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George Garnett
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« Reply #45 on: 11:23:31, 10-08-2007 » |
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If I'm writing 5:4 semiquavers, they'll always be 0.8 cm apart, not just wherever I can fit them in. That's more precise, I would think. More representational rather than more precise? The 'precision' ought to be exactly the same I would have thought. |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #46 on: 11:29:36, 10-08-2007 » |
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Finally, he's clearly a sucker for tradition, and aspects of tradition in notation. I think there's actually a concerted effort to orient himself within the tradition, This sort of self-fashioning (in which he's by no means alone - lots of composers become very self-conscious about orienting themselves relative to certain ideas of what 'tradition' is) might be a mixed blessing....? and despite the flamboyance of the notation, it rarely breaks with convention. (Evan J might be able to address this issue a bit better than I could, as it seems to be important in Ev's music as well. (To wit, he and I have argued for years and years about his insistence upon all the Italian in his scores .... If I'm remembering right, a significant part of the justification is the traditional role of Italian in music notation.)) Well, the later Beethoven on some occasions would have taken exception to that....  |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #47 on: 11:30:55, 10-08-2007 » |
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Well thank you...I couldn't really stay away from this subject now, could I?
(nor the Issues of commodification and music in the Weekly Worker subject, either, perhaps?  ) |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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quartertone
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« Reply #48 on: 11:31:15, 10-08-2007 » |
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If I'm writing 5:4 semiquavers, they'll always be 0.8 cm apart, not just wherever I can fit them in. That's more precise, I would think. More representational rather than more precise? The 'precision' ought to be exactly the same I would have thought. From the Free Online Dictionary: pre·cise
adj.
1. Clearly expressed or delineated; definite: The victim gave a precise description of the suspect.
2. Exact, as in performance, execution, or amount; accurate or correct: a precise measurement; a precise instrument.
3. Strictly distinguished from others; very: at that precise moment.
4. Distinct and correct in sound or meaning: precise pronunciation; precise prose.
5. Conforming strictly to rule or proper form: "The setting up of this Maypole was a lamentable spectacle to the precise separatists that lived at New Plymouth" Thomas Morton. |
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quartertone
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« Reply #49 on: 11:34:45, 10-08-2007 » |
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Finally, he's clearly a sucker for tradition, and aspects of tradition in notation. I think there's actually a concerted effort to orient himself within the tradition, This sort of self-fashioning (in which he's by no means alone - lots of composers become very self-conscious about orienting themselves relative to certain ideas of what 'tradition' is) might be a mixed blessing....? and despite the flamboyance of the notation, it rarely breaks with convention. (Evan J might be able to address this issue a bit better than I could, as it seems to be important in Ev's music as well. (To wit, he and I have argued for years and years about his insistence upon all the Italian in his scores .... If I'm remembering right, a significant part of the justification is the traditional role of Italian in music notation.)) Well, the later Beethoven on some occasions would have taken exception to that.... To Ian: yes, that sort of self-fashioning is a mixed blessing - if any blessing at all! It reminds of unfortunate remarks of Brian's like "all composers speak German" or "all intelligent people write poetry". To Aaron: I don't see how that's any justification at all. Italian may once have been the musical lingua franca, but nowadays it's far more logical for a native English speaker to use English! Especially as some of Evan's markings are far more convoluted than most "traditional" ones. I don't see the attraction of paying homage to tradition in this way myself. |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #50 on: 11:37:08, 10-08-2007 » |
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This is something I ought to know but don't really: Italian became the musical lingua franca from the 18th century onwards (I think?) and presumably had something to do with the more international profile that opera, a medium which flourished in Italy, had, compared to other musical media?
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« Last Edit: 11:48:06, 10-08-2007 by Ian Pace »
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #51 on: 11:40:18, 10-08-2007 » |
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To Ian: yes, that sort of self-fashioning is a mixed blessing - if any blessing at all! It reminds of unfortunate remarks of Brian's like "all composers speak German" or "all intelligent people write poetry". I also remember from Brian, when mentioning how about 75% of all writing on music is in German, him adding to that 'Yes, and 99% of that ever worth reading is in German'  (not saying I agree with him necessarily, by the way - there are traditions in English-speaking musicology that are extremely underdeveloped in German to date (such as Alistair's favourite, feminist musicology - but there are important writers like Beate Kutschke who are involved in building more of a tradition in that respect there), though they wouldn't on the whole be his cup of tea....) |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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George Garnett
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« Reply #52 on: 12:09:29, 10-08-2007 » |
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If I'm writing 5:4 semiquavers, they'll always be 0.8 cm apart, not just wherever I can fit them in. That's more precise, I would think. More representational rather than more precise? The 'precision' ought to be exactly the same I would have thought. From the Free Online Dictionary: pre·cise
adj.
1. Clearly expressed or delineated; definite: The victim gave a precise description of the suspect.
2. Exact, as in performance, execution, or amount; accurate or correct: a precise measurement; a precise instrument.
3. Strictly distinguished from others; very: at that precise moment.
4. Distinct and correct in sound or meaning: precise pronunciation; precise prose.
5. Conforming strictly to rule or proper form: "The setting up of this Maypole was a lamentable spectacle to the precise separatists that lived at New Plymouth" Thomas Morton.Exactly so. So the precision would indeed be the same in both cases . |
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quartertone
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« Reply #53 on: 12:14:07, 10-08-2007 » |
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Exactly so. So the precision would indeed be the same in both cases . I don't see how you can use the given definition to support that, but so be it. |
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Chafing Dish
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« Reply #54 on: 13:40:10, 10-08-2007 » |
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Hey qt -- since we have your attention: what is a 25-dimensional concatenation? If seeing the question causes you to go into 5 months of hibernation, then please disregard it with my apologies. http://r3ok.myforum365.com/index.php?topic=952.msg30547#msg30547Anyway, in terms of proportional notation vs. economical spacing, I think either extreme end is appropriate for certain kinds of music. In my opinion (as only an occasional performer), it makes perfect sense for qt's music, since my appreciation of that music (what I know of it), depends on the sense, as clear as possible, that there are several speeds of things going on at once, not just several layers. For Ferneyhough, it's the layered-ness not relying on speed. qt's scores don't require hash-marks, at least hypothetically they don't, but in Ferneyhough, it's hard to get along without them. In most music of a complex nature, some hybrid of these is best. |
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Evan Johnson
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« Reply #55 on: 13:48:35, 10-08-2007 » |
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on: I don't see how that's any justification at all. Italian may once have been the musical lingua franca, but nowadays it's far more logical for a native English speaker to use English! Especially as some of Evan's markings are far more convoluted than most "traditional" ones. I don't see the attraction of paying homage to tradition in this way myself.
Just popping in for a moment to defend my honor!  It's not so much the fact of Italian as musical lingua franca that I'm invoking as the more specific resonances of certain loaded terms--adagio, andante, tenuto, secco, cantabile, etc. etc.--that mean much more than a literal translation can suggest, including the relatively "stilted" phraseology that results. Also, the limited vocabulary tends to get recycled and reshuffled--Italian words reappear in performance indications, reshuffled, and form "thematic" links among themselves. Of course one can do that with English too (or German, or Catalan) but it's precisely the air of "Italian signifiers as formulated by a linguistic foreigner" that appeals to me. It's worth pointing out here that my music has never been played by Italians... That having been said, in the piece I'm working on ("working on" being a bit of an optimistic phrase in this context, perhaps it should be more like "more or less idly speculating about when I have a moment free from other things"), I am contemplating the possilibities of some sort of ungodly mishmash of English and Italian. we'll see. |
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aaron cassidy
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« Reply #56 on: 14:42:16, 10-08-2007 » |
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Question for various composers and performers here: do you prefer to have proportional notation structured according to metrical units (e.g. quavers/eighth-notes, semiquavers/sixteenth-notes) then to be executed relative to the metronome mark, or to have the proportionality consistent in terms of absolute time? When there are many shifts between different metronome markings, I'd prefer the latter.
(That would, I would think, be a more "precise" way of doing spatial/proportional notation, given qt's argument, but that gets exactly to my suggestion that somehow it inches that sort of notation into being more or less exclusively a time-space notation that can be read purely graphically, which to my way of thinking rather defeats the purpose of using tuplets (or, for that matter, meter) in the first place.)  |
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aaron cassidy
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« Reply #57 on: 14:49:36, 10-08-2007 » |
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If I'm writing 5:4 semiquavers, they'll always be 0.8 cm apart, not just wherever I can fit them in. That's more precise, I would think. More representational rather than more precise? The 'precision' ought to be exactly the same I would have thought. From the Free Online Dictionary: pre·cise
adj.
1. Clearly expressed or delineated; definite: The victim gave a precise description of the suspect.
2. Exact, as in performance, execution, or amount; accurate or correct: a precise measurement; a precise instrument.
3. Strictly distinguished from others; very: at that precise moment.
4. Distinct and correct in sound or meaning: precise pronunciation; precise prose.
5. Conforming strictly to rule or proper form: "The setting up of this Maypole was a lamentable spectacle to the precise separatists that lived at New Plymouth" Thomas Morton.Well gee, that clears it right up, doesn't it. QED. I'm out. The e-yelling of an (online) definition steps officially into the world ad hominem argument, for me. |
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quartertone
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« Reply #58 on: 14:55:46, 10-08-2007 » |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #59 on: 15:02:17, 10-08-2007 » |
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To everyone: this is an extremely intelligent and informative discussion, let's not derail it by overreacting or misinterpreting the 'tone' of posts (very easy to do on a forum like this) or raking over whatever things from the past might have led to some feeling disgruntled. I think it can fairly be said that when this subject is debated by Aaron, Evan, quartertone, ollie, Biroc, dotcommunist, Richard Barrett, Chafing Dish, Colin Holter and myself, one is not easily going to find a more knowledgable crowd on the subject.
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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