Time signature help
David Webber
> As I've studied rhythm and theory over the past few years I find I can
> understand time signatures on paper, but have difficulty hearing them in
> songs--popular songs. I know 4/4 time is most common--and can actually
> hear that with no problem. I also know Queensryche's "I am I" is in 3/4.
> Can any of you experts in this area point me to some examples using time
> signatures other then 4/4? Thanks.
Modern popular music tends as you say to centre on 4/4 with the occasional
ballard in 3/4. Occasionally you get varied time: eg Queen's "Bohemian
Rhapsody" swaps about and has some bars in 5/4. Not enough together to give
it a 5-feel though.
Two tunes worth listening to to get a feel for 5 are "Take five" by Paul
Desmond with the Dave Brubeck group, and the theme from the old TV series
"Mission Impossible".
I think one of the Star Trek movies had some whales swimming about to a
theme in 8/8 with the accents such that you get 3,3,2 in each bar:
^..^..^.^..^..^.^..^..^.
There are plenty more interesting rhythms around - but popular songs
*do* tend to be limited.
Hope this helps.
Dave
--
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clifton duane callender
For time signatures other than 4/4, listen to Rush. Tom Sawyer, for instance,
has large sections in 7/8, grouped into two-bar units. The first bar in each
unit is subdivided in 2+2+3, while the second bar is 3+2+2.
Other music to listen to for odd meters includes Yes and some recent music of
Sting (with meters of 5's and 7's).
Ross Driedger
>>In article: <D43y7...@nbn.com> bde...@linex.com (Keith Moore) writes:
>>|
>>| As I've studied rhythm and theory over the past few years I find I can
>>| understand time signatures on paper, but have difficulty hearing them in
>>| songs--popular songs. I know 4/4 time is most common--and can actually
>>| hear that with no problem. I also know Queensryche's "I am I" is in 3/4.
>>| Can any of you experts in this area point me to some examples using time
>>| signatures other then 4/4? Thanks.
>>
>>Crimson's 'Larks Tongues In Aspic' album, most of that is in various time signatures
>>(as is frequently common with most of KC).
In the realm of rock music, there are many songs from Led Zep that are not in
4/4, nor do they stay in one signature: 5/8 to 6/8.
Also, listen to Sting's _Ten Summoner's Tales_. In "Love is Stronger Than Justice"
he uses 7/8 in the verses but switches to a good old Country & Western 4/4 for
the choruses. This is not the only song on the album that has different time
signatures; as an exercise, listen to all the other tracks for the time signatures.
Ross Driedger
cs4g...@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca
(When I grow up I want to have a REAL net address!)
Larry A. McDowell
In your response to you time signature question, the only thing that comes to mi o
mind is the band Dream Theatre. They have three cd's out and i can't remember
the name of the first one but the second cd is titled "Images and Words." This con
Contains many complex rythms in different time signatures, one song i analyzed
was in 15/8. Their third cd is called "Awake" and this was recently released
so i have not taken the time to analyze it yet but it definately is worth
checking out. So good luck and let me know what you think.
P.S
This band is labeled a progression rock group but they are starting to
break into the main stream rock scene.
Larry McDowell
Mcdo...@blue.UnivNorthCo.edu
Cesare Tirabassi
>Subject: Time signature help
>Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 19:30:41 GMT
> As I've studied rhythm and theory over the past few years I find I can
>understand time signatures on paper, but have difficulty hearing them in
>songs--popular songs. I know 4/4 time is most common--and can actually
>hear that with no problem. I also know Queensryche's "I am I" is in 3/4.
>Can any of you experts in this area point me to some examples using time
>signatures other then 4/4? Thanks.
I'm no expert, but I'd suggest you to look (hear?) some progressive rock stuff
with unusual/frequent signature changes. To name the more popular, fellows
like the Yes, King Crimson, ELP, early Pink Floyd and to be more modern I'd
also include the Dream Theater. You may want also to check out Frank Zappa,
and Steve Vai was pretty good at these before making it big time (my fav is
The Attitude Song, with its main riff in 13/8).
Since this is a mainly classically oriented arena, I'd also add some
stereotypes like Valzer (The Blue Danube, J. Strauss son, "THE" 3/4),
Renaissance (Le Quattro Stagioni, A. Vivaldi, lots of 2/2 in there).
Cesare
Dimitris Dranidis
To add something....
Well the most known tune in 5/4 is "Take five" by Dave Brubeck.
You surely know this one.
Dimitris
P.S Greek Ethnic music, as well as other balkan countries' music, uses
complex rhythms. Very common is 9/8 with the following rhythm pattern:
> > > > > >
_____ ___ _____ ___ ___
9 |_| _| | | |_| _| | | |
- | |. | | | | |. | | | |
8 * * * * * * * * * * *
1 ' 2 ' 3 ' 4 ' 5 ' 6 ' 7 ' 8 ' 9
This is known as the "Hasapico" rhythm/dance.
Dimitris Dranidis
Mark Bluemel
Dave Brubeck's "Time Out" (? something like that) has :-
Take Five 5/4
Unsquare Dance 7/4
and more ...
Also try
Focus (Dutch Jazz-Rock of 1970's) "House of the King" - 6/8 / 3/4 but with
nice dropped beats from time to time.
Steeleye Span (English Folk-Rock) "Searching for Lambs" - 5/4 I think and with
glorious vocal harmonies (Maddy Prior is wonderful).
Incidentally, a lot of English Folk music is "one beat to the bar" (Martin
Carthy's definition.).
--
Mark Bluemel Unix/Oracle Trainer and Consultant
My opinions are my own, but I'll share them
All solutions to problems are offered "as is"
and without warranty - you have been warned :-)
Mborealis
: > signatures other then 4/4? Thanks.
Money by Pink Floyd is in 5/4 except for the lead in the middle.
Martha My Dear by the Beatles travels through all sorts of time sigs, and
I won't even try to decipher it...
Finally, Long Distance Runaround by Yes is in 4/4, BUT the drummer is
playing in 5/4. Doubting Thomases, check it out, it's true!!
Composer At Large
Don't forget STING's much praised TEN SUMNER'S TALES has songs in 5 and several
in 7.
On one, drummer Vinnie Caluta (sp?) plays straight quarter notes on the ride
cymbal while maintaining a steady 7/8 underneath.
Also, check out the tag at the end of WHISPER YOUR NAME by Harry Connick Jr.
The band plays 4/4 while the drummer lays down 7/8.
Pete
Noam Elkies
Andrew Mullhaupt <andrew@osprey> wrote:
>Remember- the time signature is really a question of
>notation, and that 'measures' are a notational convenience.
That may be true for modern editions of Renaissance music, and
some of the stuff written in recent years, but in general
measures are more than mere notational convenience -- they indicate
the metrical parsing of the music into groups of beats.
>You could, if you were of a mind to, notate a waltz in say, 4/4 or 5/4.
Sure. Andyo ucoul dalso space every fifth lette rinst eadof atthe right wordb
ounda ries, which would be the same kind of mistake. (Unless, of course,
it really *is* a 5/4 waltz, like that Tchaikovsky movement.)
--Noam D. Elkies (elk...@math.harvard.edu)
Dept. of Mathematics, Harvard University
Andrew Mullhaupt
: In article <3inn93$6...@puma.rentec.com>,
: Andrew Mullhaupt <andrew@osprey> wrote:
: >Remember- the time signature is really a question of
: >notation, and that 'measures' are a notational convenience.
: That may be true for modern editions of Renaissance music, and
: some of the stuff written in recent years, but in general
: measures are more than mere notational convenience -- they indicate
: the metrical parsing of the music into groups of beats.
Uh - so what? "Metrical parsing" doesn't change the sound at all. It might
help you learn how to perform or otherwise realize the music, but unless
it changes the sound, it doesn't change the music. Notation in and of itself
has _no musical function_.* If I teach the parts to the orchestra by singing
them until they memorize them (assuming they don't shoot me first) then what
does it matter whether the notation was metrically parsed? If I play the
music into a midi sequencer and then look at the midi file, it doesn't
change the sound at all even if I played the parts freewheel into a track
which has "beats" god knows where! But when we play the thing back it's the
same "music" coming out that I put in. Back in the dark ages, when the only
practical way to record music was paper notation, it may have been possible
to confuse the music with the notation, and the process of music production
with the process of notation production. This is no longer a viable view.
(And I think it never really was.)
I'm also a bit leary of the idea that music that _can_ be metrically parsed
in terms of measures _should_ always be thought of in terms of this parsing.
I have in mind for example Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #1, which often
"loses the downbeat" in the mind of the listener to no great ill effect.
I suppose were I conducting the work I would feel differently about losing
the downbeat...
: >You could, if you were of a mind to, notate a waltz in say, 4/4 or 5/4.
: Sure. Andyo ucoul dalso space every fifth lette rinst eadof atthe right wordb
: ounda ries, which would be the same kind of mistake. (Unless, of course,
: it really *is* a 5/4 waltz, like that Tchaikovsky movement.)
This analogy is not really OK. Music is a comma free code, unless you
superimpose a "click track". And if I read aloud the mis-spaced words
you wrote above, it is not necessary that people would hear a difference
then if I read aloud from a correctly spaced version. The difference we
have from the sight of the mis-spaced words may pertain to an unfortunate
conductor who has to read a score in the "wrong" time signiature, but it
does not appear in the ears of the audience.
The accurate analogy of your mis-spaced words would be if I inserted rests
after every five notes, and took out all the original rests, etc. This
_would_ change the music, and _would_ be a "mistake". If I just use sub-optimal
notation it may be a tremendous vexation and inconvenience to the performers,
but if I stuck in all the accents, ties, etc. then the final product should
_sound_ the same. Measures and time signiatures are purely a matter of
convenience, just like any aspect of notation.
In the extreme, I could choose to "notate" a work by writing down a sequence
of pairs of 16-bit numbers which represent a voltage level for equally spaced
time periods of 1/44000 second. Then the musicians would have to "play" this
by figuring out what gestures were required so that these voltage levels
would obtain at the terminals of a stereo pair of microphones. This is in
fact a quite specific notation, and can accommodate a very wide range of
performance. It just happens to be extremely inconvenient in case your
realization is by a bunch of humans with bits of wood and metal. If your
realization is by say, a digital to analog converter, then the work is in
a quite convenient form. Notation is not music. It is only a convenience,
and any matter of notation is only a matter of convenience.
Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt
*Exceptions which prove the rule: Chopin wrote a waltz which he liked because
he liked the way it looked written down, etc. The banging on the music stands
in Rossini's "Signor Bruschino" takes this one step further...
Earl Drehmer
signature changes), Holst's "The Planets" (Mars is in 5/4, then in 5/2),
and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker (one piece is in 5/4).
Rick Drehmer TLJ...@prodigy.com
Vance Maverick
> There was a thread re: "odd" meters in rec.music.guitar with lots of
> neat pop tunes listed.
But that's not really what the original poster was after. Rather, he
needed tunes which made simple meters easy to hear. Here are a few:
3/4 -- God Save the King = My Country, 'Tis of Thee
6/8 -- Pop Goes the Weasel
9/8 -- Beautiful Dreamer
I don't think the meters he wanted to learn went beyond these; any
other good tune suggestions?
But by far the most effective + profitable way would be to learn to
sight-read music.
Vance
Matthew H. Fields
Er, time signatures came from a music that could be danced that way...
to the extent that a music's kinaesthetics fits a simple cycle, measures
may be an appropriate notational device.
Andrew Mullhaupt
point is that the time signiature _does not_ force the rhythm. I think
Noam thought I was saying the time signiature is _unrelated_ to the
rhythm, which is only exceptionally true. We are in what my friend
(and I believe our mutual friend) Nick Patterson calls "violent
agreement".
Noam Elkies (elk...@abel.harvard.edu) wrote:
: Human musicians aren't midi sequencers. Most performers respond to a time
: signature with a whole range of effects (e.g. audibly emphasizing the
: "strong beats") that convey the indicate parse to the audience.
Humans do not always realize music by having other humans perform it from
notation. And there are thousands, (probably millions) of hours of music
recorded with no notation in sight. Notation is only a convenience. It
is _not_ music.
: Thus
: having the same twelve quarter notes notated as three 4/4 bars instead
: of four 3/4's certainly *would* change the sound. Do you really deny
: the difference between
: 3/4: C E G |F# G A |F= D B |D C and 4/4: C E |G F# G A |F= D B D |C ?
If you want these to sound the same you usually need to decorate one more
than the other. In other words, these are not notations for the same music.
There _are_ however, many ways to notate the music that you have in mind
in 3/4, 4/4, hell, even in 1/4. You seem to suppos that I am suggesting
that the time signiature can be changed (leaving the rest of the notation
intact) without changing the music. This is not the case.
No, what I said, meant, and will continue to say, is that you can
equivalently notate music in whatever time signiature you choose. Of course,
extra notation will be needed in most time signiatures, and it is normal to
choose a time signiature which has the simplest representation, although this
is not always a unique time signiature. And this choice is dictated in the
vast majority of cases by _convenience_. It is easier to notate music in
an 'appropriate' time signiature and it is also easier to learn to play
music which is notated in an 'appropriate' time signiature. But in some
case where the notation is _not_ in an 'appropriate' time signiature the
music is not necessarily different.
: Sure, you could perversely simulate a true 4/4 while notating 3/4 with
: written accents, rubato, etc. that would be implied by the 4/4 signature
: (and further written indications to suppress 3/4 tendencies), but
: Occam's razor is against you.
Occam's razor is your word for what I continue to refer to as convenience.
And it is not at all clear to me that perversity must be regarded as an
undesirable aspect in the artistic process. Furthermore, the accents
which are "implied by the 4/4 signiature" are not known until we know
a little more about the music in question. If you put the same accents
on "Take me to the River" and Chopin's Funeral March just because they're
both in 4/4 you are taking 4/4 the wrong way. Without context, 4/4 only
tells you how long things last and when to expect the next line through
the staves. In context, you may be entitled to add accents here and there,
but this is not uniquely determined by 4/4. The great classical example
of this is the difference between Strauss waltzes (3/4) played by Viennese
and non-Viennese tradition orchestras. The occasional delayed, lightened 2
beat (controlled by the rules of "Gemutlichkeit") are quite different from
the non-Viennese tradition. Additionally, there are the Chopin waltzes,
which have altogether a different structure. The time signiature is only
one of several important clues about the existence of implicit accents
and tempo changes.
: >Back in the dark ages, when the only practical way to record music
: >was paper notation, it may have been possible to confuse the music
: >with the notation, and the process of music production with the process
: >of notation production. This is no longer a viable view.
: Are you talking about midi or recorded human performances here?
I am talking about music and notation. This includes all possible
performances and all possible notations. Notation is essentially
defined as any representation which allows music to be realized
with some approximate degree of faithfulness. Music is the phenomenon
itself, whether performed by humans, whales, wind chimes, or the
original big bang red shifted into the audio. (Wait a while for that
one...) Midi is actually a form of notation, as are phonograph records,
DAT, etc. I suppose there are Inca quipu which are musical notation. These
less traditional forms of notation are useful in helping us remember the
difference between what is on the page and what the performers add by way
of interpretation. A careful composer needs to think about how much the
work should or should not rely on interpretation.
: With recorded performances we can still recognize the difference
: between Beethoven's Third and Toscanini's Third. :-) The latter
: is roughly speaking a representative of the equivalence class
: named by the former.
: >I'm also a bit leery of the idea that music that _can_ be metrically parsed
: >in terms of measures _should_ always be thought of in terms of this parsing.
: >[...]
: That's a different matter. Good performers also know when to ignore
: the barline.
: >: >You could, if you were of a mind to, notate a waltz in say, 4/4 or 5/4.
: >
: >: Sure. Andyo ucoul dalso space every fifth lette rinst eadof atthe right wordb
: >: ounda ries, which would be the same kind of mistake. (Unless, of course,
: >: it really *is* a 5/4 waltz, like that Tchaikovsky movement.)
: >
: >This analogy is not really OK. Music is a comma free code, unless you
: >superimpose a "click track".
: It's not a perfect analogy, but close enough. (I wrote "same kind of mistake"
: not "same mistake".) To the extend that music is "code" (not a perfect
: analogy either...), enough music does come with natural commas to give
: barlines a genuine function.
My point is that it is not a close analogy at all. If the music isn't any
different, then it can only be a matter of convenience how to produce it.
Let us suppose that we take our arrangement of Bach's "Air for the G String"
to be copied. It turns out that our engraver first converts the work into
cuneiform, sends it to Iceland, where a small group of enthusiastic fourth
graders who are just learning cuneiform and musical notation convert the
cuneiform into parts the process is re-iterated until correct. When I get my
parts, (several years later, no doubt), is there really any doubt that this
was sorely inconvenient? But since the parts I get are correct, there is also
no doubt that the intermediate notation _was also correct_! The point being
that the only thing wrong with the process is the inconvenience.
: >an unfortunate conductor who has to read a score in the "wrong"
: >time signature, but it does not appear in the ears of the audience.
: If both the conductor and the orchestra members have the wrong time
: signature, or even the right signature but translated barlines, you
: can bet it *will* appear in the ears of the audience. Give the two
: 11-note examples above to a human performer and you can hear the
: distinction yourself.
I think this is unrealistic.
Let me rehearse them for twenty minutes with the better studio cats and if
I've written the "Blue Danube" in 4/4 on the paper but I really want to hear
Viennese "Gemutlichkeit" waltz, I'll get it. As soon as they hear what it's
about and agree on it, you'll hear the right feel. I think you've given
even human performers very short shrift. I think the difference between
a perversely notated Blue Danube (in 4/4) and a correct one would last about
twenty minutes into the first rehearsal. In fact, I think if you write down
the first page or so of the Blue Danube in 4/4 and give it to someone (without
any clue as to the source of the music) and have them learn it, there is _no
chance in hell_ that you won't get back the waltz you started with, unless
you give it to a particularly unusual sort of musician - probably one who is
following this thread.
I once arranged "Strange Brew" in 7/4 for a band I was in, and it's cute.
We had the absolute devil of a time learning it since the original four
banger runs through your head while your playing it. And I put it in
_straight_ seven. (Not 4/4,3/4 etc.). It shows how hard it is to stick
to notation which doesn't agree with the musician's idea of the music.
The music _is not really 'in' the notation_. Ultimately, we learned the
thing, and one former member of that band told me that he later had a
terrible time playing it in the original 4/4 with another band, even
despite listening to the original record a lot.
The point here is that the musicians will ultimately play the thing the
way it sounds "right" to them (or at least their conductor) and waving
a scrap of paper at them will have little effect. They do not really play
what is on the paper - the process is more accurately reflected by thinking
that the paper eventually makes some idea appear in their head and this
idea is what the musicians play. Once the musicians have acquired this idea
then the paper serves only as an aide-memoire.
It is very important to consider cases where the "most appropriate" time
signiature may be inconvenient. Recently I mentioned John McGlaughlin's
"Binky's Dream" which is in 19/8. Now I have never seen this piece notated,
but I'm sure that if I was to go about it I wouldn't notate it in 19/8.
The drums, yes, in 19/8, but the lyrical bass part would be six bars of
3/8 followed by a bar of 1/8, the horns would also have bars of 3/8 and
1/8, but not in phase with the bass. Binky's Dream is a "defect" waltz,
and I would use the time signiature to help suggest that. _HOWEVER_ this
is merely convenience. If I decided that I was going to arrange the piece
for a very large group, I might very well have to break the measures down
a lot more so that everyone could be in the same place when we rehearsed
bits. In the final analysis, the metrical parsing is just about as important
as having letters denoting sections to rehearse from. Clearly this is not
a matter which finally impacts the performance - it's only a convenience.
Getting the time signiature "right" is only a little more important than
getting the key signiature "right" and that is only a little more important
than what kind of beaming convention you use. Notation is not music. It
is a grave mistake to suppose that the traditional western musical notation
conveys rhythm accurately aside from some simple cases. We all know quite
well how pitch is only approximated in notation in the vast majority of
cases, it only stands to reason that time (and therefore rhythm) is only
approximated by notation. There is a _lot_ of rhythm information which
cannot be accurately conveyed by traditional notation in a convenient way.
(Cf. the thread "what is pocket?").
I am particularly interested in understanding complicated rhythmic interplay
which occurs in quite simple time signiatures. It turns out that these
rhythms are slippery characters which are hard to remember accurately
since they lie close to strict time rhythms which sound quite different
and often skirt the boundaries between different time signiatures. A large
number of shuffles will be notated in 4/4 or 6/8 depending on who you ask
to notate them.
I should perhaps point out that I do not view composition in narrow terms.
I consider that all music is composed, (although sometimes on the spot)
and that performance can occur anywhere at any time - from the philharmonic
hall to the jingle studio to my shower. I also consider signal processing
and many aspects of mechanical recording to be elements of composition and
performance. This is probably consistent with some modern academic views,
but I will also add that my view is based more on experience playing in
different kinds of bands and working on various kinds of records. So this
means that a time signiature is to me merely a device which assists in
certain notations, but is no part of music. Music must have rhythm* but
it needs no time signiature. A 3/4 rhythm need not always be notated in
3/4.
Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt
*Again, the exceptions to this prove the rule.
Andrew Mullhaupt
: But even mainline common practice composers (I second Andrew's
: nomination of Rachmaninoff, but would also point to Brahms) cause
: groupings which transcend, ignore, or defy the barline. (First
: movements of B's fourth and R's second symphony.)
I agree about Brahms, and I also suspect that Wagner and Mahler might
qualify here too. I picked Rocky because I know the #1 Piano Concerto
inside out by now, and I still lose the down beat all the time without
looking at a score.
Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt
Matthew H. Fields
Hmm, when I think of e.g. puzzle canons, I think of music that has to be
at least delightful if not positively swoonworthy, preceded by a jocular
game in which the musicians try to decode the score.
Tom Duff <4188-21922> 0112730
>BTW being a Brit, I am always amused by the US 4/4 chauvanism of calling a
>crotchet a quarter note. What is a crotchet called in waltz time?
Oh come on, at least the American names make sense part of the time.
How much does a quarter note look like anything having to do
with crocheting? An eighth note at least has a tail on it,
like a crochet hook. But they call that a quaver. Most
singers quaver more singing whole notes than eighth notes.
Speaking of whole notes, how can you call it a Breve when
it's the longest one we've got?
Also, waltz time is usually called three-quarter time,
so what's the problem?
Thou art black, kettle.
Matthew H. Fields
Tom Duff <4188-21922> 0112730 <4188-21922> wrote:
>Speaking of whole notes, how can you call it a Breve when
>it's the longest one we've got?
Of course it's historical, if not hysterical. Used to be a
short note, with longas and maximas above it (longas are
fondly remembered by use of the modern double-whole note).
Dotted notes have a similarly hysterical origin.
Used to be that in perfect time a longa lasted 3 breves,
or in imperfect time, 2; in perfect measure, a breve lasted
3 semibreves; in imperfect measure, 2. In imperfect measure, then,
the length of a breve could be overridden with a dot, which meant
"perfection". By now you may have guessed that "perfection" was a
church-sanctioned notion based on the trinity. In those terms,
a "more-perfect-than-perfect" double-dotted note would have been
a total mind-boggler!
The upshot of all of this is that standard notation is an idiom
with much the same kinds of funky twists in its history that spoken
languages have.
Phil Kime
Composer> In article <3ij21p$n...@news.cais.com>, bore...@cais2.cais.com
Composer> (Mborealis) writes:
> : > Can any of you experts in this area point me to some examples
Composer> using time
> : > signatures other then 4/4? Thanks.
>
> Money by Pink Floyd is in 5/4 except for the lead in the middle.
That's guaranteed to confuse someone who's learning to count time! It's
in 7/4, not 5/4!
p
--
= Phil Kime (phil...@cogsci.ed.ac.uk) =
= http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~philkime/home.html =
= Centre for Cognitive Science/Dept of Philosophy =
= Edinburgh University =
Vitali1055
the difference between 6/8 and 3/4 (both of which are measures containing
six eighth-notes).
"*I* like to *BE* in A- | -mer- -i- -ca."
ONE-two-three-TWO-two-three | ONE-(and)-TWO-(and)-THREE-(and)
6/8: Two beats each subdivided into three, 3/4: three beats each
subdivided into two
AFC PeterS
> > What about Cage's (and others') more contemporary experiments
> > with notation?
>
> Ultimately, these don't matter much. It is extremely rare to
> have music written for the sake of how it looks in notation...
True, but that wasn't the original statement. You said notation has no
musical function, and my point was it can indeed have a musical function,
regardless of whether the criterion was how it looks on paper. (That had
nothing to do with Cage's work, for example.) *In general*, composers are
simply using notation as a way of recording their instructions for how
they want the music to sound, and it would make no difference if these
instructions were stored/presented another way. The exceptions, however,
are interesting at the very least, and prove that it's possible to use
notation as a creative tool, rather than a merely documentary one.
Peter Stoller
Charles Lucy
: Speaking of whole notes, how can you call it a Breve when
: it's the longest one we've got?
BTW Your Whole note is a semi-brieve.
A brieve is four mimims, eight crotchets, 16 quavers, 32 semi-quavers,
64 demi-semi quavers, or 128 hemi-demi-semi quavers. If you're going
to one-up me, at leave have the consideration to say it competently.
: Also, waltz time is usually called three-quarter time,
: so what's the problem?
Common time, cut time and 12 note equal temperament.
Well you did ask!
: Thou art black, kettle.
So what are you smoking?
Andrew Mullhaupt
: >BTW being a Brit, I am always amused by the US 4/4 chauvanism of calling a
: >crotchet a quarter note. What is a crotchet called in waltz time?
: Oh come on, at least the American names make sense part of the time.
The "American" nomenclature is derived of European (continental)
nomenclature. If it's Chauvinism, it's a strange kind.
It never ceases to suprise me when another Englishman has given Americans
credit for inventing nomenclature with one hand and takes credit away
from Americans for being unaware of European systems. Both are false.
We didn't invent this nomenclature, we got it from Europe. And we shopped
around and probably got the right one too. The system commonly used in
England is pretty silly.
The hilarious part is that the one system of units we got from the
English (inches, feet, miles, pounds, ounces, pints, quarts, etc.)
is wretched enough that the English long discarded it in favor of the
decimal metric system.
Later,
Andrew "Furlongs per fortnight, Forsooth!" Mullhaupt
Tom Duff <4188-21922> 0112730
(discussion of crotchet vs. quarter-note deleted):
>The hilarious part is that the one system of units we got from the
>English (inches, feet, miles, pounds, ounces, pints, quarts, etc.)
>is wretched enough that the English long discarded it in favor of the
>decimal metric system.
quarter note = 1.25 decibreves
64th note = 1953.125 microbreves
At MM (quarter note)=60, 1 year=3.945 megabreves
And how about metric pitch:
The metric unit of pitch ratio is the tempered
minor seventh, or `Lucy'. This is a log unit,
like the deciBel.
1 Lucy=1.781797436 ratio
1 semitone=1 deciLucy
1 dekaLucy=322.5398888 is roughly the total orchestral pitch range
(I'm really sorry about this, but I have important deadlines on
three big projects this week, so I'm procrastinating more desperately
than usual.)
Andrew Mullhaupt
: Andrew Mullhaupt writes:
: *In general*, composers are
: simply using notation as a way of recording their instructions for how
: they want the music to sound, and it would make no difference if these
: instructions were stored/presented another way. The exceptions, however,
: are interesting at the very least, and prove that it's possible to use
: notation as a creative tool, rather than a merely documentary one.
This doesn't really wash with me, but it is not an unreasonable view.
I think of music as the experience of the listener, and the creative
process as entirely contained in the mind of the composer. The extrasomatic
aspects are essentially illusory, a point of view which reduces in it's
simplest form to:
"Is it _live_ or is it _Memorex_?"
"If you can't tell, then who gives a toss?"
In other words, there is no musical importance to any aspect of music which
is not part of the listening experience. If you can't _hear_ the difference-
that is to say if you cannot tell by listening _alone_ some aspect of the
music, then that aspect has no musical importance. You may ascribe some
other kind of importance to it, and I might concur. But I reserve musical
values for things which can be discriminated by listening.
I may be an extremist, but let me give a little story which may serve to
illustrate:
I had one of my twelve brothers-in-law at my house once, and we listened to
the Florence Foster-Jenkins "Glory of the Human Voice?????" album. My wife
and I were reduced to tears in short order, but he and his girlfriend were
somewhat perplexed. He sorted it out by looking at the album cover, and
explaining to his friend that "this was obviously funny if you saw what
costumes she was wearing..." and then they could laugh too...
Now the first thing to remember is that Flossie worked _straight_ from the
score, and in deadly earnest. There is no musical humor visible in the notation.
She _did_ wear extravagant costumes, and this aspect of her performance _was_
funny, but a huge majority of people who hear Flossie in ignorance of her attire
will discover the humor.
My point is that in order to truly understand musical experience, as listener
or composer, it is well to stick to the listening experience as the ultimate
(and probably sole) arbiter of value.
In any case where you argue that novel or clever use of notation results in
successful music, my notion is that it is the musical result, not the notation
which determines the "success". The choices which may have been important in
the process by which the music resulted are important only so far as you can
hear the difference in the result. In this sense, notation has _no musical
function_!
Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt
AFC PeterS
> Hmmm, I wonder whether writing has any literary function?
>
> It certainly used to be (and still is, if you know where to
> look) that you could get a good story from a master storyteller
> on the spur of the moment, all from memory (with a healthy dose
> of improv, of course).
Well, there's a rather famous Latin American novel (the name of which
escapes me, of course) that was written to work two ways: one was to read
the book straight through, the other to read the chapters in a completely
different order according to instructions from the author. This doesn't
work the same way with a live reading. I suppose you could record a
reading on a CD with tracks for each chapter and program your player to
hear it both ways, or even attend two different live readings. Still, all
this presumes that the experience of reading and being read to is
equivalent, or that reading is merely a second-choice substitute for being
read to, a position with which I cannot agree.
Music is different from literature, of course, and I agree with Andrew
that it is an aural medium. I only meant that notation can be used as a
creative tool to achieve the composer's ends, rather than merely serving a
documentary role. The listener is unlikely to know the difference, but
creative notation would be the difference between whether or not music
thus written existed. To me, that means it has a "musical function."
Peter Stoller
Jeff Harrington
: Well, there's a rather famous Latin American novel (the name of which
: escapes me, of course) that was written to work two ways: one was to read
: the book straight through, the other to read the chapters in a completely
: different order according to instructions from the author. This doesn't
: work the same way with a live reading. I suppose you could record a
: reading on a CD with tracks for each chapter and program your player to
: hear it both ways, or even attend two different live readings. Still, all
: this presumes that the experience of reading and being read to is
: equivalent, or that reading is merely a second-choice substitute for being
: read to, a position with which I cannot agree.
This brings to mind something Carter told me (this is *not* for the
purpose of name dropping =-) about how he and David Schiff had sat down
and figured out the *best* arrangement of the Boulez 2nd Sonata. He
claimed it was far superior to all the other arrangements and that they
had been thorough...
So, the problem as I see it about these pieces with do-it-yourself
arrangements is why put up with the (ahem) less than brilliant
combinations.
Why not just sit down and figure out the best (or the 2 or 3 best) and
publish that as the piece?
Cheers!
Jeff Harrington
idea...@dorsai.dorsai.org
--
(*) IdEAL ORDER WWW HOME PAGE: (*)
(*) NEW WWW SITE ->>>> http://www.dorsai.org/~idealord/ (*)
(*) Elsie Russell's Pics! Jeff Harrington's Music ->>>> Art + The Bizarre (*)
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(*) BlueStrider MIDI: ftp://ftp.cs.ruu.nl/pub/MIDI/SONGS/MISC/BlueStri.mid (*)
Jonathan Egre
Andrew Mullhaupt <andrew@osprey> wrote:
>
>The hilarious part is that the one system of units we got from the
>English (inches, feet, miles, pounds, ounces, pints, quarts, etc.)
>is wretched enough that the English long discarded it in favor of the
>decimal metric system.
Actually the "Imperial" system of measurements is still widely used over
here, although metric has been taught exclusively in schools for about
20 years or so.
Road signs are still in miles, petrol (gasoline to the Americans) has
recently gone over to litres, beer is in pints (which are larger than
American pints), butter is in pounds, margarine is in kilogrammes,
collars are in inches. Older people know their weights in stones and
pounds (1 stone = 14 pounds), younger people know their weights in
kilogrammes, nobody knows their weights in x-hundred pounds.
At this rate the country should be completely metricated by about 2070 AD.
Followups to soc.culture.british, I think.
--
Jonathan Egre' at Jobstream Group plc, Cambridge, UK
I am *not* representing Jobstream Group plc with this message or posting
John Sullivan
>Date: 25 Feb 1995 18:22:37 GMT
>In article <3inn93$6...@puma.rentec.com>,
>Andrew Mullhaupt <andrew@osprey> wrote:
>>Remember- the time signature is really a question of
>>notation, and that 'measures' are a notational convenience.
>That may be true for modern editions of Renaissance music, and
>some of the stuff written in recent years, but in general
>measures are more than mere notational convenience -- they indicate
>the metrical parsing of the music into groups of beats.
But there is some arbitration in play. One person's 4/4 is someone else's 2
measures of 2/4, to use the simplest example. It really depends, I guess.
For another basic example, one of my group's pieces really sounded like
alternating measures of 4/4 and 2/4. 3/4 was obviously wrong, and 6/4 looks a
lot better on paper, but 4+2 was right. So what do you go with?
For lots of modern material with complicated timings, you're right, of course.
Some pieces would be close to impossible without attention to time signature
notation. It's the easy stuff that can get arbitrary. (Ever see a swing
piece notated in 12/8? Not a pretty sight for jazzbos.)
I think for beginners it can be a hard hurdle to get over, and I frankly don't
remember how I got a handle on it. Counting aloud is a good start.
>>You could, if you were of a mind to, notate a waltz in say, 4/4 or 5/4.
>Sure. Andyo ucoul dalso space every fifth lette rinst eadof atthe right wordb
>ounda ries, which would be the same kind of mistake. (Unless, of course,
>it really *is* a 5/4 waltz, like that Tchaikovsky movement.)
I think that's a great illustration of the point he was trying to make, that
5/4 would obviously be inappropriate when you were done with this hellish
chore. (He recommended using a sequencer, which would be easier, to say the
least.) For a beginner, this would be an excellent way to start to get inside
time signatures.
/* John V. Sullivan */
/* jsul...@fhcrc.org */
Matthew H. Fields
These conventions aren't uniform, though, hence confusion.
Matthew H. Fields
Andrew Mullhaupt
: Hmmm, I wonder whether writing has any literary function?
Yes. The reason this is not the same as music is that you can read
writing without necessarily hearing it, and yet obtain the literary
value in many cases. e. e. cummings, Ezra Pound, etc., were examples
of writers who relied on visual aspects of their writing. On the
other hand, many poets (e. g. Robert Frost) held that poetry was
meant to be listened to. So literature can be either visual or aural.
Sign language and braille open the question of two different tactile
aspects of literature. I know for a fact that there are sign poem/songs
which function almost as dance; it is not unreasonable to believe that
some of these poems attain an artistic aspect based on the sensation
of performing them. I am not aware of a corresponding analog for braille.
Short of construing alphabet soup as literature, I cannot think of a
literary function relying on taste or smell...
: It certainly used to be (and still is, if you know where to look)
: that you could get a good story from a master storyteller on the spur
: of the moment, all from memory (with a healthy dose of improv, of course).
Yes, and most of the oldest literature is thought to be transcribed from
oral traditions. (Homer, for one). But unlike music, there _are_ many
successful examples of writings which rely on the visual impact, in which
case it is necessary to admit that writing has a literary function.
Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt
Bill Schottstaedt
(Noam Elkies) writes:
> In article <3ipctm$c...@puma.rentec.com> andrew@osprey (Andrew Mullhaupt)
writes:
> >We are in what my friend (and I believe our mutual friend)
>
"common"...
Or... ("Our Mutual Friend" is a great novel by Dickens).
Noam Elkies
Any friendship worth the name is "mutual"; what you intend is "common"...
>Nick Patterson calls "violent agreement".
Yes, I've known Nick for several years now, though I haven't heard
this particular Pattersonism.
[I wrote:]
>: Sure, you could perversely simulate a true 4/4 while notating 3/4 with
>: written accents, rubato, etc. that would be implied by the 4/4 signature
>: (and further written indications to suppress 3/4 tendencies), but
>: Occam's razor is against you.
>Occam's razor is your word for what I continue to refer to as convenience.
You can say the same about Aristotelian epicycles vs. heliocentric
ellipses.
> [...] Notation is essentially
>defined as any representation which allows music to be realized
>with some approximate degree of faithfulness. Music is the phenomenon
>itself, whether performed by humans, whales, wind chimes, or the
>original big bang red shifted into the audio. [...]
That may be true in some musical traditions; but for a very significant
part of the Western musical tradition, notation takes on a more central
role: a Mozart or Shostakovich symphony, or a Brahms or a Bach keyboard
piece, is defined by the notated score, in the context of appropriate
performance practice. Your "with some approximate degree of faithfulness"
begs the question, "faithful to what"? We don't have direct access to Bach's
or Shostakovich's exact conception of their music, if indeed there was one.
Most likely there was no such thing: these composers understood that
different performers would have to realize their work differently,
if only due to variations in technique, instrument and acoustics.
The notation is the primary source that they chose to represent their
musical intention, and faithfulness to the notation is our first
standard for a performance.
Now for any one piece you might well argue that the choice of one
notation over another is merely a matter of convenience and there
is no real musical content to the notation itself. But when the
same system of notation consistently proves "convenient" for the
entire musical corpus of several ages, it begins to indicate
that there's more to it; the notation system encapsulates
important regularities of this body of music. At this point
we must bravely lay aside our philosophical uneasiness with
notational action at a distance and concede a musical function
to the notation itself.
>Let me rehearse them for twenty minutes with the better studio cats and if
>I've written the "Blue Danube" in 4/4 on the paper but I really want to hear
>Viennese "Gemutlichkeit" waltz, I'll get it. As soon as they hear what it's
>about and agree on it, you'll hear the right feel. I think you've given
>even human performers very short shrift. I think the difference between
>a perversely notated Blue Danube (in 4/4) and a correct one would last about
>twenty minutes into the first rehearsal.
What composer would intentionally waste untold hundreds of dollars (which
20 minutes' times with an orchestra of the "better studio cats" would cost)
with such inept notation? I think it is you who are not giving human
performers enough credit here; intelligent performers would surely
conclude that if you spent your and their time and effort notating
a waltz in 4/4 you were looking for some specific musical effect
that the normal 3/4 notation could not convey.
A case in point (this one involving key rather then time signatures),
from the Brahms Horn Trio which I'm currently preparing for performance:
about 1/3 of the way through the first movement Brahms changes the
key signature from 3 to 2 flats. In the first 8 bars following, there
are about 15 A-flats, and not a single A-natural. So by changing
the key signature where he did, rather than 8 measures later, Brahms
had to put in about fifteen accidentals -- quite inconvenient. Thus
Brahms must have a specific reason for choosing this notation; it
transpires that these 8 measures are in (a Phrygian-tinged) G minor,
not C minor or a continued E-flat major or a modulatory transitional
area as might easily have been supposed had he conveniently put
the signature change 8 bars later.
--Noam D. Elkies (elk...@math.harvard.edu)
Dept. of Mathematics, Harvard University
(P.S. The consistent misspelling "signiature" is surely a relic of
some other language -- in which language is the word spelled thus?)
Sander Gielen
: FI>Between 3/4 and 6/8 subtle?
: FI>3/4 is a 3 beat time, 2 pulses per beat.
: FI>6/8 is a 2 beat time, 3 pulses per beat.
: FI>Some wise guys write in 2/4 with constant triplets at the pulse level,
: FI>which is aurally indistinguishable from 6/8.
: So are two quick 3/4 measures, which is probably what was being referred
: to originally.
That's only true for computer music. In real music there is a difference
between 3/4 and 6/8. 3/4 is a true waltz measure while 6/8 is a march
measure. 6/8 in a lively tempo is counted as 2 beats. left, right :)
A quick 3/4 is a one beat movement. Or:
6/8 : primary beat, tick, tick, secondary beat, tick, tick.
3/4 : beat, tick, tick. beat, tick, tick.
: --- GEcho 1.00
: * OLX 2.1 TD * I'm currently boycotting taglines.
--
_________________________________________________________________________
| Sander Gielen; e-mail: san...@wfw.wtb.tue.nl; phone: +31 40 47 27 89 |
| fax: +31 40 44 73 55; Eindhoven University of Technology. Dept. of |
| Mechanical Engineering; ___ Section Engineering Fundamentals |
| P.O.Box 513; 5600MB (o o) The Netherlands |
-----------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo---------------------------------
AFC PeterS
> > *In general*, composers are simply using notation as a way of
> > recording their instructions for how they want the music to
> > sound, and it would make no difference if these instructions
> > were stored/presented another way.
>
> No difference to the listener, quite probably. But there can
> sometimes be a difference to the performer, and to someone who
> is reading music to study from it. There is a lot of music
> which could be notated differently to make it easier to read
> and to learn.
True, but what Andrew (I think) and I (I know) meant as a "musical
difference" was an *audible* difference, based on the philosophy that
music is what you hear. Thus, if it makes no difference to the listener,
it is not a musical difference. (You could argue that music that is more
difficult to read will be performed less often and/or more poorly, which
would make a difference to the listener...)
> > The exceptions, however, are interesting at the very least,
> > and prove that it's possible to use notation as a creative
> > tool, rather than a merely documentary one.
>
> An interesting statement. What exceptions do you have in mind?
I was thinking of all sorts of things - from flinging ink at score paper
and attaching stems to the dots, to using illustrations and texts as
alternative notation to be interpreted by the musician - resulting in
music that could not exist if not for the process of notation.
Peter Stoller
AMullhaupt
Please excuse any peculiarities which may result from my use of the new
(and
quite rustic) facilities of America Online. I haven't organized net access
for my
new firm yet, and am using AOL in the meantime.
>In article <3ipctm$c...@puma.rentec.com> andrew@osprey (Andrew Mullhaupt)
writes:
>>We are in what my friend (and I believe our mutual friend)
>Any friendship worth the name is "mutual"; what you intend is "common"...
Mutual is nearer my mark. I hesitate to describe Nick as a "common
friend"...
>Nick Patterson calls "violent agreement".
>Yes, I've known Nick for several years now, though I haven't heard
>this particular Pattersonism.
>>>: Sure, you could perversely simulate a true 4/4 while notating 3/4
with
>>>: written accents, rubato, etc. that would be implied by the 4/4
signature
>>>: (and further written indications to suppress 3/4 tendencies), but
>>>: Occam's razor is against you.
>>Occam's razor is your word for what I continue to refer to as
convenience.
>You can say the same about Aristotelian epicycles vs. heliocentric
>ellipses.
We can, and do. The scientific method, to the extent that it subscribed to
Occam's razor, subscribes to it out of convenience.
> [...] Notation is essentially
>defined as any representation which allows music to be realized
>with some approximate degree of faithfulness. Music is the phenomenon
>itself, whether performed by humans, whales, wind chimes, or the
>original big bang red shifted into the audio. [...]
>That may be true in some musical traditions; but for a very significant
>part of the Western musical tradition, notation takes on a more central
>role: a Mozart or Shostakovich symphony, or a Brahms or a Bach keyboard
>piece, is defined by the notated score, in the context of appropriate
>performance practice.
Call me a bomb throwing anarchist, but I deny this definition. The
notation says
_some_ things about the music, but not all of them. For example, it is
_quite rare_
to find a meaningful description of the room acoustics, detailed
characteristics
of the instrument, etc. You can take two quite acceptable performances of
a
Brahms piano concerto and found and entire flame war in the classical
recordings
newsgroup over which is "better". With Mozart, we have the "authentic
instrument"
zealots, etc. You really don't find _every_ aspect of the music accurately
noted in
any era.
> Your "with some approximate degree of faithfulness"
> begs the question, "faithful to what"?
There are several answers to this question - essentially it is a matter of
personal
taste as to whether a particular performance actually adheres to a given
notation.
My favorite example is the Viennese waltzes as notated and the
"Gemutlichkeit"
tradition of delaying some of the second beats, etc.
> We don't have direct access to Bach's
> or Shostakovich's exact conception of their music, if indeed there was
one.
> Most likely there was no such thing: these composers understood that
> different performers would have to realize their work differently,
> if only due to variations in technique, instrument and acoustics.
> The notation is the primary source that they chose to represent their
> musical intention,
Completely agree.
> and faithfulness to the notation is our first standard for a
performance.
It may be _yours_ but it has _no_ place in my thinking. I listen to it,
and I
make _two_ value judgements. The first answers the question "Do I like
it?"
and the second answers the question "I it good?". These questions are
nearly independent.
You are apparently in agreement with the juries which have passed on that
central European pianist (Igo Pogorelich, sp?) who was universally hailed
as
a genius but denied some important prizes because his interpretations were
too far from the expected. I would not have worried about that.
> But when the
> same system of notation consistently proves "convenient" for the
> entire musical corpus of several ages, it begins to indicate
> that there's more to it; the notation system encapsulates
> important regularities of this body of music.
Um, just like Roman numerals? No, I do not accept this indication. The
failure of many composers to struggle to invent a totally new notation has
more to do with the extreme difficulty of being performed in this time. We
now know that there are many alternatives to what these people could not
escape from. And in the twentieth century, the explosion of technologies
for
recording, transcribing, and creating sounds have not gone unnoticed by
composers. Why would anyone seriously entertain the idea that most of the
composers of the previous couple of centuries wouldn't take advantage of
different notation?
>>Let me rehearse them for twenty minutes with the better studio cats and
if
>>I've written the "Blue Danube" in 4/4 on the paper but I really want to
hear
>>Viennese "Gemutlichkeit" waltz, I'll get it. As soon as they hear what
it's
>>about and agree on it, you'll hear the right feel. I think you've given
>>even human performers very short shrift. I think the difference between
>>a perversely notated Blue Danube (in 4/4) and a correct one would last
about
>>twenty minutes into the first rehearsal.
>What composer would intentionally waste untold hundreds of dollars (which
>20 minutes' times with an orchestra of the "better studio cats" would
cost)
>with such inept notation?
Nobody _would_ do this, and that nobody would is a concession to
_convenience_.
Can you seriously claim that a real musical issue is at stake here?
> I think it is you who are not giving human
>performers enough credit here; intelligent performers would surely
>conclude that if you spent your and their time and effort notating
>a waltz in 4/4 you were looking for some specific musical effect
>that the normal 3/4 notation could not convey.
Actually, I have a lot of experience in the studio, and what the
intelligent
performer provides is what you want. If you say "it's been copied in 4/4
but it's really a waltz" you'll get it. Even if they secretly suspect that
you
are wrong and the composer wanted something else. If you say "it's
really _Tales from the Vienna Woods_ but it has been notated as _The
Blue Danube_ you might just be able to record a version of _Vienna
Woods_, depending on which crowd you have in. (VSO for example
must know these in their sleep...)
> A case in point (this one involving key rather then time signatures),
> from the Brahms Horn Trio which I'm currently preparing for performance:
> about 1/3 of the way through the first movement Brahms changes the
> key signature from 3 to 2 flats. In the first 8 bars following, there
> are about 15 A-flats, and not a single A-natural. So by changing
> the key signature where he did, rather than 8 measures later, Brahms
> had to put in about fifteen accidentals -- quite inconvenient. Thus
> Brahms must have a specific reason for choosing this notation; it
> transpires that these 8 measures are in (a Phrygian-tinged) G minor,
> not C minor or a continued E-flat major or a modulatory transitional
> area as might easily have been supposed had he conveniently put
> the signature change 8 bars later.
Can you _hear_ the difference? I don't think so. If not, then Brahm's is
having a little joke, or lapse. I was thinking of this very issue today
while
viewing the score of Rossini's _Gazza Ladra_, and I think the only musical
reason for using/(not using) the "wrong" key signature would involve some
sort of veiled hint, which if really important would be better not left to
chance
but handled by explicit convention or notation. The only real issue I can
imagine is if there are instruments which are conventionally adjusted by
the key signature, but in any cases of this kind (e. g. guitars) there is
often an explicit notation.
The fact that your example uses minor keys raises the possibility that the
ascending and descending notes in the scale might be different, and that
Brahms might have been observing a convention which I am unaware of
(and obviously not likely ot be impressed by).
Let's turn it around and ask whether you can hear, in a performance of
this
trio, _which way the 8 bars were notated?_ If not, then what's the point?
--Noam D. Elkies (elk...@math.harvard.edu)
Dept. of Mathematics, Harvard University
(P.S. The consistent misspelling "signiature" is surely a relic of
some other language -- in which language is the word spelled thus?)
It _is_ obsolete (therefore wrong), but whenever I write it I always
decide that
the other spelling is the right one, and change it. Luckily, not too many
words
have this effect on me.
Andrew P. Mullhaupt
AMullhaupt
>In article <3j01np$a...@puma.rentec.com>, Andrew Mullhaupt wrote
>>In other words, there is no musical importance to any aspect of music
which
>>is not part of the listening experience. If you can't _hear_ the
difference-
>>that is to say if you cannot tell by listening _alone_ some aspect of
the
>>music, then that aspect has no musical importance.
> No. Aspects which the *performer* must deal with are also of musical
> importance.
If I can't hear them, then they are of no musical importance. The process
by which the performer attains his understanding of the performance is
so complicated it probably can't be usefully explained. If you consider
what
the difference is when Oscar Peterson uses Ray Brown or Nils Henning
Orsted-Pedersen, you may never get a handle on how Oscar plays the
same piece. There _was_ notated music on the stands for John Gilmore
when he played with Sun-Ra (I saw it with my own eyes), but I hesitate to
speculate on what it's function was...
Shall we take Satie at his word and play "amazingly", or "painfully", or
"like
a nightingale with a toothache"? It's _in the notation_ so it must concern
the
performer...
So here is a change of notation used as an expedient, not as a creative
tool.
Andrew P. Mullhaupt
Matthew H. Fields
Two notes....
1) if you're going to change key signature for convenience, notational
convention is to do so as early as "possible", i.e. subsuming a lot of
notes that will initially be heard as part of the old key, but don't
require accidentals in the new key, and typically can be reinterpretted
in the new key after the fact. This "as-early-as-possible" convention
extends back at least to the hexachord solfeges of early medieval times,
in which a change of hexachord was needed to reach a new register.
2) Notation obviously represents "equivalence classes" of possible
performances. How could it do otherwise? The role of the composer is,
after all, to solve certain problems ahead of time for the performer...
other problems they'll have to solve by improvisation. If as a composer
you want more control, use technology and skip the other performers.
Alex / Brain21
:You>Luigi Smythe (Luigi.Smythe%v...@theorem.com) wrote:
:You>: FI>Between 3/4 and 6/8 subtle?
:You>: FI>3/4 is a 3 beat time, 2 pulses per beat.
:You>: FI>6/8 is a 2 beat time, 3 pulses per beat.
:You>6/8 : primary beat, tick, tick, secondary beat, tick, tick.
:You>3/4 : beat, tick, tick. beat, tick, tick.
I agree mostly. This is the way I look at it (my band does a LOT of odd
meter stuff, so while this may not be the CORRECT way to look at it, I
think that it is the most comprehensible and natural way);
IF you are speaking from a metronome's point of view, they are the same
really, just more clicks. However, 6/8 has a more accellerated feel to
it. The accents are a little different, so it has a different feel to it
in general. Also, stuff in 6/8 tends to be a little more complex than
3/4. Because there are more beats/measure, there is more room to put
stuff in there, from a psychological point of view (does this make any
sense to you?). BTW, someone said something about 6/8 being
indistinguishable from something being played in triplets. Uh, uh.
Triplets agaqin have a different feel, in the real world. Maybe on a
computer, but there is a reason that so many software packages have
rhythm quantizing (SP?), to make it sound more human. Triplets have more
of a swing feel, and that is, to me, a *significant* difference.
--
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Alex / Brain21
:You>True, but what Andrew (I think) and I (I know) meant as a "musical
:You>difference" was an *audible* difference, based on the philosophy that
:You>music is what you hear. Thus, if it makes no difference to the listener,
:You>it is not a musical difference. (You could argue that music that is more
:You>difficult to read will be performed less often and/or more poorly, which
:You>would make a difference to the listener...)
But you are not taking the listener into account. What I mean is that if
you take 2 blues singers playing the same song, and their voices sound
the same, etc. *you* may not hear the difference, but I will. Along the
same lines, if you have two different orchestras plating the same piece
of music, I may not be able to tell the difference, but someoppne else
may. This is not written down, and it does not make much difference to
the listener, but the differences ARE there. Someone can hear it.
:You>I was thinking of all sorts of things - from flinging ink at score
paper
:You>and attaching stems to the dots, to using illustrations and texts as
:You>alternative notation to be interpreted by the musician - resulting in
Very interesting...
AFC PeterS
> > True, but what Andrew (I think) and I (I know) meant as a
> > "musical difference" was an *audible* difference, based on
> > the philosophy that music is what you hear. Thus, if it makes
> > no difference to the listener, it is not a musical
> > difference. (You could argue that music that is more
> > difficult to read will be performed less often and/or more
> > poorly, which would make a difference to the listener...)
>
> But you are not taking the listener into account. What I mean
> is that if you take 2 blues singers playing the same song, and
> their voices sound the same, etc. *you* may not hear the
> difference, but I will. Along the same lines, if you have two
> different orchestras plating the same piece of music, I may
> not be able to tell the difference, but someone else may.
> This is not written down, and it does not make much difference
> to the listener, but the differences ARE there. Someone can
> hear it.
Um, how am I not taking this into account? I was talking about differences
in notation, not differences in performance. As I said, "If it makes no
difference to the listener..." You respond with, "but if someone hears it,
it makes a difference," to which I can only say, "duh." That's exactly
what I said, in so many words.
Peter Stoller
Luigi Smythe
SA>: FI>3/4 is a 3 beat time, 2 pulses per beat.
SA>: FI>6/8 is a 2 beat time, 3 pulses per beat.
SA>: FI>Some wise guys write in 2/4 with constant triplets at the pulse level,
SA>: FI>which is aurally indistinguishable from 6/8.
SA>: So are two quick 3/4 measures, which is probably what was being referred
SA>: to originally.
SA>That's only true for computer music. In real music there is a difference
Computer music? Why do you say that? Music made on a computer is no
different from any other kind of music (except that the rest wasn't made
on a computer).
SA>between 3/4 and 6/8. 3/4 is a true waltz measure while 6/8 is a march
SA>measure. 6/8 in a lively tempo is counted as 2 beats. left, right :)
SA>A quick 3/4 is a one beat movement. Or:
I know, but the common uses for a time signature have nothing to do with
what it sounds like. Sousa's "Semper Fidelis" could have been written
in 3/4 with twice as many measures and sounded exactly the same, and
been no harder to play. Conversely, the Blue Danube could have been in
6/8 with the same result, although it may have been a bit yuckier for
the musicians to look at.
SA>6/8 : primary beat, tick, tick, secondary beat, tick, tick.
SA>3/4 : beat, tick, tick. beat, tick, tick.
You'll notice that the only difference between those two is the
replacement of a comma with a period and the addition of "primary" and
"secondary" before the beats. Neither of those changes has any effect
on how they sound.
Bill Vanek
"Perfect Pitch Super Course". Does anyone know anything about this? Does
it work? Is it a scam? Is this the right newsgroup for this question?
If this isn't the right place for this question (or even if it is), any
recommendations on where else to post?
Thanks.
R.Shay,HOU281 3103,CTN-596-2485,
Matthew H. Fields
>different from any other kind of music (except that the rest wasn't made
>on a computer).
Notation has no innate connotations to a machine unless you program
them in.
>SA>6/8 : primary beat, tick, tick, secondary beat, tick, tick.
>SA>3/4 : beat, tick, tick. beat, tick, tick.
>
>You'll notice that the only difference between those two is the
>replacement of a comma with a period and the addition of "primary" and
>"secondary" before the beats. Neither of those changes has any effect
>on how they sound.
6/8 is a measure with two beats, each divided into 3 pulses.
3/4 is a measure with 3 beats, each divided into 2 pulses.
If you're dancing classical dances, you will typically align a step
with a beat. In 3/4, you'd probably alternate long and short steps
(e.g. in the waltz) or short-long (e.g. in sarabandes), but in 6/8
you'd take two steps equally spaced per measure. When folks were
developing the dialect of fraction we now call time signature, they
apparently didn't like (2 *(1.5)/4). In the 1970's some composers
(e.g. Crumb) experimented with using the absolute number of beats as
the numerator, and the actual note (e.g. a dotted quarter note) as the
denominator. This led to confusion because players thought they
should play the pitch that that note happened to land on. The
composers responded by putting the entire glyph in parentheses to try
to set it off from the music. The problem became especially acute
when the pulse was quintuple: composers wished to use e.g. a numerator
of 3 and a denominator of a quarter note tied to a sixteenth
(i.e. 15/16). Eventually, folks realized that by using conventional
time signatures, while going back to the old conventions of beaming
the beat, marking accents where needed, etc., using tuplets carefully,
and writing verbal instructions ("in 3 beats", which would help a
marking of 15/16 that might otherwise be interpreted as 5 beats of 3
pulses each), they could save a lot of rehearsal time concentrating
on making music instead of decoding notation.
There is no a-priori reason to group 3/4 measures into
groups of 2; classical composers like Mozart and Haydn were notorious
for using groupings of 3, and especially for setting up the expectation
of regular groups of 2 and 4 measures, and then dashing those expectations
with prolonged groups of 5, 7, 11 measures, etc. so at least in classical
music fast 3/4 would not replace 6/8.
Good players can be expected to convey different stress patterns for
3/4 and 6/8 when the tempi are comparable. This affects the sound.
I hope that clarifies the problem.