Christopher ... no, I certainly took no umbrage at your garbage
remark. I had never heard that story before and find it intriguing.
I love little Bio-snips about folks ... so thank you. What you had
to say in general, also makes sense. I certainly used all the typical
dynamic markings found in the expression tool, no matter what their
derivation.
Cheers,
Dean
On Sep 1, 2009, at 7:30 AM, Christopher Smith wrote:
Well, we've had this discussion before, and I generally come down
more strongly on the side of convention, for the very good reason
that it is convention, so everyone understands it immediately. If I
see "louden lots" it will take me a minute (or even a trip to the
computer to Google it) whereas I understand "molto crescendo"
immediately. This goes right down to the stylised fonts used for
time signatures and dynamics. I see and perform "mp" with that
funny serif font immediately without it even registering in my
brain, but it would take extra CPU cycles for me to process
"moderately softly", or even "mp" in Helvetica or "mezzo piano"
written out, for that matter.
I suppose I take exception to Grainger's "cheerful xenophobia", as
one writer put it, that is the motivator behind these unusual
markings. I understand that English is a bastard language (in the
best sense of the word!) and "Tempo" means something completely
different to musicians in English than the original meaning does to
Italians ("time", as I best understand it.) If English speaking
musicians start talking about "speed of the ground pulse" or some
other phrase using only words with Anglo-Saxon roots, it makes the
indication MORE difficult to understand, not less.
Now, I am not suggesting going through the works of Mahler and
changing all those florid German directions to Italian, nor even
changing Grainger's Anglo-Saxon indications to more conventional
ones. A composer chooses how he is going to communicate to his
musicians and hopefully chooses the best means that they will
understand, but it is not up to me to second-guess them. I will,
however, maintain that certain expressions in Italian (and French,
for strings) are the clearest and most easily understood ones for
modern English-speaking composers and musicians, like me.
Christopher
P.S., Dean, I hope you understood the garbage reference. I didn't
mean you, I meant that Grainger put on his best clothes when he
went looking for pieces of cast-off junk for his projects, so he
wouldn't be arrested for vagrancy. It was almost the only time he
dressed up, which seemed a bit strange to me.
On Sep 1, 2009, at 9:24 AM, Frank Prain wrote:
Not so much scrounging garbage, rather recycling your bath-towels.
Seriously though, what's wrong with "louden lots"? I've always found
Grainger's directions quite clear, if unconventional.
2009/9/1 Christopher Smith <[email protected]>
On Sep 1, 2009, at 12:19 AM, Dean M. Estabrook wrote:
FWIW, I've long been a proponent of (as an American composer)
using
directions in English as much as possible. If it's been good
enough for the
Italians, French, and Germans ... why not us? Let them come to
us for a
change ... eh, it's just the curmudgeon bubbling to the
surface ... I
turned 69 this year ..
Dean
Careful, if you bring that just a little farther, you will end up
like
Percy Grainger with his "louden lots" for molto crescendo and
"foursome"
instead of quartet. You might also end up scrounging in people's
garbage in
your best clothes, but I don't think that has anything to do with
his ideas
on language... 8-)
Christopher
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Canto ergo sum
And,
I'd rather be composing than decomposing
Dean M. Estabrook
http://deanestabrook.googlepages.com/home
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