Wikipedia:WikiProject Regional and national music

This WikiProject deals with articles relating to a specific area or people. This includes articles like Music of Sweden, Music of Tanzania, Inuit music, Roma music and Esperanto music.

It is important to remember that the "music of" a specific country can refer to numerous fields (using Music of Ireland as an example):

• Traditional Irish folk music
• Music that played a role in Irish churches
• The music of Gypsies, Englishmen and any other minorities which may be in Ireland
• The music of Irish people living abroad
• Irish styles of music played by non-Irish abroad
• Non-Irish styles of music performed by Irish people (e.g. Irish hip hop, Irish rock)
• Music of classical symphonies and compositions played by or composed by people from Ireland
• Music of recent immigrant communities in Ireland, if of a significant presence

These are obviously quite diverse subjects, though not every article will have something to say on each subject. It is, however, important that Wikipedia not endorse the idea that a particular style of folk, pop or classical music is "the music of Ireland, or the most important, pure, true kind of Irish music. We are, of course, free to point out that certain Irish musicians are much more popular than others, more critically acclaimed, or shares more characteristics with Irish folk traditions.

As such, all WikiProject:World music articles should be or move towards becoming overview articles. In order to keep from defining what is and is not proper music of the country in question, we give a summary of the different fields, with links to specific articles that deal with subjects more in depth.

Each "music of" article acts an overview of numerous articles on more specific subjects. Therefore, an Infobox can be used to help promote the links and keep the articles organized. However, since each country has different sub-subjects associated with it, there is no absolute rule for how infoboxes should look. Don't be afraid to experiment with different formats for infoboxes, and don't forget that the primary goal is to put links to all the subarticles in one convenient location, not to display much information. There are numerous variant musicboxes in use. Generally speaking, infoboxes should go on "music of' articles and any articles for regions or groups within the country in question; for example, African American music, American roots music and Music of California. In some cases, variants might be used -- Music of the United States uses a different variant musicbox for Music of Hawaii, Music of Puerto Rico, Music of Louisiana and Music of Texas, all of which are different from the musicbox at Music of the United States. Music of the United Kingdom and Music of Canada both have three different boxes; one of the UK boxes (such as at Music of the Cayman Islands) is a variant of the Caribbean musicbox, which has different varieties at Music of Jamaica and Music of Martiniqe and Guadeloupe, among others. So, don't be afraid to change the infobox around -- just make an effort to keep the boxes a fairly standard appearance and shape.

Note: add {{WikiProject:World music}} to talk pages of all the articles that are part of this project.