At 7:17 AM -0500 11/5/12, Christopher Smith wrote: > >While I agree with the premise that as >performers we treat our own marks a bit >differently than the published marks, I disagree >on the point in question. I am a brass player >and I see published breath marks notated as >commas just before rests all the time. We all >know what they mean, and none of us adds time to >the measure. We take it out of the length of the >last note. Furthermore, it would save rehearsal >time if we saw them more often. While some >consider that to be the kind of thing that gets >worked out at rehearsal (true enough) we always >appreciate it when those kind of things are >(correctly) marked.
Exact cutoff points ALWAYS have to be interpreted, in my experience both as a writer and as a player. If a phrase ends with a full-bar whole note, should it cut off ON beat 4, at the very END of beat 4, or at the barline (which can be interpreted as on the next downbeat)? Tie that note to a cutoff note, and it still has to be interpreted. Should the cutoff note be held full value (thus delaying the cutoff to the NEXT beat)? Should it be played AS IF there were a staccato dot on it (which unfortunately can imply giving an unintended "bump")? Should the cutoff come right on the initial beat of the cutoff note? This is the scenario that could involve the use of a breath-mark comma. (In this case I personally tend to use a quarter note if I want full value, an 8th note if I want the cutoff on the beginning of the note, but neither is really an EXACT indication.) I'm not suggesting that this is a huge problem. Musicianship and a sense of phrase almost always provides the answer. When necessary, a conductor provides it. In really good chamber music discussion and a decision provides it (and probably leads to pencilled markings). And in fact this is only one of a great many ways in which our system of notation is simply a more-or-less outline or blueprint for producing sound, which is ALWAYS a matter of interpretation that depends heavily on knowledge of a given style and familiarity with the "tricks of the trade" that tell us how to interpret the dots in that style. And I suspect that for any given ensemble with any given conductor there is a consensus that has developed over time, and no one really stops to think about it. 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
