On 17 Mar 2010 at 11:46, Chuck Israels wrote: > On Mar 17, 2010, at 11:22 AM, David W. Fenton wrote: > > > (the amount of bow used for each note -- for instance, in a > > quarter / two eighths passage, theoretically, the quarter note would > > use twice as much bow as each of the 8ths, though it actually is more > > logarithmic, and the quarter uses roughly 4 times the bow (or more) > > as the 8ths). > > Many good points by made by Darcy and David. It is indeed impossible > to teach swing nuances to those who don't hear and digest them. About > the portion of David's points quoted above: fast notes are perceived > as louder than slow (longer values) ones, - so, proportionally, more > bow is needed. At least that is my experience.
I assume you mean that the longer notes need more bow to get the same perceived dynamic level. That's one of the elements, but there's also a very pragmatic one. If you use the same amount of bow for a quarter note as for a half note, the quarter note will be MUCH louder than the half note (more bow in the same time period increases the amplitude of the vibrations, i.e., it's louder). If you use the same bow *speed*, you'll use less bow for the shorter note, since it will travel have as far in half the time. One has to plan all these things in your bowing so you don't end up at the tip of the bow or at the frog, with no bow left to play the upcoming notes (leaving out the compensating bow stroke, of course). For the experienced player, these things are second nature. For the player who has never been taught them, some of it likely comes naturally (the mechanics force you to do some of it), but it's not going to be subtle, and it's going to result in some notes sticking out that shouldn't. Swing and inegal put another layer of bow control on top of what's necessary just to play the right rhythms and dynamic levels. And none of that is even discussing how you shorten notes (e.g., staccato), whether you stop the bow to stop the note, or whether you taper the note sufficiently to make it sound detached without actually stopping the bow (and all the gradations combining varying degrees of those possibilities), all of which has a lot to do with perceived weight/duration. All of this has to be learned to the point that it is second nature (just like good intonation, which has to be physically second nature - - a "good ear" doesn't cut it except in learning how to be mechanically reliable and in adjusting to tuning flux in the ensemble, e.g., lowering the thirds of chords, making 5ths pure, etc.). This is not something you can layer on mechanically after having the mechanism explained to you! My judgment of modern string players is that in general they are taught rather crude bowing principles (and good string players go way beyond the simple rules to make very subtle variations that are outside what's taught in the crude rules), and some percentage of players never quite get beyond those simple rules, unfortunately. If all they know are those crude rules, you're never going to get them to swing (whether in jazz or French Baroque) -- they simply don't have the technical subtlety necessary to execute it (even when they can perceive it). I don't know if things are worse today than they used to be, but I can say that a lot of older recordings and recordings of performers who were trained in the early 20th century are much more subtle in their bowing (while also less "accurate" in pitch/rhythm) than more recently-trained players. It also seems to me that there's something of a separate playing style taught for orchestral playing, but I'm really stretching on that one (and betraying my prejudices, many of which perhaps developed because I've never worked directly with high- level orchestras), and that style seems to me to reflect a certain attitude among string players that orchestral playing is an inferior form of music-making in comparison to solo playing and chamber music. Add in the disdain that a lot of pro-level string players have for musicology and early music and you end up with a pretty dismal standard of playing. But I'm digressing here. Sturgeon's Law surely applies everywhere... -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
