Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Am 08.07.2005 um 08:57 schrieb Andrew Stiller: the still-small set of musicians who can play a quintuplet accurately in the first place. You can't be serious. Chopin requires them! I understand the point he's trying to make. Accurate execution of a quintuplet is rather tricky. Chopin may require them, but performers rarely play five notes of equal length. But performers rarely play five notes of equal length in 5/4. Heck, we rarely play four notes of equal length in 4/4. A simple check using hyperscribe will show any of us that. The point, however, I don't think is absolutely accurate execution of any rhythmic pattern. I think the point is what we hear. If we can distinguish the written rhythm simply by hearing it. (Or at least understand the concept of the rhythm, even if another might notate it differently). -- girls have cooties ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On Jul 8, 2005, at 5:50 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: And my bet is that Chopin didn't play his quintuplets with all 5 notes having exactly the same length. That is in contrast to what I understand many of today's composers to be asking for. No, he didn't want them equal. But he didn't want them randomly inaccurate either. To play Chopin's quintuplets musically, you first have to be able to play them precisely, and then have sufficient control to distort them in a desired direction by a desired amount according to your interpretation. The task is thus *more* difficult than a strict quintuplet would be. Rhythms at this level of complexity appear in a large body of music from the late 14th-early 15th centuries. Should these be ignored? . . . music that we have no idea if it was actually performed or not, and music that if it was actually performed, we have no idea how those rhythmic complexities were actually realized -- literally or according to some kind of oral tradition. I don't think any serious scholar today doubts that the ars subtilior repertoire was meant for performance and was in fact performed. There is certainly no evidence to the contrary, save for the complexity of the rhythms themselves. Since the music is performable today (as numerous recordings attest), there is absolutely no reason to doubt that it was performable 600 years ago. The same goes for any purely hypothetical oral tradition. The evidence we have is in the notes, and in commentaries from the time, and neither suggest anything other than that the music was meant to be played, and to be played as written. I might add that the musical results when these works are performed support the viability of such a conclusion. Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 8 Jul 2005 at 21:18, Christopher Smith wrote: > On Jul 8, 2005, at 5:24 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: > > > On 8 Jul 2005 at 10:21, Christopher Smith wrote: > > > >> My trick was (for 4 sixteenths, a quintuplet, and a quarter note) > >> to say out loud "TEE-ry tee-ry MATH-e-ma-ti-cal TAH." My nine year > >> old can do it (I tested it out on him.) > > > > Hmm. You pronounce "mathematical" differently than I do. My rhythm > > for it is 8th 8th 16th 16th 8th, with "ma-ti" being a subdivision of > > the length of the other syllables. In other words, four feet. > > Canadian. I have no other explanation. > > This came up a while ago, and some regions drop the "e", making it > four syllables, not unlike the beginning of a Viennese waltz QEEQ. I pronounce all the syllables, just in a different rhythm than you. The rhythm of English is foot-based, and that's why it comes out that way. Of course, that contrasts with Italian, which is *not* foot- based. > > Yes, I can distort the pronunciation to be a quintuplet. > > Try this one from an older musician than I am: for quintuplets say > "Lollobrigida." For septuplets, say "Gina Lollobrigida." Hey, works > for me! Well, if you don't mind the implied accent pattern of GIna LOLloBRIgida, it seems OK to me -- because it's Italian, the lengths of the syllables all come out the same, but there's very marked strong/weak patterning there. I think it's better to learn these things without resort to imperfect analogs like this. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On Jul 8, 2005, at 5:24 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 8 Jul 2005 at 10:21, Christopher Smith wrote: My trick was (for 4 sixteenths, a quintuplet, and a quarter note) to say out loud "TEE-ry tee-ry MATH-e-ma-ti-cal TAH." My nine year old can do it (I tested it out on him.) Hmm. You pronounce "mathematical" differently than I do. My rhythm for it is 8th 8th 16th 16th 8th, with "ma-ti" being a subdivision of the length of the other syllables. In other words, four feet. Canadian. I have no other explanation. This came up a while ago, and some regions drop the "e", making it four syllables, not unlike the beginning of a Viennese waltz QEEQ. Yes, I can distort the pronunciation to be a quintuplet. Try this one from an older musician than I am: for quintuplets say "Lollobrigida." For septuplets, say "Gina Lollobrigida." Hey, works for me! Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 8 Jul 2005 at 11:57, Andrew Stiller wrote: > On Jul 8, 2005, at 1:22 AM, Owain Sutton wrote: > >> the still-small set > >> of musicians who can play a quintuplet accurately in the first > >> place. > > You can't be serious. Chopin requires them! And my bet is that Chopin didn't play his quintuplets with all 5 notes having exactly the same length. That is in contrast to what I understand many of today's composers to be asking for. > >> I personally question the value of having such rhythms in music > >> when there's plenty of life left in the ones most people can > >> actually play, but hey, you write what you like, no problem with > >> me. > > Rhythms at this level of complexity appear in a large body of music > from the late 14th-early 15th centuries. Should these be ignored? . . . music that we have no idea if it was actually performed or not, and music that if it was actually performed, we have no idea how those rhythmic complexities were actually realized -- literally or according to some kind of oral tradition. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
James Bailey wrote: Am 08.07.2005 um 08:57 schrieb Andrew Stiller: the still-small set of musicians who can play a quintuplet accurately in the first place. You can't be serious. Chopin requires them! Yeah, but lots of people never play Chopin -- I don't recall him being a big composer for saxophone or trumpet. :-) -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 8 Jul 2005 at 10:21, Christopher Smith wrote: > My trick was (for 4 sixteenths, a quintuplet, and a quarter note) to > say out loud "TEE-ry tee-ry MATH-e-ma-ti-cal TAH." My nine year old > can do it (I tested it out on him.) Hmm. You pronounce "mathematical" differently than I do. My rhythm for it is 8th 8th 16th 16th 8th, with "ma-ti" being a subdivision of the length of the other syllables. In other words, four feet. Yes, I can distort the pronunciation to be a quintuplet. I don't see quintuplets as terribly difficult by themselves, falling within a regular meter. Scriabin wrote a prelude (op. 11, #14) in 15/8 (5+5+5/8) that uses the same texture and affect as Chopin's G Minor prelude (#22, in 6/8). I played it in college, and it really wasn't hard. But it had the quituplet beat as a given texture throughout, not switching back and forth between beats of 5/16ths and beats of some other subdivision. It's the switching about between subdivisions that I think is something that musicians generally don't do too well or too accurately. Yes, the finest musicians do, but most of us don't have the privilege of working with them, so we are, I think, fated to have such things realized only imperfectly. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Andrew Stiller wrote: Time for a reality check. There are other ways to notate such complex rhythmic proportions, some of them much more intuitive to play. Check out Ben Johnston's /Knocking Piece/, wh. was published in /Source/ #2 (1967) and recorded at least once. There are no meter signatures. A bold = sign thru the barline in each individual staff indicates that the preceding note value is maintained across the barline, so that for example when a bar of 5:4 eighths (5 eighths in the space of 4) is followed by a bar of four eighth notes with an = sign between the two bars, then the four eighth notes are to be played as if they were 4/5 of a quintuplet. Since the other player has something completely different and equally complex in the same bar, the presence of a meter signature would simply create confusion and visual clutter. If I'm understanding your description right, it wouldn't work with Ferneyhough's rhythms. Again quoting from the score that's become my standard refernce for this discussion ;) there's all sorts of situations where it's not possible to equate the last note of one bar with the first note of the nextfor example, a 3/20 bar containing a 7:6 tuplet, followed by a 16th-note in 5/8. And, even if the equals-sign system were to be possible, it would obscure what is important in Ferneyhough's metres, in that the pulse is shifting up and down in exact ratios, not that a new pulse emerges from subdivisions of the previous one. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Am 08.07.2005 um 08:57 schrieb Andrew Stiller: the still-small set of musicians who can play a quintuplet accurately in the first place. You can't be serious. Chopin requires them! I understand the point he's trying to make. Accurate execution of a quintuplet is rather tricky. Chopin may require them, but performers rarely play five notes of equal length. But performers rarely play five notes of equal length in 5/4. Heck, we rarely play four notes of equal length in 4/4. A simple check using hyperscribe will show any of us that. The point, however, I don't think is absolutely accurate execution of any rhythmic pattern. I think the point is what we hear. If we can distinguish the written rhythm simply by hearing it. (Or at least understand the concept of the rhythm, even if another might notate it differently). Sent via the WebMail system at cuisp.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On Jul 8, 2005, at 1:22 AM, Owain Sutton wrote: Neal Schermerhorn wrote: ...e 13 notes to the bar all equal to a quintuplet division of a quarter. Basically 2 sets of 5 sixteenths with a 5 under them, and 3 extra. Am I close? Spot on Time for a reality check. There are other ways to notate such complex rhythmic proportions, some of them much more intuitive to play. Check out Ben Johnston's Knocking Piece, wh. was published in Source #2 (1967) and recorded at least once. There are no meter signatures. A bold = sign thru the barline in each individual staff indicates that the preceding note value is maintained across the barline, so that for example when a bar of 5:4 eighths (5 eighths in the space of 4) is followed by a bar of four eighth notes with an = sign between the two bars, then the four eighth notes are to be played as if they were 4/5 of a quintuplet. Since the other player has something completely different and equally complex in the same bar, the presence of a meter signature would simply create confusion and visual clutter. As for the esthetic issues involved, Johnston is worth hearing: "If the rationally controlled shifting tempi are not mastered, the realization [tapping on a piano interior] will deteriorate into feigned vandalism. If the marathon ensemble cooperation and concentration required fail, the performance will be impossible to execute. A spirit of competitiveness between the performers will destroy the piece. The players must be friends; in quick alternation each must support the other." I have heard several live performances of this piece and found them thrilling. As for Ferneyhough, I've never heard anything of his that I would ever care to hear again. 'Nuff said. the still-small set of musicians who can play a quintuplet accurately in the first place. You can't be serious. Chopin requires them! I personally question the value of having such rhythms in music when there's plenty of life left in the ones most people can actually play, but hey, you write what you like, no problem with me. Rhythms at this level of complexity appear in a large body of music from the late 14th-early 15th centuries. Should these be ignored? Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
James E. Bailey wrote: Okay, so perhaps I'm dim, or simply not understanding, but would not a simple metric modulation of previous quarter=new dotted quarter in 5/8 effect the desired rhythm? Yes. But no such easy indication is possible for any metre beyond x/12 - and if there's changes of metre every bar, such indications would start to be the more cluttered & confusing way of showing such changes. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Am 07.07.2005 um 11:12 schrieb Christopher Smith: Let's say you were honking along happily in 4/4, mixing eighths, sixteenths, and eighth-note-triplets freely, as those young kids today are wont to do. Then suddenly, you just want 3 eighth notes in a bar. Great, a bar of 3/8 (or 1/Q. ) and there you go. A standard solution exists that everyone easily understands. But then later, you are playing some triplets which work out perfectly, but you ONLY NEED FIVE OF THEM, not six. If you needed 6, then a bar of 2/4 with triplets marked normally would be great. But if you want a new downbeat after you've only played FIVE eighth-note-triplets, then you're out of luck in standard metre systems. Then you would need a bar indicating 5 (or really 3+2) over whatever eighth-note triplets are in relation to a quarter note. Hey, we do the math, and you get 12 triplets in a whole, which makes them 1/12th notes. Okay, so perhaps I'm dim, or simply not understanding, but would not a simple metric modulation of previous quarter=new dotted quarter in 5/8 effect the desired rhythm? ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
At 5:39 PM -0400 7/7/05, Andrew Stiller wrote: In Broadcast Standard American, w and wh are pronounced identically, and the phoneme [hw] simply does not exist. I'm not sure whether you are referring to a reference book, or just to general practice. I do know that I grew up having been taught to differentiate between the two by a mother who besides being a fine theory teacher was an equally fine choral conductor, and I still draw the distinction between the two and so train my own choral ensembles. I might mention that in the early days of radio and the national networks, the networks turned to the west coast, from Washington State to California, to find announcers with neutral, non-dialectal pronunciation so as not to offend anyone. Quite a few of my parents' college buddies from the 1920s (at Washington State) ended up in broadcasting for that very reason. Even in British RP [hw] is not universal. Gilbert and Sullivan's "Never mind the why and wherefore" is almost unsingable if you insist on rendering the Hs, and I know of no recording in which that is done. Funny, I just tried it and had no problem. We all understand that the English language is constantly changing. This just happens to be a change I don't care for because it creates homonyms, and therefore potential confusion, where they needn't be, and no amount of appeal to authority will change that. John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On Jul 7, 2005, at 9:47 PM, Neal Schermerhorn wrote: Owain Sutton wrote: (7/10, 13/20) Why? It's easily playable, and it's something that cannot possibly be notated another way, unlike x/12. And, like it or not, it's found its way into mainstream notation and publication. I've never seen it. If I bought a piece of music and I saw 13/20 I would have no clue how to interpret it. My best guess would be 13 notes to the bar all equal to a quintuplet division of a quarter. Basically 2 sets of 5 sixteenths with a 5 under them, and 3 extra. Am I close? See? You got it first try! Seriously, the set of musicians who would even want to think about timing so hard to get that even close is small. Much smaller than the still-small set of musicians who can play a quintuplet accurately in the first place. Huh? I'm no wizard, but can certainly play quintuplets accurately, and have been able to so do since I was seventeen, when I first had to, and on trombone, yet (it took me about a week to be consistent, but it was easy from then on.) My trick was (for 4 sixteenths, a quintuplet, and a quarter note) to say out loud "TEE-ry tee-ry MATH-e-ma-ti-cal TAH." My nine year old can do it (I tested it out on him.) I personally question the value of having such rhythms in music when there's plenty of life left in the ones most people can actually play, but hey, you write what you like, no problem with me. Still, it sounds more like architecture or graphic design than composition to me... And I personally question waiting until every single combination of quarter notes is used before moving on to use some eighths, which is what you are saying. There are WAY wackier rhythms than the ones we are discussing in everyday music (try transcribing just about any R+B singer, for instance), so don't try pulling that "nobody can play these rhythms" routine. Sure, they are hard to read. But that's a problem with our notation system, which came about through monks trying to remember chants, and is badly set up for notating even moderately complex rhythms that just about anybody can learn easily by ear. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On Jul 7, 2005, at 6:00 PM, M. Perticone wrote: Christopher Smith wrote: and I would put a bracketed 3 tuplet over the first group, and the same over the second group (even though there are only TWO notes in it) for clarity. while i certainly agree with your post i think that tuplets are redundant here, as the /12 is meaning that already. i've used some fractionary time signatures like 2/3-over-quarter with an incomplete bracketed 3-tuplet, which is the same as 2/12. it worked really well. it took less than a minute to the performers to sort it out. it should be mentiones that those fractionary time signatures where in a context of pulse, all instruments playing staccato quarter notes. i've never tried with /12, though. marcelo Yes, after sending the message I realised I was being redundant with the tuplet brackets. Your solution with the fraction time signatures (suggested by Darcy as well) seems workable in this case, too. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Owain Sutton wrote: [snip] Why is it inapproptiate to give decimal-point metronome marks which will be ignored, but perfectly appropriate to state "Q=80" and see it equally ignored? (Although I'm not necessarily stating that this is the reason Ferneyhough uses these metronome markings.) Because a serious musician can set a metronome to 80 and at least try to make an attempt to follow that tempo, while nobody has a metronome that I've ever seen which will give a 69.75 tempo so nobody can even try to follow it, even if they want to. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
I think you'll find that "Q=80" only means anything to Americans. It means nothing in Europe. Lawrence "þaes ofereode - þisses swa maeg"http://lawrenceyates.co.ukDulcian Wind Quintet: http://dulcianwind.co.uk ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Neal Schermerhorn wrote: Owain Sutton wrote: (7/10, 13/20) Why? It's easily playable, and it's something that cannot possibly be notated another way, unlike x/12. And, like it or not, it's found its way into mainstream notation and publication. I've never seen it. If I bought a piece of music and I saw 13/20 I would have no clue how to interpret it. My best guess would be 13 notes to the bar all equal to a quintuplet division of a quarter. Basically 2 sets of 5 sixteenths with a 5 under them, and 3 extra. Am I close? Spot on Seriously, the set of musicians who would even want to think about timing so hard to get that even close is small. Sure it's small. Sure, writing complex music decreases the number of players able & willing to play it. If a composer is aware of this, should they not still be able to choose to write such music? Much smaller than the still-small set of musicians who can play a quintuplet accurately in the first place. That's a small group?! I personally question the value of having such rhythms in music when there's plenty of life left in the ones most people can actually play, but hey, you write what you like, no problem with me. What's the line from Schoenberg - something like "There's many good tunes still to be written in C major"? ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Owain Sutton wrote: > (7/10, 13/20) > Why? It's easily playable, and it's something that cannot possibly be > notated another way, unlike x/12. And, like it or not, it's found its > way into mainstream notation and publication. I've never seen it. If I bought a piece of music and I saw 13/20 I would have no clue how to interpret it. My best guess would be 13 notes to the bar all equal to a quintuplet division of a quarter. Basically 2 sets of 5 sixteenths with a 5 under them, and 3 extra. Am I close? Seriously, the set of musicians who would even want to think about timing so hard to get that even close is small. Much smaller than the still-small set of musicians who can play a quintuplet accurately in the first place. I personally question the value of having such rhythms in music when there's plenty of life left in the ones most people can actually play, but hey, you write what you like, no problem with me. Still, it sounds more like architecture or graphic design than composition to me... Neal Schermerhorn ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 8 Jul 2005 at 1:05, Owain Sutton wrote: > David W. Fenton wrote: > > On 8 Jul 2005 at 0:34, Owain Sutton wrote: > >>>Of course, I'm something of a heretic in the early music world for > >>>ignoring the relationships between meters there, too. I think it's > >>>better to take a precise relationship as a starting point, but then > >>>to adjust that for musical purposes. > >> > >>I'm with you here. And I think Ferneyhough would be, too. > > > > But that approach makes a mockery of 2-decimal-point precision. > > Why is it inapproptiate to give decimal-point metronome marks which > will be ignored, but perfectly appropriate to state "Q=80" and see it > equally ignored? (Although I'm not necessarily stating that this is > the reason Ferneyhough uses these metronome markings.) Well, I didn't say the markings would be ignored, only that they can only be imperfectly realized. Even Q=60 is going to be realized inaccurately, so the idea that one would specify decimal points for something that is not even going get a whole-number accuracy of realization is ridiculous. It's false accuracy. One could get whole-number accuracy for the metronome setting by specifying 16th=243, but that's equally absurd. Here's an example I once heard at a dissertation defense: The dissertation was a study of the instruments built by the piano maker Graf of Vienna. The person writing it took all sorts of measurements of parts of the actions of the instruments with a micrometer and included those measurements to some absurd number of decimal places. At the defense, she was asked these two questions: 1. did piano makers in Vienna at this time use instruments with micrometer-level accuracy? 2. isn't it possible that many of the wooden parts have shrunk by some unknown amount making such accuracy of measurement meaningless in terms of what it tells us about the original dimensions? 3. is the variation between identical parts within the same instrument greater than the precision of measurement you've indicated? The answer to the first question was NO, and the answer to second was that we have no real idea of exactly how much the parts have shrunken or not (though there are upper limits on that). The answer to the last question was YES. Adding decimal points does not improve accuracy in areas that can't be meaningfully measured at that level of accuracy. Another example: no one would give the distance from the Earth to the Sun in miles, feet and inches. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
> > I'm with you here. And I think Ferneyhough would be, too. > > But that approach makes a mockery of 2-decimal-point precision. Well, yeah. That's the point. Richard Yates ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
David W. Fenton wrote: On 8 Jul 2005 at 0:34, Owain Sutton wrote: David W. Fenton wrote: On 7 Jul 2005 at 23:36, Owain Sutton wrote: I think it's the rare performer who ever manages precisely what is indicated. Is that a valid argument for not indicating it at all? I don't think it is. It's not an argument against including metronome markings. It's an argument against false precision in defining those markings. Of course, I'm something of a heretic in the early music world for ignoring the relationships between meters there, too. I think it's better to take a precise relationship as a starting point, but then to adjust that for musical purposes. I'm with you here. And I think Ferneyhough would be, too. But that approach makes a mockery of 2-decimal-point precision. Why is it inapproptiate to give decimal-point metronome marks which will be ignored, but perfectly appropriate to state "Q=80" and see it equally ignored? (Although I'm not necessarily stating that this is the reason Ferneyhough uses these metronome markings.) ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 8 Jul 2005 at 0:34, Owain Sutton wrote: > David W. Fenton wrote: > > On 7 Jul 2005 at 23:36, Owain Sutton wrote: > > I think it's the rare performer who > > ever manages precisely what is indicated. > > > > Is that a valid argument for not indicating it at all? I don't think > it is. It's not an argument against including metronome markings. It's an argument against false precision in defining those markings. > > Of course, I'm something of a heretic in the early music world for > > ignoring the relationships between meters there, too. I think it's > > better to take a precise relationship as a starting point, but then > > to adjust that for musical purposes. > > I'm with you here. And I think Ferneyhough would be, too. But that approach makes a mockery of 2-decimal-point precision. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
David W. Fenton wrote: On 7 Jul 2005 at 23:36, Owain Sutton wrote: David W. Fenton wrote: I think the use of a note as denominator would eliminate all these problems. 6/8 would become 2/Q., and would also allow one to notate 6/E if one actually wanted it. I would love this system...but That makes far more sense than the absolutely idiotic 12/12. How would you replace 2/10, 7/24 etc? I don't know, since I have seen no satisfactory explanation of what the hell these mean. I'm something of a Luddite in believing that things like Ferneyhough's Q=60.75 are completely idiotic. First off, nobody can tell without a point of comparison whether a performance is exactly at that fractional metronome marking, and secondly, no performers without a metronome could possibly match such a precise tempo. The marking is at least partly tongue-in-cheek, because nobody *with* a metronome could identify the tempo! I'd also argue that not even the best performers could maintain such a tempo, especially in ensemble performance. Playing with a metronomic pulse drains all the music out of a performance, so nobody could possibly maintain such a precisely defined tempo, so I see no point in writing it out. This kind of thing is just complete gibberish, from my point of view, at least if the music is intended to be performed by human musicians. Ferneyhough doesn't want a metronomic or mechanical approach. I've heard him say so. I think it's the rare performer who ever manages precisely what is indicated. Is that a valid argument for not indicating it at all? I don't think it is. Of course, I'm something of a heretic in the early music world for ignoring the relationships between meters there, too. I think it's better to take a precise relationship as a starting point, but then to adjust that for musical purposes. I'm with you here. And I think Ferneyhough would be, too. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 7 Jul 2005 at 23:36, Owain Sutton wrote: > David W. Fenton wrote: > > > I think the use of a note as denominator would eliminate all these > > problems. 6/8 would become 2/Q., and would also allow one to notate > > 6/E if one actually wanted it. > > I would love this system...but > > > That makes far more sense than the absolutely idiotic 12/12. > > How would you replace 2/10, 7/24 etc? I don't know, since I have seen no satisfactory explanation of what the hell these mean. I'm something of a Luddite in believing that things like Ferneyhough's Q=60.75 are completely idiotic. First off, nobody can tell without a point of comparison whether a performance is exactly at that fractional metronome marking, and secondly, no performers without a metronome could possibly match such a precise tempo. I'd also argue that not even the best performers could maintain such a tempo, especially in ensemble performance. Playing with a metronomic pulse drains all the music out of a performance, so nobody could possibly maintain such a precisely defined tempo, so I see no point in writing it out. This kind of thing is just complete gibberish, from my point of view, at least if the music is intended to be performed by human musicians. I also think that all the discussions about meters that try to maintain precise relationships between one meter and another are also overly picky. While metric modulations can be a guide to understanding what is intended, I think it's the rare performer who ever manages precisely what is indicated. Of course, I'm something of a heretic in the early music world for ignoring the relationships between meters there, too. I think it's better to take a precise relationship as a starting point, but then to adjust that for musical purposes. Composers who want to impose non-musical, computer-style metronomically precise tempo flow on performers should be writing for computers instead of for human beings. But I have no strong opinions on the subject. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
David W. Fenton wrote: I think the use of a note as denominator would eliminate all these problems. 6/8 would become 2/Q., and would also allow one to notate 6/E if one actually wanted it. I would love this system...but That makes far more sense than the absolutely idiotic 12/12. How would you replace 2/10, 7/24 etc? ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: While I respect the opposing point of view, I am not convinced that 12/12 is required. I agree that 12/12 is unnecessary - for the same reason as 8/8 is hardly ever used. However, 7/12, 5/10 etc have a distinct function that cannot be substitued with a 'normal' notation PPS - If the use of an uncommon and confusing meter is an attempt to stretch artistically, I admire that. If however, it is merely someone's ego to write something that very few can perform, I think it is a sad waste of perfectly good manuscript (paper or software file) In the case of Ferneyhough (I keep on going back to him, because he's somebody that consistently uses the fluctuation of pulse offered by x/10 and x/12), he fully acknowledges that he writes music that will not be performed as often as music he could choose to write. I've also seen him severely criticise students for writing unnecessarily-complex music. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Gerald Berg wrote: As for 7/10 or 13/20 -- there's a fraction too far. Why? It's easily playable, and it's something that cannot possibly be notated another way, unlike x/12. And, like it or not, it's found its way into mainstream notation and publication. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
At 05:52 PM 7/7/05 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote: >Notation and musical style should be intimately linked. I agree with you in all respects, from early music to new music. And, in case I haven't mentioned it, I highly recommend the brand new "SoundVisions" by Moeller/Shim/Staebler. It's a worthy successor to the Cage "Notations" and the Karkoschka "Notation in New Music". ISBN 3-89727-272-5, available from Amazon.de (not .com, yet). 39 euros, plus shipping (about $65 total to the US). Dennis ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Christopher Smith wrote: and I would put a bracketed 3 tuplet over > the first group, and the same over the second group (even though there > are only TWO notes in it) for clarity. while i certainly agree with your post i think that tuplets are redundant here, as the /12 is meaning that already. i've used some fractionary time signatures like 2/3-over-quarter with an incomplete bracketed 3-tuplet, which is the same as 2/12. it worked really well. it took less than a minute to the performers to sort it out. it should be mentiones that those fractionary time signatures where in a context of pulse, all instruments playing staccato quarter notes. i've never tried with /12, though. marcelo > > > > There must be a good cause to write something that most accomplished > > musicians may have difficulty sight reading because of some obscure > > meter. > > > > Yes. One would only use it if it clarified the musical gesture. If I > could accomplish it with an ordinary metric modulation instead, I would > do it. > > But let's say again, in the same happily honking 4/4, that you are > constantly doing this odd-triplet thing, but at one point actually have > 4 pulses worth of triplets. Rather than switch back to 4/4 with tuplets > for one measure, I might be tempted to make that measure 12/12. "Might > be" is the operative word. 12/12 is not really in my vocabulary (12/8 > barely is!) and I would do my darndest to find a conventional solution > first. > > But that's how it would work. > > Christopher > > ___ > Finale mailing list > Finale@shsu.edu > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 7 Jul 2005 at 14:04, John Howell wrote: > But the > purpose of notation is, and always has been, communication. I simply > do not choose to learn or perform music that requires me to learn new > notation, unless the music itself is so great that the effort is worth > while. That's an odd standard. I'd think the better standard would be that the notational "irregularities" should be justified by the musical content that they are trying to convey. That is, notational innovation should be motivated by trying to notate something that traditional notation cannot successfully convey. And how one can make a determination about the "greatness" of music before learning it (at least at some level), I don't know. Notation and musical style should be intimately linked. It's one of the reasons I'm a big fan of attempting to perform certain early music repertories using original notation -- the older notation was quite often better able to convey the musical content than transcriptions of it into modern notation (the recent discussion of how barlines cause performers to treat non-aligned meters as syncopations was a perfect example; it was Dennis who mentioned it in regard to his own music, but it's equally applicable to all sorts of 16th- through 17th-century music). If the musical style is a new one (for the performer) that means it's the performer's job to learn the new notation. Dismissing the music out of hand just because the notation is non- conventional is missing the point. It's like saying there's no such thing as good poetry in Portuguese, simply on the basis of my inability to read/speak Portuguese. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On Jul 7, 2005, at 1:34 PM, Christopher Smith wrote: Next year, metric clocks! ...which you can see, BTW, on the walls in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 7 Jul 2005 at 13:08, John Howell wrote: > At 8:27 PM -0600 7/6/05, John Abram wrote: > > >On 6-Jul-05, at 5:19 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >>You're really splitting hairs here -- putting 3 evenly spaced notes > >>within one beat sounds like triplets to me, no matter how it's > >>represented in the time signature. > > > >Yes it sounds the same, like "witch" sounds like "which" and like 4/8 > >sounds like 4/16 and 4/4. > > Poor example, I'm afraid, and one that suggests you are not a singer. > "Which," "whoa," and other "wh" words like "where" properly start with > a phoneme produced by a puff of air blown through pursed lips. > "Witch," and "woe" and "ware" do not. The pronunciation is often > confused by young children, rap artists, and some speakers of > dialectal English. Fred Waring insisted that his singers pronounce > every sound (every phoneme) in every syllable and do so at the same > instant, to ensure that the words were clearly intelligible. See, I read that as part of his point -- that here is a superficial similarity between the pronunciation of the words that, when one examines the details of pronunciation, vanishes. I thought his analogy was that 6/8 is not really the same thing as 2/4 with triplets, when examined closely. And I'd agree that that, though I'd also agree that it can be *treated* that way. A perfect example of that is the last movement (starts on p. 38 (17:07 in the MIDI file)) of this incompletely formatted score of a piano quartet: http://www.dfenton.com/Midi/FoersterOp11_1.PDF http://www.dfenton.com/Midi/FoersterOp11_1.MID The relevant sections begin on pp. 44 (19:07), 60 (23:58) and 64 (24:24). Here, it's pretty clear that the composer chose 2/4 with triplets just because he didn't have any method for notating 4 16ths in the time of 3 8th notes in 6/8. But in many cases, the distinction between the two meters is a salient, however subtle it may be. Aren't subtleties like that what good musical performance is about? -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On Jul 7, 2005, at 1:08 PM, John Howell wrote: "Which," "whoa," and other "wh" words like "where" properly start with a phoneme produced by a puff of air blown through pursed lips. "Witch," and "woe" and "ware" do not. The pronunciation is often confused by young children, rap artists, and some speakers of dialectal English. In Broadcast Standard American, w and wh are pronounced identically, and the phoneme [hw] simply does not exist. Even in British RP [hw] is not universal. Gilbert and Sullivan's "Never mind the why and wherefore" is almost unsingable if you insist on rendering the Hs, and I know of no recording in which that is done. Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Owain Sutton wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> Thank you Owain for your response. >> >> If I understand your correction of "will" to "can" correctly, you >> agree that it can return an uncertain result. Okay, I can accept that. > > > Yep - and so can any notation ;) And I can agree with that statement as well, it's just more likely mis-interpreted with an obfuscated meter. Richard PS - When I performed briefly for Don Ellis, in the early 70's, we played some very odd meters, but I do not recall 12/12. I do recall 24/8 ("The Great Divide") While I respect the opposing point of view, I am not convinced that 12/12 is required. PPS - If the use of an uncommon and confusing meter is an attempt to stretch artistically, I admire that. If however, it is merely someone's ego to write something that very few can perform, I think it is a sad waste of perfectly good manuscript (paper or software file) ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Richard As Creston sez: It looks exactly the same but what it looks like is a 'transposition' in that a 1/6 note looks exactly like a 1 quarter note in a quarter note triplet. In 6/6 the tuplet bracket would still be applied. Either way this kind of rhythm will entail explication. The problem is that of dealing with 1/3 of one beat as in: 3/3 becoming either 4/3's or 2/3's of one beat of the base 4/4 pulse and still being able to revert to eight note fractioning subsequently (8/8 e.g.). 2/8 is 1/3 longer than 2/12 So that playing the time sig: 1/4] 2/8] 2/12] 1/4]2/8]2/12] playing rhythmic units: one quarter] 2 eights] 2 notes of eight note triplet] 1 q] etc. This is quite simple with the 2/12 but otherwise -- what? What would you like to see here. No matter what you do it is going to look messy but with 2/12 it is very clean. As for 7/10 or 13/20 -- there's a fraction too far. As a student I once wrote a compound tuplet that was a 56 over something (i can't remember) -- it was beautiful but hell if I could ever find out what it sounded like. Jerry On 7-Jul-05, at 4:05 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: A sincere thank you for the resposes to my question. My humble opinion still stands, that using an esoteric meter such as /12 will return an uncertain performance. Richard PS - What is the notation for a twelth note ? If an 8th is a single flag and a 16th is double flag, is a 12th note a flag and a half ? PPS - These are sincere questions, not sarcasm as they might seem in the printed word. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale Gerald Berg ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Owain Sutton wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thank you Owain for your response. If I understand your correction of "will" to "can" correctly, you agree that it can return an uncertain result. Okay, I can accept that. Yep - and so can any notation ;) Now there's no need to bring hemiolas into this discussion! :-) -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 7 Jul 2005 at 12:37, John Howell wrote: > Seems to me that talking about "beats" compounds (sorry!) the > confusion. Yes, 12/8 can indicate 4 "beats" per bar; that's sort of > the default interpretation. At a slower tempo, however, it can > indicate 12 "beats" per bar. I've conducted Bach slow movements that > required exactly that. And at a faster tempo it can indicate 2 > "beats" per bar. Young musicians have to learn that ALL time > signatures are variable. They may first encounter 6/8 in the context > of marches, 2 beats to a bar. And they will be confused the first > time they run into 6/8 with six beats to a bar, but that's just one > more variable in our notation that they have to master. Well, I disagree entirely with your point here. You're writing from the standpoint of a conductor -- yes, a conductor has to convey subdivisions in slow tempos, but that does not mean the beat has changed. A slow 12/8 may need 8th-note subdivisions beaten, but that is *not* the same thing as 12 beats to the bar. I also don't think there's such a thing as 6/8 in six, even at slow tempos -- not, at least, as a standard interpretation (who knows what composers have imposed on poor musicians by trying to use conventional notation to convey something at odds with its usual meaning). I think the use of a note as denominator would eliminate all these problems. 6/8 would become 2/Q., and would also allow one to notate 6/E if one actually wanted it. That makes far more sense than the absolutely idiotic 12/12. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On Jul 7, 2005, at 2:27 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote: On 07 Jul 2005, at 2:12 PM, Christopher Smith wrote: But then later, you are playing some triplets which work out perfectly, but you ONLY NEED FIVE OF THEM, not six. If you needed 6, then a bar of 2/4 with triplets marked normally would be great. But if you want a new downbeat after you've only played FIVE eighth-note-triplets, then you're out of luck in standard metre systems. Then you would need a bar indicating 5 (or really 3+2) over whatever eighth-note triplets are in relation to a quarter note. Hey, we do the math, and you get 12 triplets in a whole, which makes them 1/12th notes. So you mark 5/12, and put in three eighths beamed together followed by 2 eighths beamed together, and I would put a bracketed 3 tuplet over the first group, and the same over the second group (even though there are only TWO notes in it) for clarity. I'm really not sure that's clearer than a bar of 5/8 with a "quarter = dotted quarter" indication, which is what I would use in that situation. If you didn't want to change the note value in the "denominator" and you didn't want a metric modulation, you could use a fractional time sig: 1+2/3 - 4 Both of those solutions make more sense to me than "12th notes." And both would get mighty messy if you had more than a couple of them in the space of a phrase. As you said, in a normal, uncomplicated situation, an ordinary metric modulation would be best, and certainly what I would strive for. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thank you Owain for your response. If I understand your correction of "will" to "can" correctly, you agree that it can return an uncertain result. Okay, I can accept that. Yep - and so can any notation ;) ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Thank you Owain for your response. If I understand your correction of "will" to "can" correctly, you agree that it can return an uncertain result. Okay, I can accept that. Richard > > From: Owain Sutton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: 2005/07/07 Thu PM 04:17:50 EDT > To: finale@shsu.edu > Subject: Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12? > > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > A sincere thank you for the resposes to my question. > > > > My humble opinion still stands, that using an esoteric meter such as > > /12 will return an uncertain performance. > > > > *Can* result in it, not *will* result. > > > PS - What is the notation for a twelth note ? If an 8th is a single flag > > and a 16th is double flag, is a 12th note a flag and a half ? > > It's still quaver notation - http://www.owainsutton.co.uk/images/x-10.jpg > > ___ > Finale mailing list > Finale@shsu.edu > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
I'm with you, Richard. The Louisville Orchestra has played as much or more new music as any other orchestra anywhere in the 34 years of which I have been a member. Any type of tuplet gets instant recognition. Any type of "12th note" would meet with confusion and consternation, and would require total explanation from conductor or composer (or ms) before any player comprehension could begin. (Man, I sound like a curmudgeon!) Raymond Horton Bass Trombonist, occasional composer and arranger, Louisville Orchestra [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A sincere thank you for the resposes to my question. My humble opinion still stands, that using an esoteric meter such as /12 will return an uncertain performance. Richard PS - What is the notation for a twelth note ? If an 8th is a single flag and a 16th is double flag, is a 12th note a flag and a half ? PPS - These are sincere questions, not sarcasm as they might seem in the printed word. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A sincere thank you for the resposes to my question. My humble opinion still stands, that using an esoteric meter such as /12 will return an uncertain performance. *Can* result in it, not *will* result. PS - What is the notation for a twelth note ? If an 8th is a single flag and a 16th is double flag, is a 12th note a flag and a half ? It's still quaver notation - http://www.owainsutton.co.uk/images/x-10.jpg ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
A sincere thank you for the resposes to my question. My humble opinion still stands, that using an esoteric meter such as /12 will return an uncertain performance. Richard PS - What is the notation for a twelth note ? If an 8th is a single flag and a 16th is double flag, is a 12th note a flag and a half ? PPS - These are sincere questions, not sarcasm as they might seem in the printed word. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Darcy James Argue wrote: On 07 Jul 2005, at 2:12 PM, Christopher Smith wrote: But then later, you are playing some triplets which work out perfectly, but you ONLY NEED FIVE OF THEM, not six. If you needed 6, then a bar of 2/4 with triplets marked normally would be great. But if you want a new downbeat after you've only played FIVE eighth-note-triplets, then you're out of luck in standard metre systems. Then you would need a bar indicating 5 (or really 3+2) over whatever eighth-note triplets are in relation to a quarter note. Hey, we do the math, and you get 12 triplets in a whole, which makes them 1/12th notes. So you mark 5/12, and put in three eighths beamed together followed by 2 eighths beamed together, and I would put a bracketed 3 tuplet over the first group, and the same over the second group (even though there are only TWO notes in it) for clarity. I'm really not sure that's clearer than a bar of 5/8 with a "quarter = dotted quarter" indication, which is what I would use in that situation. Possibly true. But replace 5/12 with 5/10, and there's no easy change-of-tempo indication. Also, if you have these changes happening frequently (such as every single bar!), the x/12 system is far less messy. If you didn't want to change the note value in the "denominator" and you didn't want a metric modulation, you could use a fractional time sig: 1+2/3 - 4 A change to 5/12 is actually a change of the speed of the pulse. This is lacking in such a fracntional sig. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 07 Jul 2005, at 2:12 PM, Christopher Smith wrote: But then later, you are playing some triplets which work out perfectly, but you ONLY NEED FIVE OF THEM, not six. If you needed 6, then a bar of 2/4 with triplets marked normally would be great. But if you want a new downbeat after you've only played FIVE eighth-note-triplets, then you're out of luck in standard metre systems. Then you would need a bar indicating 5 (or really 3+2) over whatever eighth-note triplets are in relation to a quarter note. Hey, we do the math, and you get 12 triplets in a whole, which makes them 1/12th notes. So you mark 5/12, and put in three eighths beamed together followed by 2 eighths beamed together, and I would put a bracketed 3 tuplet over the first group, and the same over the second group (even though there are only TWO notes in it) for clarity. I'm really not sure that's clearer than a bar of 5/8 with a "quarter = dotted quarter" indication, which is what I would use in that situation. If you didn't want to change the note value in the "denominator" and you didn't want a metric modulation, you could use a fractional time sig: 1+2/3 - 4 Both of those solutions make more sense to me than "12th notes." - Darcy - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brooklyn, NY ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 7-Jul-05, at 11:00 AM, John Howell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: A twelfth note is a triplet eighth note. They are sometimes used in new music (eg Mark-Anthony Turnage has used it frequently I believe) Henry Cowell was way ahead of the game with this sort of thinking. Why is 12/12 not like 12/8? Because 12/8 is not triplets. Yes, I know it sounds like triplets, but it's not. Why is there so much confusion over compound time? Well, perhaps I'm too dense to follow your reasoning, but your two statements above do seem to be mutually contradictory! If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. If it sounds like triplets, it's triplets. Q.E.D! Its barcarole is worse than its bite! By definition a triplet is 3 in the time of 2. That's different than a compound meter. There's nothing to dispute here. _ with best wishes, John http://abram.ca/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Putting the mechanics aside for a moment, could someone please explain what you can do with 12/12 that you CANNOT do using standard meters, or combinations thereof ? > Turning again to Ferneyhough: A passage of four bars, with the following time signatures: 7/8 7/20 3/12 5/16 The 3/12 bar could be notated as triplets in 2/8 - although this removes (or at least obscures) the three-beat structure of that bar. However, there's no way of rewriting the 7/20 bar using tuplets. It could be done in 7/16, with a tempo change in the ratio 4:5. Except that there's a rallentando marked over these four bars, making such a tempo marking impossible. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On Jul 7, 2005, at 1:49 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Putting the mechanics aside for a moment, could someone please explain what you can do with 12/12 that you CANNOT do using standard meters, or combinations thereof ? Not so much 12/12, but say 5/12. Let's say you were honking along happily in 4/4, mixing eighths, sixteenths, and eighth-note-triplets freely, as those young kids today are wont to do. Then suddenly, you just want 3 eighth notes in a bar. Great, a bar of 3/8 (or 1/Q. ) and there you go. A standard solution exists that everyone easily understands. But then later, you are playing some triplets which work out perfectly, but you ONLY NEED FIVE OF THEM, not six. If you needed 6, then a bar of 2/4 with triplets marked normally would be great. But if you want a new downbeat after you've only played FIVE eighth-note-triplets, then you're out of luck in standard metre systems. Then you would need a bar indicating 5 (or really 3+2) over whatever eighth-note triplets are in relation to a quarter note. Hey, we do the math, and you get 12 triplets in a whole, which makes them 1/12th notes. So you mark 5/12, and put in three eighths beamed together followed by 2 eighths beamed together, and I would put a bracketed 3 tuplet over the first group, and the same over the second group (even though there are only TWO notes in it) for clarity. There must be a good cause to write something that most accomplished musicians may have difficulty sight reading because of some obscure meter. Yes. One would only use it if it clarified the musical gesture. If I could accomplish it with an ordinary metric modulation instead, I would do it. But let's say again, in the same happily honking 4/4, that you are constantly doing this odd-triplet thing, but at one point actually have 4 pulses worth of triplets. Rather than switch back to 4/4 with tuplets for one measure, I might be tempted to make that measure 12/12. "Might be" is the operative word. 12/12 is not really in my vocabulary (12/8 barely is!) and I would do my darndest to find a conventional solution first. But that's how it would work. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
I once read an article on the subject of the "modern composer's" love affair with making life as difficult as possible for the performer. The article ended with an example. The rythms were amazingle complex and the example looked someone had spilt a bag of sharps and flats over the page. When you rationalized the rythms and notes, it was "God Save the Queen" in G major. A real example: the last movement of the Ligeti "Six Bagatelles" is offered in two versions - the sounding notes and rhythms are identical, but one is written out with the bar lines in different places so that more of the notes land on the beat. All the best, Lawrence "þaes ofereode - þisses swa maeg"http://lawrenceyates.co.ukDulcian Wind Quintet: http://dulcianwind.co.uk ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Some people simply have, for whatever reason, a vested interest in superficial complexity. (Flame-retardant suit snugly on. Somebody has to say that the Emperor sometimes has little or no clothing.) - Original Message - From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2005 12:49 PM Subject: Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12? Putting the mechanics aside for a moment, could someone please explain what you can do with 12/12 that you CANNOT do using standard meters, or combinations thereof ? There must be a good cause to write something that most accomplished musicians may have difficulty sight reading because of some obscure meter. Richard Bartkus ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
At 5:45 PM +0100 7/7/05, Owain Sutton wrote: John Howell wrote: If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. If it sounds like triplets, it's triplets. Except if it's not grouped in threes. In which case it doesn't sound like triplets! Feel free to invent your own notation; just don't expect us old fogey traditionalists to read it. We're not inventing it - we're nearly a century late for that. OK, I can't argue with that. The original notation was nothing more than mnemonic aids to help monks (and choirboys) remember chants that they had already memorized. Thanks to Guido, Franco, De Vitry, and a few other forward-looking folks, that turned into a graphical system that, once learned, permitted music one had never before heard to be performed in a new place. There are still musical cultures in the world in which the entire concept of one person telling the musicians exactly what to play and how to play it is good for a big laugh. And unfortunately a certain kind of composer has taken more and more responsibility away from the performer and tried to overcontrol every aspect of interpretation through ever more obscure notation. Part of an arranger's job is often to transcribe something from a recording, and I've done it enough to understand quite thoroughly that notation cannot and does not specify every single aspect of interpretation. Or perhaps it's more fair to say that it IS possible to notate every aspect (although where to place the phonemes a singer uses can be a real problem), but that the result is essentially unreadable. Interpretation is a performer's job. The composer who tries to notate every aspect using more and more complex notation--whether old or new--has lost sight of that simple but very important fact. A composer is not necessarily the best interpreter of his or her own music, just as a poet can almost never read his or her own poetry as well as a trained and sensitive actor. New music has always called for new notation or, more often, new modifications to existing notation. No argument from me. But the purpose of notation is, and always has been, communication. I simply do not choose to learn or perform music that requires me to learn new notation, unless the music itself is so great that the effort is worth while. Maybe I will come across such music. Maybe it will be by members of this list. It just hasn't happened yet, so the "new" notation, whether it is nearly a century old or not, does not communicate with me. Not anyone else's fault, just my loss, I guess. John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Putting the mechanics aside for a moment, could someone please explain what you can do with 12/12 that you CANNOT do using standard meters, or combinations thereof ? There must be a good cause to write something that most accomplished musicians may have difficulty sight reading because of some obscure meter. Richard Bartkus ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On Jul 7, 2005, at 7:44 AM, Richard Yates wrote: What does a 12th-note look like? http://www.yatesguitar.com/misc/TwelfthNote.jpg I make that a 3/32 note. Maybe we should drop all of this fraction nonsense, join the rest of the world, and go with the metric system. You've been reading my column in the staff newsletter at my school here in Montreal! I postulated that the new provincial standards in music education outline dropping the old-fashioned 12-note system as forced upon us by the English, in favour of a 10-note metric music system, to agree with the French metric measurement system. The notes G# and Db, being the least-used, would be removed from the school's pianos by government workers with crowbars, and the other keys moved over to fill the gaps. Students would have approximately 16% less chance of hitting a wrong note while playing, and theory scores would improve as well, there being only ten keys instead of twelve, thereby improving student success rates at the college. In the jazz combos, Miles Davis would be known as 1.6 Kilometres Davis, and Frank Loesser's "Inchworm" will be played as "2.5 Centimetres Worm." Next year, metric clocks! (the column appeared April 1st of last year.) Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
At 01:08 PM 7/7/05 -0400, John Howell wrote: >Poor example, I'm afraid, and one that suggests you are not a singer. >"Which," "whoa," and other "wh" words like "where" properly start >with a phoneme produced by a puff of air blown through pursed lips. >"Witch," and "woe" and "ware" do not. The pronunciation is often >confused by young children, rap artists, and some speakers of >dialectal English. ...and American English dictionaries that abandoned the hw-only rule a generation ago. Hw- is disappearing. My generation still uses it, but it's been years since I've heard anyone under 40 (who isn't in radio, anyway) actually use the hw- sound. Dennis ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
At 8:27 PM -0600 7/6/05, John Abram wrote: On 6-Jul-05, at 5:19 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You're really splitting hairs here -- putting 3 evenly spaced notes within one beat sounds like triplets to me, no matter how it's represented in the time signature. Yes it sounds the same, like "witch" sounds like "which" and like 4/8 sounds like 4/16 and 4/4. Poor example, I'm afraid, and one that suggests you are not a singer. "Which," "whoa," and other "wh" words like "where" properly start with a phoneme produced by a puff of air blown through pursed lips. "Witch," and "woe" and "ware" do not. The pronunciation is often confused by young children, rap artists, and some speakers of dialectal English. Fred Waring insisted that his singers pronounce every sound (every phoneme) in every syllable and do so at the same instant, to ensure that the words were clearly intelligible. John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
John Howell wrote: If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. If it sounds like triplets, it's triplets. Except if it's not grouped in threes. Feel free to invent your own notation; just don't expect us old fogey traditionalists to read it. We're not inventing it - we're nearly a century late for that. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
At 11:51 AM -0600 7/6/05, John Abram wrote: A twelfth note is a triplet eighth note. They are sometimes used in new music (eg Mark-Anthony Turnage has used it frequently I believe) Henry Cowell was way ahead of the game with this sort of thinking. Why is 12/12 not like 12/8? Because 12/8 is not triplets. Yes, I know it sounds like triplets, but it's not. Why is there so much confusion over compound time? Well, perhaps I'm too dense to follow your reasoning, but your two statements above do seem to be mutually contradictory! If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. If it sounds like triplets, it's triplets. Q.E.D! Its barcarole is worse than its bite! Seems to me that talking about "beats" compounds (sorry!) the confusion. Yes, 12/8 can indicate 4 "beats" per bar; that's sort of the default interpretation. At a slower tempo, however, it can indicate 12 "beats" per bar. I've conducted Bach slow movements that required exactly that. And at a faster tempo it can indicate 2 "beats" per bar. Young musicians have to learn that ALL time signatures are variable. They may first encounter 6/8 in the context of marches, 2 beats to a bar. And they will be confused the first time they run into 6/8 with six beats to a bar, but that's just one more variable in our notation that they have to master. (And even college-age students are often flumoxed by ties over the barline to the first note of the next bar, especially in compound time; I can't figure out why, but it happens.) I was taught by my mother (a heck of a good theory teacher) to read time signatures as "four quarter," "three quarter," or "six eighth" time. The lower number has indicated a note value since the beginning of the common practice period, and there is, in fact, no 12th note in the system. Sorry. Feel free to invent your own notation; just don't expect us old fogey traditionalists to read it. As to the Creston, I don't know the work so I can't comment. But what do I know?!! John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Owain Sutton wrote: Richard Yates wrote: What does a 12th-note look like? http://www.yatesguitar.com/misc/TwelfthNote.jpg I make that a 3/32 note. Maybe we should drop all of this fraction nonsense, join the rest of the world, and go with the metric system. I'm trying to learn a Ferneyhough piece at the moment. The metronome marks include things like Q=60.75 As I certain he could hear the difference between that and 60.76, I'd work even harder if I were you! -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Richard Yates wrote: What does a 12th-note look like? http://www.yatesguitar.com/misc/TwelfthNote.jpg I make that a 3/32 note. Maybe we should drop all of this fraction nonsense, join the rest of the world, and go with the metric system. I'm trying to learn a Ferneyhough piece at the moment. The metronome marks include things like Q=60.75 ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
> >>> > What does a 12th-note look like? > > >http://www.yatesguitar.com/misc/TwelfthNote.jpg > > I make that a 3/32 note. > Maybe we should drop all of this fraction nonsense, join the rest of the world, and go with the metric system. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Richard Yates wrote: What does a 12th-note look like? http://www.yatesguitar.com/misc/TwelfthNote.jpg That's a joke, right? I am sure that it will turn up in Finale2007 if enough people ask for it. Apparently only if those people who ask for it aren't currently Finale users -- many of the new features Finale gets are those which are requested by non-users, if I understand some recent posts on this list. After all, MakeMusic is trying to attract new users. So take on an assumed name, tell MakeMusic you're in charge of buying notation software for some fictitious music school with 1000 students who will all have to buy whatever product you suggest, and then start asking for things. It seems our little group of multi-upgrade veterans are not high on MakeMusic's list of people to pay attention to. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Thanks all and thank you Owain -- this is simplication towards clarification not a complication. I'll repeat Creston's bit You have your 4/4 measure a.) the pulse is the quarter note. b.) primary units at the eight -- 8/8 c.) extrametrical units are at the triplet -- 12/12 This 12/12 is what you are calling 12/8 In 12/8 the pulse is still in 4 -- all you've done is expand the tempo by a third to accommodate expanding the denominator by a third. In answer to what does a twelfth note look like. Creston again: "...a 1/6 note triplet can be referred to (by the conductor) as a 'written quarter note' triplet, and a 1/12 note triplet as a 'written eight note' triplet. He likens this kind of discourse (very astutely I think) with transposition -- that is the conductor speaks to the Bb trumpet player (eg) as 'concert D - your written E". In other words nothing changes except 9/8 is now (properly) 1/3 longer than 9/12. Simple. Jerry On 6-Jul-05, at 3:47 PM, Owain Sutton wrote: It looks just like an 8th-note. The purpose of x/12, x/10 etc. is to allow changes of pulse, in non-triplet situations, with signatures such as 5/12. Yes, this could be indicated with a tempo change at the barline, but if the changes are every bar (as typical in Ferneyhough), x/12 etc. is the clearest system to use. And isn't at all complicated once you've familiarised yourself with it. Gerald Berg ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 6-Jul-05, at 5:19 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: John Abram wrote: A twelfth note is a triplet eighth note. They are sometimes used in new music (eg Mark-Anthony Turnage has used it frequently I believe) Henry Cowell was way ahead of the game with this sort of thinking. Why is 12/12 not like 12/8? Because 12/8 is not triplets. Yes, I know it sounds like triplets, but it's not. You're really splitting hairs here -- putting 3 evenly spaced notes within one beat sounds like triplets to me, no matter how it's represented in the time signature. Yes it sounds the same, like "witch" sounds like "which" and like 4/8 sounds like 4/16 and 4/4. What's the difference? Are you trying to say that triplets are only triplets if they are 3 notes played in the time normally occupied by 2 of the same notes, and since in 12/8 the 8ths aren't played in the time normally occupied by 2 8ths they aren't really triplets? Yes, by definition triplets are 3 notes in the time of 2. What does a 12th-note look like? It looks like a triplet 8th, because it is one. The usefulness of this is that one can make a measure of 11/12 which is essentially one triplet-eighth short of 4/4. I'm sure not many people use this, but when I worked as a professional copyist in the 90's I was asked to do this sort of thing. _ with best wishes, John http://abram.ca/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
> >>What does a 12th-note look like? > > > > http://www.yatesguitar.com/misc/TwelfthNote.jpg > > > That's a joke, right? I am sure that it will turn up in Finale2007 if enough people ask for it. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Richard Yates wrote: What does a 12th-note look like? http://www.yatesguitar.com/misc/TwelfthNote.jpg That's a joke, right? ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
> > What does a 12th-note look like? http://www.yatesguitar.com/misc/TwelfthNote.jpg ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
dhbailey wrote: John Abram wrote: A twelfth note is a triplet eighth note. They are sometimes used in new music (eg Mark-Anthony Turnage has used it frequently I believe) Henry Cowell was way ahead of the game with this sort of thinking. Why is 12/12 not like 12/8? Because 12/8 is not triplets. Yes, I know it sounds like triplets, but it's not. You're really splitting hairs here -- putting 3 evenly spaced notes within one beat sounds like triplets to me, no matter how it's represented in the time signature. What's the difference? Are you trying to say that triplets are only triplets if they are 3 notes played in the time normally occupied by 2 of the same notes, and since in 12/8 the 8ths aren't played in the time normally occupied by 2 8ths they aren't really triplets? What does a 12th-note look like? It looks just like an 8th-note. The purpose of x/12, x/10 etc. is to allow changes of pulse, in non-triplet situations, with signatures such as 5/12. Yes, this could be indicated with a tempo change at the barline, but if the changes are every bar (as typical in Ferneyhough), x/12 etc. is the clearest system to use. And isn't at all complicated once you've familiarised yourself with it. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
John Abram wrote: A twelfth note is a triplet eighth note. They are sometimes used in new music (eg Mark-Anthony Turnage has used it frequently I believe) Henry Cowell was way ahead of the game with this sort of thinking. Why is 12/12 not like 12/8? Because 12/8 is not triplets. Yes, I know it sounds like triplets, but it's not. You're really splitting hairs here -- putting 3 evenly spaced notes within one beat sounds like triplets to me, no matter how it's represented in the time signature. What's the difference? Are you trying to say that triplets are only triplets if they are 3 notes played in the time normally occupied by 2 of the same notes, and since in 12/8 the 8ths aren't played in the time normally occupied by 2 8ths they aren't really triplets? What does a 12th-note look like? -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
I believe Andrew and David said 12/12 was not the answer but did not say why. But Creston has a valid point ( and a logical solution) so I feel duty bound to ask for clear arguments as to why it is unsatisfactory. Really, it is elegant and straight-forward albeit (most likely) doomed. 12/8 is in fact 12/12. What could be simpler? Jerry Almost anything, I fear. If there were such a thing as a twelfth note, intuition says it would be shorter than an 8th note; but the beat in (compound) 12/8 is carried by the dotted quarter, and there are four such beats in each measure, so the numerator ought to be 4 and if one insists on making the denominator a number, it ought to be 3, not twelve. If Creston were advocating for 12/8 = 4/3 I could see his point, but as it is 12/12 merely compounds (as it were) the imprecision of the notation because the absolute central requirement of any reformed notation of compound meter must be that the top of the signature reflect the actual number of beats in the bar. A twelfth note is a triplet eighth note. They are sometimes used in new music (eg Mark-Anthony Turnage has used it frequently I believe) Henry Cowell was way ahead of the game with this sort of thinking. Why is 12/12 not like 12/8? Because 12/8 is not triplets. Yes, I know it sounds like triplets, but it's not. Why is there so much confusion over compound time? In my ideal world time signatures would have numbers over notes to indicate the number of beats and their duration. Thus 4/4 would be 4/[quarter-note] and 12/8 would be 4/[dotted-quarter-note] THAT is simple. In my experience there is SO much confusion among teachers about what compound time is that young musicians have a rather poor chance of understanding it. _ with best wishes, John http://abram.ca/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
I believe Andrew and David said 12/12 was not the answer but did not say why. But Creston has a valid point ( and a logical solution) so I feel duty bound to ask for clear arguments as to why it is unsatisfactory. Really, it is elegant and straight-forward albeit (most likely) doomed. 12/8 is in fact 12/12. What could be simpler? Jerry Almost anything, I fear. If there were such a thing as a twelfth note, intuition says it would be shorter than an 8th note; but the beat in (compound) 12/8 is carried by the dotted quarter, and there are four such beats in each measure, so the numerator ought to be 4 and if one insists on making the denominator a number, it ought to be 3, not twelve. If Creston were advocating for 12/8 = 4/3 I could see his point, but as it is 12/12 merely compounds (as it were) the imprecision of the notation because the absolute central requirement of any reformed notation of compound meter must be that the top of the signature reflect the actual number of beats in the bar. Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
On 6 Jul 2005 at 9:59, Gerald Berg wrote: > Unfortunately (but really I mean fortunately) I am away a lot for the > next month (and previous days) -- so I am (and will be) missing some > discussion points. > > I believe Andrew and David said 12/12 was not the answer but did not > say why. 12/12 changes all the rules for how time signatures work, since there is no such thing as a 1/12th note. > But Creston has a valid point ( and a logical solution) so I feel duty > bound to ask for clear arguments as to why it is unsatisfactory. > > Really, it is elegant and straight-forward albeit (most likely) > doomed. > > 12/8 is in fact 12/12. > > What could be simpler? I don't understand it, except as treating a time signature as a fraction, and coming up with the least common denominator (or is that "greatest"?). Time signatures are categorically not fractions, so this seems a completely illogical (and profoundly non-musical) solution. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
[Finale] Hey! What's wrong with Creston's 12/12?
Unfortunately (but really I mean fortunately) I am away a lot for the next month (and previous days) -- so I am (and will be) missing some discussion points. I believe Andrew and David said 12/12 was not the answer but did not say why. But Creston has a valid point ( and a logical solution) so I feel duty bound to ask for clear arguments as to why it is unsatisfactory. Really, it is elegant and straight-forward albeit (most likely) doomed. 12/8 is in fact 12/12. What could be simpler? I was going to say that the denominator solution is equally doomed but my local paper's editorial cartoon recently had some creature singing something and the time signature afixed before the notes being sung was done as a denominator! Jerry Gerald Berg ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale