Thanks for all the advise. I think I will just use the 3/4, 4/5, etc.
time and beam and use slurs and accents to get the rhythmic sense of the
melody.
I am the one that wanted to transcribe it. It was performed on piano on
my graduate recital by an incredible pianist and composer and her
comment after the performance was "It isn't very pianistic" so I thought
perhaps it would work for band. As I get more into it I think I disagree
and I am not sure how it will work. I might abandon it. I did finish the
slow movement and it is easy. I'll bet your community bands could play
it. I knew before I started that the first and last movements would only
be appropriate for a college band or a semi-professional group.
I am wondering if any of you community band conductors would be
interested in playing an arrangement I did of a traditional folk song.
Email me if you are interested.
Thanks.
Jane
John Howell wrote:
I second David's comments completely, also writing from a community
band/community orchestra viewpoint. In fact, in the Holst David cites
he includes careful instructions where to beat 1 to a bar (in the
superimposed 3/4:6/8 sections) and where to go back to 2 to a bar
(everything else). Interestingly enough, Holst included the same
movement (not note for note, but VERY close) as the last movement of
his St. Paul's Suite for Strings, which we also played this fall, and
it has the same instructions.
Our band played the Holst under 2 different conductors this fall. Our
own conductor did not follow those instructions and beat 2 to a bar
throughout, while our guest conductor did change to follow the
instructions (as did a third conductor with our community string
orchestra). Both approaches worked fine, once the players understood
what was happening.
Jane: If I read your explanation properly, you are writing in such a
way that 1 bar still equals 1 bar, so your problem is with shifting
subdivisions within each bar, right? If I were writing anything
similar, I would probably ask that the large-scale beat remain
constant (as David suggests), and indicate the shifting note groupings
within each bar through beaming, slurring, possibly bracketing if
necessary, or perhaps even using articulations to define the
subgroupings. I would probably NOT use different time signatures
within a given bar. Would that work in your piece?
But David is completely correct. Few (if any) community bands will
attempt the more rhythmically-complex Stravinsky, let alone music with
overlapping or competing time signatures that lack a unifying
large-scale beat pattern. You have to understand that we have
community musicians who lack advanced training in complex music and do
their best at a Grade 3 difficulty level (and in our case we have
some--mostly retired engineers, I'm sad to admit--who simply can't
count rests properly!). In a collegiate wind ensemble restricted to
music majors or others equally competent, you might actually find some
whose musicianship is as high as the average 6th grader in a good
Kodály program in Hungary!!!
Just curious, but were you asked to transcribe your piece for band by
someone who believes that it will be playable and effective? If so,
you have a great conductor to work with!
John
At 4:21 AM -0500 11/26/08, dhbailey wrote:
Speaking as a conductor of a community band, I can tell you that if
you want more than a couple of collegiate ensembles to be interested
in your band transcription, don't have that sort of
multiple-time-signatures-at-once.
My band (and my conducting skills) have no problem with switching
between various meters as long as the relationship is clear to the
brain and the ear. So moving between 3/4, 4/4 and 5/4 is no
problem. Moving between various x/8 meters is no problem. Trying to
have some of the band play in x/8 while others are playing in x/4
simply won't work for any but the most advanced (read that as
military or collegiate/conservatory) ensembles. We can handle the
3/4 vs 6/8 of Holst's Fantasy on the Dargason (final movement of the
Second Suite in F for Military Band) but in that case one measure of
one meter equals one measure of the other meter so beat 1 always
lines up (intellectually and visually and aurally). Anything else
will be too complex for once-a-week-rehearsal groups to master.
Good luck!
David
Jane Frasier wrote:
No.
Here is the other challenge. I am transcribing my piano sonata
for band.
There are sections of this where the left hand is playing a waltz
type
pattern but switching from 3/4 to 5/4 to 4/4, etc. The melody in
the right
hand is written as 6/8, 10/8, 8/8 with various groups of 2 or 3
eighth
notes. I think this works ok for piano, but what will the
conductor do with
this? I think it should be one of the other but I am not sure
which meters
would be easier to conduct and follow.
Any ideas?
Jane
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
A Balkan folk-dance beat, perhaps? :)
ajr
I am using Finale 2008 on Mac, OS 10.5.5.
I want a time signature to say 8/8 but I want it beamed 3+3+2. I
created
a composite time signal of 3+3+2/8+8+8 and then a different time
signature 8/8 to display. When I put in the notes all the eighth notes
have separate stems -- no beams. I tried rebeaming according to time
signature and got the same result.
What am I missing?
Thanks so much.
Jane
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