On Sun, 21 Jul 2002 17:09:00 -0400 Bruce Olson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Mode distribution: Highest 31 modes (of 179) of the 6601 tunes >stressed coded in file Comcode.TXT on my website. <then follows a table> This table is wonderful! Thank you. I've been wanting something like this. It give some sort of non-speculative basis to discussions of keys and modes. Bruce wrote, in passing, that if abc eliminates key+mode in K:, >we can cut out ambiguity in >notation and put it into interpretation where it belongs. It seems to me that as long as abc uses any kind of key signature (with sharps or flats), the chief ambiguity remains. That is, when we write "K:Amix", we're saying, equivalently, "This scale has a key-note (tonic) of A and has two sharps, ^f and ^c." Replacing this with something like "K:^f^c" just eliminates information about the key-note. But, the central problem of "ambiguity" that Bruce's table brings to the fore is _not_ really what the key-note is. The problematic ambiguity has to do with gapped scales and with scales that depart from the "Greek" scales in having extra sharped or flattened notes. Here, even with a K: field that _only_ has sharps and flats, "interpretive" decisions have to be made. Will major-scale tune with some flatted sevenths be transcribed with the flatted seventh as part of the key signature, or with the flatted sevenths indicated as accidentals within the body of the tune? This is equivalent to asking whether to use an ionian key signature or a mixolydian key signature. The only difference in the key+mode system is that it permits an explicit key-note. With gapped scales: Will a tune with a missing seventh be called ionian or mixolydian in the key+mode system? But, the analogous problem arises with a mode-free key signature. Will I transcribe a major-scale tune with key-note G and a missing seventh as having one sharp or no sharps in the key signature? [Digression: I've been talking above about abc notation, not necessarily about programs which convert abc to staff notation. The fact that classical staff notation cannot indicate the key-note directly raises some slightly different issues. In abc, you can write K:Dmix or K:Gmaj K:Em. Consider classically trained amateur musicians playing a traditional tune from staff notation. They are used to associating each key signature with one of two key-notes. A tune written with one sharp either has a key-note G (a G major tune) or a key-note E (a E minor tune.) These players do not expect to see a tune with the key-note D written with one sharp; they'll think such a tune must be either G or Em. (This happened just last Thursday at a jam session here.) For such musicians, it might be well not to fight what they're used to. A display program might therefore permit you to choose to display K:Dmix as having a two-sharp key signature and c-natural as an accidental. Alternatively, the display program might use one sharp but print "D mixolydian" above the key signature (as Brody does in Fiddler's Fakebook, for example.) For the display of gapped scales, likewise, a printout for a classically trained musician would certainly want to pick the key signature corresponding to the key note. So, in a D ionian/mixolydian with no seventh, the display ought definitely to have a two-sharp key signature, I would think.] The larger point is this: Music notation is primarily something that is used by particular musicians with particular backgrounds in particular contexts. The decisions about notation need to be made on usability grounds as well as on music-theoretical grounds. As a result, reserach into what is the "best" notation needs to be as much anthropological as music-theoretical. Robert Bley-Vroman To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
