Randolph Peters wrote:
It's been my experience that conductors do not like long measures
of slow tempo.
John Howell wrote:
OH? conductors do what is necessary to serve the music. I can't
imagine what such a generalization could have grown out of.
I'm talking about MY real world experience here. Of course a
conductor is going to try and serve the music and do what is
necessary. When you get outside of academia, you'll find that the
theory of what should be done is often at odds with what actually is
preferred. On this question, I've had conversations about it with the
current conductors of the Vancouver Symphony, the Canadian Opera
Company, Baltimore Symphony and the Winnipeg Symphony for starters.
When it comes to new music, they simply don't like conducting long
measures with many beats and slow tempos.
Making twice as many measures in 6/8 is better than longer measures
of 12/8 at 1/8 = 50 MM.
If the music is in 6, that's true. If it's in 12 it isn't. You
can't just manipulate the math without considering the music and its
natural phrasing. In fact the phrasing IS the music, not just one
dam note after another.
It was clear from the original post that the music didn't have a
pulse ("verrrrry slow and no beat is stressed") and therefore there
was no reason not to make smaller measures.
Even though it makes no difference mathematically, it helps with
the beating patterns and the score/part reading.
It makes a huge difference. Did you miss the day in elementary
school when they explained the placement of strong and weak beats in
a measure?
Did you miss the fact that we are talking about a new composition
here? That means it just might not fit the traditional pattern of
emphases. It just might not have any strong and weak beats. Oh yeah,
the original poster already said that.
A musician can discern much easier where you are with 6 beats
rather than 12. (I'm assuming that the 4 beats of three pulses does
not apply here.)
Huh? That's EXACTLY what applies in the question that was asked.
And a clear beat pattern that's subdivided cleanly is no problem at
all to follow. Random hand waving, sure, that's ALWAYS difficult to
follow, but it isn't good conducting, either.
Who is talking about random hand waving?
I'd even be tempted to go with mostly 4/4, use tuplets, and let the
music fall where it needs to go.
Sorry, not at the tempo specified. Now if all is going well I might
indeed lighten or even remove the subdivision pulses. Any sensitive
conductor who understands which level of pulse is most important
would do the same. And one of the worst habits music education
students can fall into is excessive subdivision, which just slows
the music down and makes it heavy.
When you are dealing with amorphous music, there are very good
reasons to notate it in a simple meter such as 4/4. The music cuts
across the bar lines and doesn't follow the strong/weak beat pattern,
but the steady meter keeps things easier to rehearse. The 4/4 is just
a way to keep the ensemble together and to know where you are in the
piece. Once you move into a different rhythmic conception, sure, use
the meters (or non-meters) that make the most sense musically.
In this particular case, I still would look at the option of writing
the moving 8ths as quarters (or half notes even) and putting it into
something like 4/4, but I would probably recommend better options if
I saw the actual score (or pre-score).
Sorry to react so negatively, Randolph, but that's really the way I
feel about it. Nothing personal.
We hear a lot on this list from engravers, arrangers, and performers.
And that's all good and useful information, especially to composers.
But composers have notational ideas and issues that need to be
considered as well.
There are many ways to notate rhythmically amorphous music and we've
seen plenty of successful and less successful examples over the past
hundred or so years. Those notations sometimes get in the way of
learning how to perform the music. On the other hand, sometimes a
strange or difficult notation is paramount to understanding and
performing the piece. Unless there is a strong reason to do
otherwise, for practical reasons I recommend notating it simply (and
only as simple or complex as it needs to be) and get over the fact
that it might conflict with what some of us learned in elementary
school.
-Randolph Peters
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