Stewart McCoy wrote: > In theory, it is, I suppose, as possible > for music to speed up over the years, as to slow down.
It's certainly possible, though I don't think anyone here has suggested that this happened much. > However, the > fact is that the tempo of musical genres in the 16th, 17th, and 18th > centuries tended to slow down. Let's keep in mind that this is not so much fact as surmise from the notes on the page. There's a dearth of composers' directions like "play this slower than you would have played a courante 30 years ago." > I can't > think off hand of music from that period where the opposite is the > case, and the tempo of a particular genre of music has gradually > accelerated. Not that I disagree with your general point, except in the absolute manner of your expressing it, but my impression is that the minuet accelerated in the late 18th century, cf Beethoven's first symphony, for which a the title "minuet" would have misled the players had there not already been a tradition of rapid symphonic minuets. > > One may offer any number of explanations for the phenomenon I > describe. My own view is that the slowing down process is a result > of musicians and dancers elaborating more and more. I'm afraid I > don't think it has anything to do with their clothing. I, too, am afraid you don't think so. Our fears could be alleviated if you tried to imagine hip-hop dancing in hoop skirts. As an opera director staging an early opera once explained to me, if you want to know how people moved, you have to know about their underwear. Guy Smith wrote: > The galliard is a difficult dance to slow down, given that you are in > the > air for a portion of each sequence of steps. A slow galliard actually > requires more strength and skill than a fast one, since the dancer > needs to > be a very good jumper to remain in the air long enough to stay on the > beat. But there's no reason to assume that if the time taken up by the step increases, that increase is taken up by the time in the air. Much of the galliard is spent with both feet on the ground, and if the tempo slows, it's not a big deal to spend the extra .13 second, or whatever, on the balls of your feet, rather than jumping higher so as to stay in the air longer. I've just been galliarding around the house, demonstrating the point. Must have been a pretty amusing sight. Anyway, I've never subscribed much to the NBA theory of the galliard. HP To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
