At 2:24 AM +0100 11/1/12, SN jef chippewa wrote: >i would not consider this "resource" to be >complete in any manner. and i would be ashamed >to work in a place teaching composition where >this is considered to be a useful resource... "to >standardize [the] composition department >preferences for notation."
What you may have missed is that a lot of their "rules" (and they very clearly state that these are not hard and fast rules and that there are other ways to do things) are intended to produce uniformity in scores submitted as Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations. And if you aren't familiar with academic BS, you might not be aware that there are ALWAYS hard and fast and often arbitrary and ridiculous "rules" for the submission of dissertations which will get them rejected if the rules are not followed, and that ALWAYS includes specifying margins, including additional margins on the left for binding. My older daughter just went through that with her dissertation at NYU. I thought they did a pretty good job of making all that clear. >john, they don't mention harmonics beyond the m3 >(15va+5th, 6th harmonic) at all. understandably: >they would have to use microtonally inflected >intervals then. oh, what's that? no mention of >quarter tones either? Harmonics, by definition, are ALWAYS notes found in the natural harmonic series. You can certainly play artificial (fingered) harmonics in quarter tones or any other intervals, but never natural (open string) harmonics. And string players, for the most part, aren't even aware of the M3 and m3 harmonics because they are VERY difficult for a string player to produce and take fantastic bow control. (And for that reason are recommended for practice in order to DEVELOP that bow control!) Anything above the m3 is for practical purposes impossible, at least on violin, because there simply isn't room for the fingers! They are easier on the larger stringed instruments with longer strings, of course, because that gives you more space to work in. But having spent entirely too much time trying to figure out what some orchestrator for a Broadway show actually wanted to hear, when some weird indication for playing a harmonic just doesn't make any sense, I'm quite happy to see what they've provided, and I suspect that others who are not string players will appreciate it, too. Sorry you don't feel that way. John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music School of Performing Arts & Cinema College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences 290 College Ave., Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[email protected]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "Machen Sie es, wie Sie wollen, machen Sie es nur schön." (Do it as you like, just make it beautiful!) --Johannes Brahms _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
