On Mar 3, 2007, at 5:10 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
Are jazz musicians *really* that completely inflexible?
I don't think so, and I don't think your definition of "flexibility" quite applies here. I believe that Darcy, in his usual thorough and clearly thought out style, has described quite nicely how jazz musicians read and understand rhythm, and the very fluidity of that style of understanding and playing mitigates against attempts to put more information in the time signatures than the "basic grid" indicates. I have rarely heard any other kind of music that begins to approach the level of subdivision sophistication in much of jazz. (That doesn't mean that there is none - some West African music ?? - I don't know what else - but most European music has a much smaller proportion of this quality.)
It is in the very nature of written language - all written language, that idiomatic context and the reader's experience in interpretation contain a great deal more information than we usually give credit for. And how musicians are used to seeing things is a much a condition of reading comfort for "classically" trained musicians as it is for jazz musicians. No one seems to like to see things written in unexpected ways.
I can speak for myself, and my own limitation here by giving this example: I, like most jazz musicians, am used to what I feel as the main pulse being written as either quarter notes or half notes. If I see Samba music written as Brazilians usually write it, in 2/4, with the 8th note as what seems to me to be a primary pulse, it is confusing for me to read. Of course, I am flexible enough to do it, but I am not used to it, and it takes me a while to read it well. Joe Schwantner (according to a story I have heard) writes his music in small note values in order to make it read a particular way (difficult for me). Damned if I understand that. I'd find his lovely music lots easier to read with a quarter note pulse instead of an 8th or 16th. Now I've gotten way off topic.
Sorry. Chuck Chuck Israels 230 North Garden Terrace Bellingham, WA 98225-5836 phone (360) 671-3402 fax (360) 676-6055 www.chuckisraels.com _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
