specific instrument, including the limitations of the instrument, playing techniques and idiomatic handling of the instrument. Orchestration includes, in addition to instrumentation, the handling of groups of instruments and their balance and interaction."

The salient difference between orchestration and instrumentation is that the term orchestration applies, strictly speaking, only to the orchestra whereas the term instrumentation applies to all intrumental groups. Instrumentation in this sense subsumes orchestration.

The Corozine and Rogers direct quotes are superfluous. The comments about orchestration textbooks (of which there many, many more) are "point of view". I think the "masters" list should be deleted entirely--and what is J.S. Bach doing in it anyway? This article needs a lot of work.--Scotch —The preceding unsigned comment was added by :66.188.140.155 (talk • contribs). TheScotch 10:18, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Yup, this article needs a lot of work. I also think we should lose that "masters" section.  Antandrus  (talk) 05:41, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the "masters' section should be removed. It is too subjective an issue to be regarded as fact, don't you think?Nathgregory 01:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Excellent; I took it out. It would certainly be possible to put in a paragraph giving famous critical opinions about "masters" of orchestration as long as it is sourced; for example it shouldn't be too hard to find good cites on Mahler, Ravel, Berlioz, and so forth.  Antandrus  (talk) 01:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for adding my two cents, but anyone interested in contributing greatly to this article should try to read to the New Grove Dictionary or Grove Dictionary Online article. It discusses orchestration techniques and style in a historical context that might be a good example to emulate.

 * Sounds like a plan. Thanks for the tip.TheScotch 14:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

More stuff about orchestration
Hello, I came to this article looking for a little bit more information about orchestration: not just a definition but also mor practical stuff, like the sections of the orchestra, different types of instruments, tibre balancing, etc. I think it would be cool to include quotations from orchestration books such as RK's "Principles of Orchestration", Samuel Adler's "The Study of Orchestration" or Andrew Stiller's "Handbook of Instrumentation", etc.--Cha daniels 04:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I think that's a good idea: the article is slim.  Stuff about instrumental combinations, what works and what doesn't according to the various authors from Berlioz to Rimsky to the present day, all sourced to their books, would all be good additions. Antandrus  (talk) 04:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Why is the Blatter book been removed? Nathgregory 12:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not historically significant. This is not amazon.com.

Why don't you sign your posts? Also, your attitude is neither funny or helpful. No wonder nothing gets added here with your indepth scrutiny of every addition/comment... Nathgregory 23:05, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: "Stuff about instrumental combinations, what works and what doesn't according to the various authors from Berlioz to Rimsky to the present day, all sourced to their books, would all be good additions." I tend to disagree. I don't think a wikipedia article can pretend to teach anyone the art of orchestration. Before we even consider these additions, it would be much better to have a short history of orchestration. TheScotch 12:45, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd also like to see a short excerpt of a piano work transcribed for orchestra (perhaps Pictures from an Exhibition) compared to the original. I think that would illustrate graphically what is involved. I don't know whether Pictures is in the public domain. I suspect it isn't. TheScotch 12:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Re: "I came to this article looking for a little bit more information about orchestration: not just a definition but also mor practical stuff, like the sections of the orchestra, different types of instruments..." That much you should find using the link to orchestra. TheScotch 12:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that the Blatter book should not be mentioned - it is historically relevant - being used widely today - and is the most detailed and modern one available today. Pablocasals (talk) 23:01, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Morricone's comments on orchestrating his own music: it's worth noting that the use of orchestrators to assist in the completion of orchestral music in an accompanimental fashion predates film music. While Beethoven didn't use an orchestrator, many composers of the time writing operas and stage works did. Rossini, in fact, used an orchestrator for many of his opera projects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.26.217.235 (talk) 06:57, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Akira Ifukube
I see Akira Ifukube (1953): Orchestration (Kangen-gaku hou) has been added to the Historically significant orchestration texts list. I'm not familiar with this work. Can someone explain what makes it historically significant, please? TheScotch 11:17, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

If not, I'll just delete his name. (As far as I can tell--from checking his wikipedia entry--, he appears to be a children's monster-movie film composer who has incidentally written an orchestration text). TheScotch 06:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Fine then. It's gone. TheScotch 09:48, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Orchestral excerpt
I'd still very much like to see an orchestral excerpt here, especially one comparing a piano version to its orchestral transcription. I don't have the technical means to accomplish this. Suggestions as to what piece might be appropriate and in the public domain are welcome. After we find a reasonable match, maybe someone who does have the technical means can do the deed for us. TheScotch 14:58, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

It may be beneficial to use scores from IMSLP as they are in the public domain and readily accessible. I'm pretty sure there are at least a number of pieces by Ravel (his music would serve as a great example) that have piano and orchestral scores uploaded.

Hans Kunitz
As far as I can determine, Kunitz is notable for modifying a particular contrabass trombone. His Die Instrumentation is notable (also as far as I can determine) only in so far as it perpetuates old falsehoods and invents new falsehoods concerning the chimerical soprano trombone. (http://www.utoronto.ca/conf2000/abs4-4.html: "Thus, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries various false 'facts' concerning the soprano trombone have made the rounds. In concentrated form, they are to be found in Posaune, vol. 8 of Hans Kunitz's series Die Instrumentation published in 1959. Kunitz, however, did not content himself with a simple retelling of the usual legends, but rather fabricated a grandiose history of the soprano trombone, a forgery that has found great acceptance in spite of its obvious source-historical problems.")

I will wait to see if someone cares to defend the putative historical significance of Kunitz's texts. If no one does, I will consider deleting the reference. TheScotch 07:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Deleting. TheScotch 11:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Expert
Template:expert Was added to this text a few months ago with the edit comment, ""expert needed" tag—this is little more than a stub. History of orchestration daughter article needed too". While I agree the article could stand to be expanded with elements including history of orchestration, I believe a regular editor with a textbook in hand could do plenty; no expertise needed. Further, history could be presented as a section of this article; a sub-article wouldn't be needed until we boarder on issues of WP:SIZE. I'll update the tag appropriately. -Verdatum (talk) 17:18, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Adler's "The Study of Orchestration"?
This work seems to be disapearing several times from the list of signifigant orchestration texts under the pretext of "self-advertisement". I hardly think this is the case. The text is a standardized text for today's college orchestration courses and has been more common than all the other modern texts. Why shouldn't it be listed? Justin Tokke (talk) 20:58, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

 * Yeah, it's the modern text-of-choice, though I used others as well when I taught the class. There's a mention in Adler's entry in the New Grove; the thing won an award for excellence.  I think it's worth putting in.  (As a general question -- should we list any other modern orchestration books?  there's really not that many.) Antandrus  (talk) 20:25, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

 * How does anyone feel about a separate section for "Modern orchestration texts" (or equivalent)? It seems this avoids the rub of a current book being "historically significant" (which is arguable -- you don't know whether or not that is true until some time goes by).  I like the idea of listing some of the major books currently in use, but it is clear from activity on the article that there is disagreement.  (I don't have a strong opinion either way, really.) Antandrus  (talk) 23:28, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Reorganization
Hi I started reorganizing the article to try to make more clear the distinction of orchestration as an "art" and the general version of orchestration as an adaptation. Please feel free to improve upon it; I have to go to class so I cannot make it perfect just yet. As this is an encyclopedia, examples are good. Pictures would be good too. When I have time I'll look into making some pictures to better explain the example. -Horncomposer (talk) 21:39, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Corrections to Film Section
I removed the sentence which suggested that James Horner, James Newton-Howard, and David Newman generally orchestrate their own scores--as it is patently false. Having worked with two of these composers and virtually every one of their orchestrators in the past ten years, I can assure you, Horner and JNH are not orchestrating, nor have they in many years. I have also included mention of the four biggest orchestrators working in LA today: Dechter, Fowler, Redford, and Pope. Between them, you can pretty much account for every major motion picture of the past thirty years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.55.246.132 (talk) 00:53, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If you can find a source for that that isn't your own personal experience, that would be even more helpful.... Teme  vorn  15:05, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

title: Talk:Orchestration


text:
Osse

Osse may refer to:

 * Osse, Doubs, a commune of the Doubs département, in France
 * Ossé, a commune of the Ille-et-Vilaine département, in France
 * Osse, Łódź Voivodeship (central Poland)
 * Osse (river), a river in southwestern France
 * Den Osse, a village in the Netherlands
 * Office of the State Superintendent of Education in the District of Columbia Public Schools system (Washington, DC)
 * OSSE, Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment

title: Osse


text:
Talk:Hematology

Name
I know this has been disputed before, however I believe the arguments put forwards were incorrect. The internationally accepted spelling is "Haematology" and is the most common variant used in scientific journals. The word is not British spelling as most readers and editors seem to believe, but an amalgamation of the British and American spellings. The original word coined in England was "Haemology" (which is still used as the British English spelling) before the American variant "Hematology" arose. As Haematology is the officially recognised spelling used by scientists both spellings are incorrect and should be redirected to Haematology instead. 92.238.120.183 (talk) 15:24, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Choosing Wisely
As part of the ABIM's Choosing Wisely campaign, the American Society for Hematology has proposed the following five interventions (10.1182/blood-2013-07-518423):
 * 1) In situations where transfusion of RBCs is necessary, transfuse the minimum number of units required to relieve symptoms of anemia or to return the patient to a safe hemoglobin range (7-8 g/dL in stable, noncardiac in-patients)
 * 2) Do not test for thrombophilia in adult patients with venous thromboembolism occurring in the setting of major transient risk factors (surgery, trauma, or prolonged immobility)
 * 3) Do not use inferior vena cava filters routinely in patients with acute venous thromboembolism
 * 4) Do not administer plasma or prothrombin complex concentrates for nonemergent reversal of vitamin K antagonists (ie, outside of the setting of major bleeding, intracranial hemorrhage, or anticipated emergent surgery)
 * 5) Limit surveillance CT scans in asymptomatic patients after curative-intent treatment for aggressive lymphoma

I suspect that this article is not the right place to discuss them, but I believe the strength of consensus is sufficient for them to be discussed in the relevant articles (e.g. thrombophilia, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, etc). JFW | T@lk  16:11, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Article Improvements
This article could go further to include all haematology preparation and diagnosis, e.g. making blood smears, Giemsa staining, cell classification and characterisation, some key disease states.Vivrolfe (talk) 12:26, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Image Presented
Also the image is not of the blood but of renal cells!! There are more appropriate images on Wikimedia.Vivrolfe (talk) 12:27, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

The image is absolutely unrelated to hematology, maybe a slide showing AML blast's with Auer rods would be more appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.73.76.65 (talk) 03:43, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

AnaeA anaemia
Does this person have adeficiency or surplus of in their diet 41.114.169.73 (talk) 15:25, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Hematology


text:
IWD

IWD may refer to:

Businesses

 * Iberworld, a Spanish airline (ICAO code: IWD)
 * IShares Russell 1000 Value Index, an American exchange-traded fund (ticker: IWD)
 * Ivor Watkins Dow, an American agricultural supplier

Events

 * International Women's Day, on March 8
 * International Workers' Day, on May 1

Other uses

 * Gogebic–Iron County Airport, Michigan, United States (IATA code: IWD)
 * Individual wheel drive, a vehicle drivetrain layout

title: IWD


text:
User talk:Flamingboy

This is talking. Amazing, huh?

Please don't create nonsense pages, especially in other people's user pages. Dori | Talk 18:11, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)

Disclaimers
Hi there. We have a page called Content disclaimer which covers the concerns you initially had regarding some of our articles. I hope this helps. --HappyCamper 22:44, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:Flamingboy


text:
User talk:Richard cocks

Welcome
Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

You might find these links helpful in creating new pages or helping with the above tasks: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump, or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

 * If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username.

 * You can sign your name using three tildes, like this: . If you use four, you can add a datestamp too.

 * If you ever think a page or image should be deleted, please list it at the votes for deletion page. There is also a votes for undeletion page if you want to retrieve something that you think should not have been deleted.

Again, welcome! Chris Roy 17:04, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks. Is there a policy on spell-correcting talk pages? Whilst I leave them alone (I consider what someone has said their business if it's not an article) these is the issue that they slowly clog up the google results as the wikipedia increases. For example I've just done correct seperate to separate, but now there still are several hundred hits for seperate from talk pages and similar. Richard cocks 17:24, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi there. Welcome from me also.  The general rule on talk pages is not to alter the meaning or context of someone else's comments.  I've never heard anyone complain about having comments copyedited by others, and I've heard at least a couple users saying that they encourage people to copyedit their talk comments. Isomorphic 21:25, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * ok thanks for clearing that up, I'll do a more thorough job in future then. Richard cocks 23:11, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

 * Hey Richard. My advice doesn't differ from Isomorphic's, but note well: you'll be fixing a lot more typos if you include talk pages in your corrections—something that I don't do, both because of the extra work involved (work that isn't quite as useful as fixing mistakes in the articles themselves) and the potential of people becoming chagrined at others modifying their comments.

 * Then again, the search results do get pretty cluttered when talk pages are left uncorrected, e.g. this Google search:
 * site:en.wikipedia.org publically
 * I've tried filtering the results to remove talk and user pages, like this:
 * site:en.wikipedia.org publically -talk -user
 * but such a search will remove articles that contain these words as well. What we need is a search parameter that excises only articles that contain, say "talk" in the title. I'll have to look into this. Chris Roy 10:49, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for wikifying brainwashing Andries 08:41, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Visual Basic Wikibook
I see you have contributed to the Visual Basic article on Wikipedia. Any chance you would like to join in editing the wikibook: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:Visual_Basic_Classic? --Kjwhitefoot 07:58, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Cola programming language
Hi -- your prod on Cola programming language didn't include a reason (though you left a reason in your edit summary). To make the reason show up, do (REASON) and everything will work out fine. I fixed this one, but figured you'd want to know. Mango juice talk 11:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Monotypic taxon and Monospecificity
Articles that you have been involved in editing— Monotypic taxon and Monospecificity—have been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Nessie (talk) 16:05, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

title: User talk:Richard cocks


text:
PvP (webcomic)

PvP, also known as Player vs Player, was a longrunning video game webcomic, written and drawn by Scott Kurtz. It was launched on May 4, 1998. The webcomic follows the events at a fictional video game magazine company, featuring many running gags and references with a focus on nerd culture. Dylan Meconis was added as a co-writer in 2013.

By 2005, PvP was receiving around 100,000 unique visitors per day, and the webcomic has seen various print releases. On February 1, 2007, it became the subject of its own animated series.

In 2020, the strip was rebooted, jumping forward in time 15 years, though it later reverted to the original time period.

On 2022-02-22, Kurtz announced on his blog that he was temporarily dialing back his daily work on PvP to concentrate on an upcoming book series based on Table Titans.

There have been no new comics since 2022-09-16, with all comics predating 2021 locked to Patreon subscribers only.

Themes
The comic chronicles the adventures of a fictional video game magazine company (later to become a video game publisher) and its employees. It features many running gags that are actually references to running gags from other media (television programs, films, games, cartoons, etc.). A popular but often controversial figure in the field of online comics, Kurtz is usually willing to share his opinions about comics and gaming culture in his blog, which is hosted on the same website as his comic strips.

Originally, PvP focused on video gaming and the larger "nerd culture" including comics and RPGs. 1UP.com described it as one of the first game-based comics, but not the original, saying, "neither Scott Kurtz's PvP nor Jerry Holkins and Michael Krahulik's Penny Arcade were the first gaming-themed webcomic on the Internet." Over the years, the humor has broadened to include technology jokes, relationship humor, in-jokes about and mocking of the generation gaps between the different characters, with gaming increasingly taking a back seat. Kurtz occasionally comes under fire for his satire. Sometimes Kurtz will speak of his father's open disdain for the strip.

In 2013, Kurtz created a spin-off comic Table Titans. It features the characters Andrew, Alan, and Valerie (who have appeared in PvP comics), and chronicles their adventures while playing Dungeons & Dragons. Kurtz wanted to write fantasy comic that "captured the spirit and joy of tabletop roleplaying." Kurtz collaborated with Wizards of the Coast as a marketing partnership to run Table Titans, and Steve Hamaker was brought on to color some of the comics. Season 4 of Table Titans was drawn by Brian Hurtt, and Tavis Maiden also worked on a project in the Table Titans universe.

Cole Richards
The boss. Friends with Brent since high school, Cole started PVP magazine as the business manager with Brent responsible for the creative and graphical content. A committed family man, he has a rather loose grasp of new technology and is often nostalgic for 1980s pop culture. Cole is (relatively speaking) the straight man of the group and the one most likely to insist on actually making the magazine, though is not above joining the others' schemes. He is also insecure about his position in the magazine, he has expressed fear of becoming unnecessary.

Cole had a longstanding "rivalry" with Max Powers who ran Powerplay Games (formerly Powerplay Magazine); in reality Max has never done anything to Cole, but Cole was extremely jealous of Max's success. Cole for a brief time was forced to merge the two companies when he could no longer afford to run the magazine on his own. However, when Cole came into a large sum of money from the World Wildlife Fund to house the giant panda that lives in the PvP offices (which attacks Brent throughout the series), he bought out Max's side of the partnership. Cole spent much of the series run married to Donna, though mentions having problems with his marriage in 2008. This ended some time later with a divorce which he refers to in 2011, although it is not covered by the strip.

Brent Sienna
Creative director of the magazine, Brent's name was originally inspired by the Crayola crayon color "Burnt Sienna." His full name is Brently Irving Sienna. Brent is a pompous, sarcastic, cynical intellectual snob, with a fanatical devotion to Apple Computer products. He drives a Mini Cooper as a "statement" and drinks Starbucks coffee, which he admits he drinks because it makes him cool. Brent tried unsuccessfully to give up coffee in a story arc during early 2005.

A running gag in the strip is that whenever the words "Panda," "Panda Attack," or "Giant Panda" or any variation thereof are spoken, Brent is immediately mauled by the Giant Panda that lives in the walls of the PvP offices. Brent got revenge in the August 6, 2005 strip when he mauled the panda in a parallel universe.

Brent virtually always wore sunglasses in the strip—going so far as to pick up a loaner set of sunglasses while his were "in the shop" —although later strips show Brent's eyes over the tops of his sunglasses. Brent claims he wore the shades because any woman that looks in his eyes falls in love with him. Constantly wearing sunglasses made Brent's eyes extremely sensitive to sunlight – after removing his sunglasses at his wedding, he was (temporarily) blinded. Eventually Brent stopped wearing his sunglasses altogether, after years of wearing them began to negatively affect his eyesight. Instead he exchanged his shades for regular prescription glasses. However, after realizing that he was losing his cool factor, Jade has allowed him to occasionally wear his sunglasses again.

Brent is an avid consumer of Apple computers and products. He refuses to use PCs and considers Microsoft to be evil, even forbidding the use of PCs in his house. He is a founding member of an Apple fanatics group called The Honorable Order of Macintosh Operators (or H.O.M.O. – the name is a running gag in the strip).

Although Brent is not a gamer, unlike the rest of the staff, he does occasionally play World of Warcraft with H.O.M.O. (as well as with Jade), and played City of Heroes with Cole, Francis, and Skull as part of the City of Heroes special edition comic packed with the game, as well as its counterpart, City of Villains in a later strip seen on the site, but neither game has been referenced beyond those strips. Before he discovered Apple, Brent was a closet Amiga fanatic.

Brent married his longtime girlfriend and co-worker Jade in a lavish ceremony marking the strip's ten-year anniversary. The two began dating after Jade found out that Francis was pretending to be a woman named "Sasha" while chatting online with Brent. Jade found out about it and decided to take over as "Sasha" to let Brent down easy, but eventually fell in love with him. Brent proposed at the San Diego Comic-Con after a convoluted scheme whereby some stormtroopers "kidnapped" Jade and had her dress up as Princess Leia. Brent "rescued" her, dressed as Han Solo.

Jade Sienna
A columnist, and Brent's wife. She plays MMORPG-style games such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft, and also chats online with friends she's made in the series.

Along with Cole, Jade often plays the straight-man of the group and is often the voice of reason compared to the rest of the cast. However, she was not always the good and moral figure that she appears to be. In high school, she and her friend Sam were caught stealing the answers to their chemistry final. Jade also took her stepfather's car without permission, and was subsequently charged with robbery by her stepfather in order to teach her a lesson. Brent and Francis were delighted to learn this, since they tend to be the ones whose antics cause Jade to roll her eyes in contempt. Jade attempted to return to her old deviant ways after this revelation, but realized she didn't enjoy it as much as she once did.

Although considered a feminist, Jade's desire to be treated as an equal often comes into conflict with her natural maternal caregiver personality. She temporarily left PvP after Francis grabbed her breast, opening her own pro-woman gaming magazine called "Valkyrie". Later Valkyrie merged to PvP because Jade missed her PvP-family and had problems with her workers.

Jade is often criticized for being "unrealistic", although Kurtz states that she is somewhat modeled after his wife. In her first posting to the PvP blog, Angela Kurtz stated, "90% of the time, when you’re reading Jade, you’re reading about Scott’s feminine side, not about me."

Although Jade and Brent dated since nearly the start of the series, they broke up for nearly a year, due to a combination of Jade's obsession with Dark age of Camelot, and her catching Brent dancing with the wife of another Dark age of Camelot player in Las Vegas. Although they both continued to work at PVP, they were often seen bickering and attempting to one-up each other. Jade ended up falling in love soon after with another gamer she met on another MMORPG, named Xavier. She flew out to Las Vegas to meet Xavier in person, but began to feel reluctance and guilt returning to the place where she and Brent broke up. It was then revealed that Xavier had been Brent all along, and the two rekindled their relationship, eventually marrying in 2008. In 2014, she gave birth to her and Brent's daughter, Katherine Miranda Fontaine Sienna.

Francis Ottoman
The youngest member of the staff. Technical support for the office (and also known to write the occasional review), Francis is immature, easily excitable and always eager to be on the cutting edge of fads and technology. He loves his PC and routinely argues with Brent over Macs. He rarely shows interest in anything besides computers or video games, though it has been stated that he owns a prominent collection of pony figurines.

Francis is a skilled programmer, he has on different occasions made both a robot girlfriend and a robot of himself. The girlfriend-bot eventually malfunctions when he tells it that he grabbed Jade's boob, and eventually tries to destroy her. Using the leftover parts, he makes a robot of himself, nicknamed the Francis-bot. He uses this to wait in line for tickets for Star Wars Episode 3, which comes out three years from the beginning of the story. However, when Francis returns to get his tickets, he discovers that the robot has been waiting outside of an antique mall for a year. The robot kidnaps Francis and chains him to the mall while taking his position as the real person back at PvP. The others discover him after the robot dies from a saliva overdose after kissing Marcy. Both of these times, Francis has thought the thing it was doing was more impressive building and coding, which allowed both robots to have some semblance of artificial intelligence.

Francis' appearance in the comic has gone through more changes than the other characters. His first artwork was choppy and caused reader confusion due to readers mistaking a spot for his mouth and his mouth for a "jagged chin" or part of his hair, so his design was drastically changed later. For a long time he sported a T-shirt depicting a human skull, and messed-up moussed hair (the mousse was originally, and may still be, Skull's phlegm).

Due to his consummation of his relationship with Marcy as "predicted" in a previous comic strip, in 2008, he "leveled up", aging three years and developing chin scruff. In 2011, Francis "leveled up" again due to the company leaving Dallas for Seattle (mirroring the real life move of Scott Kurtz) and Francis being pushed into living on his own as an adult. Later that year, Francis said that Marcy broke up with him via text message after she had left for Savannah College of Art and Design. They reconciled after Marcy rejoins the PvP staff. After a gaming tournament in Las Vegas the two went out on a drinking spree and, while very drunk, got married. Despite initial misgivings about the relationship, Francis and Marcy have stayed together and are apparently happy.

Francis has a running gag with Cole in which they high five each other using whatever they are holding. This usually ends up in a mess with coffee, fries or blood all over the place.

Skull the Troll
A lovable troll who is assigned to be a mythological animal friend to Brent. Nervous and childlike, he had an occasional girlfriend named Sonya, although Skull was exposed to be female in an early comic. This was later revealed to be a joke, and Skull is typically portrayed as genderless. Brent and Francis do their best to figure out which gender he really is (on one occasion watching his reaction to a lingerie magazine they had left for him to find. Skull first acts like a typical male, whistling at the pictures, then wondered to himself if they had a piece in his size and color), though Skull has implied on many occasions that he is definitely male.

Skull debuted in another of Kurtz's web cartoons called Tales by Tavernlight, which focused on the world of Ultima Online. Though he seems to be an utterly harmless, rather clueless and childish creature who doesn't even seem to understand the nature of violence, Skull has a dark underside that the other characters sometimes see but blame on outside forces. He has actually threatened to eat Francis, and doesn't always take Brent's abuse —not to mention his epic battle with the crazed Emperor Blue.

The comic's cast page states that, as a mythological creature, Skull's only real need is attention. The middle name "Theodore" was recently revealed to be the long form for "the" (as "Skull The Troll"). Skull was reassigned when Brent finally got married, much to Brent's dissatisfaction. His first assignment was a boy named Kevin with a somewhat sadistic streak, who lived near U.S. Route 422 in western Pennsylvania, at least until his death due to a reckless wagon ride after four days (reader time) with Skull. Since then, Skull has attempted to befriend parodies of the children in The Family Circus, who believed him to be a demon and tried to kill him. This escapade ended when Skull was rescued by Jason Fox. Thanks to Scratch and Shecky he returned to PvP and has apparently "retired" from his "mentoring" duties. He does have a new girlfriend named Val, or Valerie. She was introduced during a Magic: The Gathering session, where she almost immediately tried to kill Skull. After the fight stopped, they became a couple. Even though she sees herself as a dwarven hammermaid who is supposed to hate trolls, she still feels deep affection for him.

Max Powers
Arch-enemy and rival publisher of Cole, Max Powers ran Powerplay magazine. While seemingly jovial and outgoing, for some reason Max was generally despised by the PvP crew. While perhaps not as truly evil as Brent and Cole claim, he could doubtlessly be quite annoying. Eric Burns of the webcomic review site Websnark wrote an analysis of Max suggesting that he is actually "the good guy" of PVP. Burns points out that nothing Max does can be nailed down as overtly malicious. (For example, he threatens to post a naked picture of Jade on the Internet unless she goes out with him, but it turns out to be a baby picture. He tells Cole about upcoming software audits, but doesn't actually report Cole to the authorities.) In the December 2, 2008 comic, four years after Burns's article, Cole admits to Max that part of the reason he finds him so irritating is that Max is a better person than he is. Powerplay merged with PvP to prevent PvP's certain financial ruin. Because of his narcissistic attitude, Max was unable to see Skull, and was unaware of the troll's existence. However, Shecky punched Max as an 'incentive to see the world beyond [his] nose', changing Max's perceptions. Unfortunately, Max thought Cole was letting the staff keep a pair of 'dogs' on the premises and said the 'yappy one' (Shecky) snapped at his face. (See March 13, 2006 blog entry.) As of December second in the strip, PvP and Powerplay have gone their separate ways, as Cole has come into a large sum of money which he will receive annually from the World Wildlife Fund, thanks to the near-constant attacks on Brent by a giant panda, and the fact that it appears the panda is now more or less living somewhere in the PvP offices. During a 2008 Thanksgiving Plot, it has been revealed that Cole believes that Max stole a "girlfriend" from him (they were not actually dating, but Cole believed Max made his move on her before he could). Max however adamantly denied it saying he only grew close with the girl so as to get closer to Cole and Brent. This led Cole and Brent to the assumption that Max is gay, and was attracted to one of them. The former has been confirmed in a 2011 strip in which Max admits to Jade that he is in fact gay; he begs her not to tell anyone else, and she has so far complied with his request. During a conversation with his sister Sonya, it was revealed that Max had a partner named Chris. Max later reveals that he is gay to the rest of the group when Lucille convinces him that it is doing him no good keeping it secret.

After a year's absence from the strip, during which he drove cross-country on a motorcycle doing good deeds, Max returned to the PvP offices to ask Cole for a job. He is now also able to see Skull, most likely because he is now "pure of heart" after a year of soul-searching. The new Max, after realizing the company was doomed in a few months, broke into Cole's office and went over the financial statements to confirm his fears. After a confrontation with Cole, after which Cole confessed the state of the company to Brent, Cole set Max off to find a new business plan and opportunities. After several weeks Max returned from Seattle, advising PVP to cease publication immediately, switch to a strictly online format (which was the only portion of the business generating a profit), and move the company from Dallas to Seattle. This reflects Scott Kurtz's real-life move of a year earlier in 2010.

Scratch Fury, Destroyer of Worlds
Skull's cat. Francis attempted to give it to Brent to make the latter feel some Christmas spirit, but the ploy failed and Skull decided to take the cat in. Skull accidentally zapped him with his "genius machine", granting him superhuman intelligence. Scratch is bent on global domination, but his evil plans for attaining it have so far been foiled by his feline foibles and proclivities. He is Pinky and the Brain in the same body, and they're fighting for dominance. It is worth noting that while Scratch is still a genius – after Skull's departure, he was seen in the basement, working on a machine of some sort with a welding torch – he appears to be unable to communicate to the other members of the magazine. It has been suggested that the ambient magic surrounding Skull was what made Scratch's ability to communicate with humans possible in the first place. However, Kurtz has admitted that the lack of understanding Scratch was just a mistake, and changed the strip to have Scratch deliberately talking in cat-speak. Also, he becomes "Kringus" a Christmas tree-themed villain in numerous stories set in yule times. Scratch has mostly given up on evil schemes, and has focused on killing Garfield and running his "Cool Cat Club".

Lolbat
Lolbat is Kurtz's version of Batman and Robin. He derives his powers from a material called memetic fabric, which allows him to talk like he is in an internet meme. He fights members of the Algonquin hate table, made up of internet supervillains like The Savage Critic, The Scrabbler, and the Mad Hater. He also serves as Robbie's manservant during the day. Lolbat has recently acquired a sidekick named Retweet (also known as Wade), who talks like a Twitter post. He is also assisted by Jade's sister Miranda, who discovered the lair of the Lolbat and decided to assist him by becoming the Instagirl, a phone based superhero.

Online strip
The first online strip was posted on Monday, May 4, 1998. Kurtz normally updates the strip every day but has occasionally missed updates since the comic's inception, less so after the PVP 2.0 revamp. In April 2005, Kurtz changed to a Monday through Friday schedule, with Friday's strip in color and sketches on Saturday and Sunday, in response to the mounting work he had taken on as a monthly comic at Image and associated side projects. On June 4, 2005, Scott Kurtz posted on his blog that he was returning to the daily schedule. On May 6, 2008, Kurtz reaffirmed the strip to a Monday through Friday schedule. Although the strip was initially formatted 2×2 to fit on 800×600 resolution screens, it switched to "widescreen" (1×4) on February 3, 2003. The strip celebrated its 10th anniversary on Sunday, May 4, 2008 with the wedding of two of PvP's main characters, Brent Sienna and Jade Fontaine.

Occasionally single strips or short series have been presented drawn by guest cartoonists, such as KC Green.

Print versions
Previously, Dork Storm Press printed 6 issues of original content as well as a trade paperback of online strips. The Dork Storm issues were collected into a trade paperback entitled "The Dork Ages."

In March 2003, Image Comics began publishing a monthly print comic book collection of the strip that combined old strips with new material. Publication of single issues and the Image partnership ended in March 2010 after over 7 years and 45 issues. In addition to publishing single issues Image released a 16-page primer (numbered as #0), and seven trade paperbacks (each collecting 6 issues) – "PvP: At Large" (#1–6), "PvP: Reloaded" (#7–12), "PvP Rides Again" (#13–18), "PVP Goes Bananas" (#19–25), "PvP Treks On" (#25–30), "PvP Silent But Deadly" and "PVP Levels Up". A 10-year anniversary collection, Awesomology Deluxe, was also published by Image in 2009. After the ending of the Image partnership Kurtz switched to self publishing the print editions but only in collected form.

At the 2004 San Diego Comicon, Kurtz announced that he would offer to newspapers the entire PvP series to reprint for free, but only if the strips were reprinted without any changes made. Kurtz said he made this offer because of his dissatisfaction with the terms offered to cartoonists by syndicates. no major American newspaper has agreed to regularly pick up his strip, even though it is free. One newspaper, The Kansas City Star, briefly ran one PvP strip per week in the fall of 2004.

In 2018, Kurtz launched a Kickstarter campaign to publish digital and physical media of PVP Online as a 20th Anniversary Collection printing of the previous 20 years of the comic. The material is planned for printing in eight volumes, with a supplementary 20th anniversary volume. The campaign achieved its fundraising goal, raising over $120,000 towards publication. Despite reaching that goal, Kurtz has yet to produce the promised rewards under the campaign. He last updated the campaign site on May 1, 2022, noting that it had been two years since the previous update.

PvP: The Series
Kurtz announced on November 27, 2006 that from February 2007, a traditionally animated cartoon series would be available over the internet via a subscription service, produced in conjunction with Blind Ferret Entertainment. Episodes were 4–6 minutes in length and released on a monthly schedule, co-written and co-produced by webcartoonist Kris Straub. A total of 12 episodes were produced, and have since been released on DVD as "PvP: The Series Season One DVD".

The announcement of the series was marked with some interest on video game forums due to Kurtz's previous criticism of Tim Buckley when he announced CAD Premium, an animated series based on his own web comic, particularly when both Buckley and Kurtz used the same animation studio for their respective ventures.

Awards and nominations
PvP has won multiple awards:

A spinoff of PvP, Table Titans, was nominated for a Harvey Award in 2014 in the category of Best Online Comics Work.

title: PvP (webcomic)