What is redundant to me (and we've discussed this before) is smfz, or the notorious smezzoforzando. I feel that because such a character looks like a dynamic (but is in reality an accent -- in other words fz in a p environment is quite different from fz in an mf or f environment so it's either an articulation or an accent -- I go for accent), that it gets used meaninglessly in such cases (same with fp). I figure if we ever agree on this point and I lose, I'll write a piece with a repeat and include a note that the first time got an smfpffsmfzppff and the second time around it just got an mf, just to indulge my dadaist sense of humour.
mf is meaningless if you only have two levels in your piece (i.e. mf and f -- use f and p and you'll get it across just as well). If you have three levels, f, mf and p are fine. And so on and so forth.
Keef.
At 3:00 PM +0000 3/13/04, Colin Broom wrote:
I've spoken to a number of musicians recently, including a noted orchestral conductor, and several composers who all seem to feel that the dynamic 'mezzo piano' is basically a meaningless dynamic, and they think it should never be used. I've even heard one go as far as to say that the same is true of 'mf' as well. I personally don't agree with this at all, and for me there is a clear distinction between p, mp and mf, but I was wondering how widespread this feeling about mp is, and how folk on the list feel about it? And if it's redundant, then why is it redundant?
C.
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