At 8:50 PM -0500 3/3/07, David W. Fenton wrote:
How do you resolve those things without endless rehearsal? What if two players have the same passage but interpret the notation slightly differently? Or in contradictory ways?
"Interpret the notation" is the key here. We in early music have to relearn how to interpret it, just as you say. When I edit renaissance vocal music I often get rid of the bar lines, and sometimes the time signature as well, because the original didn't have them and even small strokes or mensurstriche overwhelm the eye and imply meter that goes against the music. Similarly jazz players interpret notations differently from classical players, as we all know. Take just the very common 8th, quarter, 8th syncopation. A classical player will instinctively stress the quarter, jazz musicians will instinctively stress the 8ths and unstress the quarter. In viol consort music I would see a 3/8 triplet superimposed on the tactus.
And while it's quite true that jazz originally was based on a steady meter and a steady beat, over which a soloist could play with enormously more rhythmic freedom than any classical player, latter-day jazz ("jazz as art music") has gone miles further and is often as incomprehensible to me as serial compositions. (Depending on the skill of the writer, of course.)
I'll take Telemann any day!! But yes, this discussion IS talking past one another because the writers come from different musical worlds. In jazz it's quite acceptable to interpret the notation in contradictory ways, but since the players are operating within "their" style they are no more likely to misinterpret the notation than would baroque players playing within THEIR styles. (Of course I don't write as a jazzer because I aren't one! But I've worked with some great ones.)
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
