This has been a fascinating discussion. I had never stopped to think about
where the accent/stress of the beat falls in the leading pattern, but now that
I analyze it, I realize that this is what I do myself:
- in slow pieces notated in common time, my arm does a relatively smooth
down-down up-up motion, using up lots of space, so that the beginning of the
downbeat lands towards the beginning of the down stroke motion (and the same
with slow pieces in three beating a languid down-down-up)
- however, in fast pieces with sharper rhythmic accents, I beat a brisk
cut-time down-up pattern in a relatively small space with the emphasis of the
downbeat landing at the bottom of the down stroke.
So indeed, I make use of both of the different downbeat-emphasis leading
styles that have been discussed in this thread, as appropriate to different
songs. No one taught me this, and I'm not sure where I picked it up, as I
wasn't even conscious that I was doing it until now. (I've been singing Sacred
Harp for about 10 years, mostly on the West Coast.) I wonder if others find
that they do this as well?

Juniper

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Juniper Hill, PhD
Department of Music
University College Cork
Cork, Ireland

http://juniperlynnhill.net/

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