On 19 Mar 2005 at 20:19, Ken Moore wrote: > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> David W. > Fenton writes: > > >On the other hand, notating it as a full measure with a rest would > >tend to obscure the "upbeatness" of the entire measure. > > Do you have a view on Elgar's "Cockaigne" overture, the first bar of > which starts with three quarter rests?
Don't know it. But it sounds like something designed for the performers (to get them to perform in a certain way) than for the listeners. It would all depend on how the beginning relates to what's done with the same material later on (assuming it returns). These kinds of things always seem to me to be the types of subjects over which self-style musical connoisseurs go orgasmic over, but which have little practical effect on the listener. Sometimes this kind of thing is put into a composition to fix some formal structure (e.g., the measure of rest in the fugue of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion & Celeste, put there in order to make sure everything comes out in the correct number of measures to conform to the Golden Section), things which often are not perceptible to a listener (consciously or unconsciously). Also, I think that sometimes these arguments about "upbeat" feeling bleed over into conversations about phrasing in general. We often use the word "upbeat" metaphorically (or at a "meta" level) to refer to measures or phrases within larger structures, and I think this tends to obscure what's a pretty basic and straightforward concept when applied at the beat level. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
