On 9 Feb 2006 at 14:43, dhbailey wrote: > Chuck Israels wrote: > [snip]> > > I could go on - talking about a string quartet player recently > > involved in performing some of my music, who said, "For us, it's all > > about the line", as an excuse for unsteady timing. For my music, > > the line loses too much of its meaning, if the rhythmic proportions > > are distorted. That's where I live. YMMV. > > I agree, Chuck -- after all, a line with no rhythmic stability is > simply meandering pitches, and that's not what you wrote.
I strongly agree on that, too. I think pitch is over-rated, to be honest -- it's the rhythm that gives most "lines" their identity and meaning, in terms of accent, rhythm and flow. My experience is that people who talk about "line" in that fashion simply don't understand the basics of rhythm and phrasing. They have a weird idea that evenness of notes and complete regularity of rhythm is what makes a good line, when it's precisely the opposite -- the well-chosen accent and highlight (dynamic or agogic) of some particular notes is what gives a gesture its shape and lifts it off the page. It's precisely why synthesized performances sound so poor. It's not so much the quality of the samples so much as it is the lack of rhythmic subtlety, especially in the standard patern of metrical accents. There's no "good notes" and "bad notes" to the computer -- they are all the same unless you instruct it otherwise. I am not certain if I can detect if Finale's Human Playback actually incorporates good metrical accent patterns, or if it accomplishes the more natural rhythmic sound by introducing variation of accent (somewhat randomly instead of consistent with fixed metrical patterns). > Next time tell him to get his rhythms more accurate or you'll take a > pair of drumsticks and help him by beating the rhythm for him on the > bout of his precious instrument! ;-) There's also the issue of finding the time *between* phrases. I work with one musician who's quite gifted, but he seems to have no ability to have any "out of time" phrasing. He can "turn the knob" (if you'll pardon the expression!) on his internal metronome and put in subtle rubato and ritards and accelerandos, but he can't seem to naturally add space to set off phrases from each other. Partly I think he thinks of this process as adding space after the ends of phrases, instead of as placing the next beat in exactly the right place after the previous phrase. This is something that seems to me can't be taught -- you've either got it or you haven't, you can either feel it or you can't. I've always suspected that too much playing with a metronome is to blame for this syndrome. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
