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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > Music Through The Ages > The Scotch Snap and its inherent negative aesthetic
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Author Topic: The Scotch Snap and its inherent negative aesthetic  (Read 912 times)
Sydney Grew
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« on: 13:23:24, 12-05-2007 »
The effect upon the man of taste who hears one note briefly struck only to be followed by a second note held longer is, "The first must have been an error!" That is the inherent and objective expressive quality of such a two-note sequence.

Several such snaps in succession then sound like nothing so much as a sequence of errors. No wonder that Scotch snaps are received by concert-goers with a less than unswerving enthusiasm.

The snap though was much favoured by Britten, especially when he had to set the present participle; it was his personal predilection!

Chopin too in his perverse early nineteenth-century way filled with snaps at least two entire studies (opus 25 numbers 5 and 3). Most pianists perform them so quickly that the quality of said snaps becomes almost inaudible; it would be better however to linger a little over them all we think.

We must say though that any number of Scotch snaps is preferable to Shostacovitz's infantile, mindless, "satirical" dactyls. Compare in that regard the genius of Mozart, who unlike S. saw that the second note of a dactyl should almost always be dotted!
« Last Edit: 13:40:43, 12-05-2007 by Sydney Grew » Logged
Ian Pace
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« Reply #1 on: 13:31:40, 12-05-2007 »
Member Grew's elucidation of the objective quality of such a two-note sequence is confounded by the fact that there are languages in which one experiences an accented short first syllable followed by an unaccented second one - Czech would be one of these. And this member would imagine some Scottish dialects and accents might exhibit similar qualities. For those good people who speak in such languages or dialects, the sonic phenomenon Member Grew describes would not be perceived as an error. Or are we to believe that such peoples are to be excluded from Member Grew's category of the 'man of taste'?
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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'
Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #2 on: 13:51:27, 12-05-2007 »
The "Scotch snap" is a recurrent feature of Purcell's best work, viz

"The day that such a blessing made no com-mon, com-mon festival should be"

"E-lissa's ruin'd..."

"Look down, ye Orbs, and see a new Divinity!"

I seem to remember knowing this since I took my music O-Level in 1974.

I refer the Member to Mr Purcell's catch "Pox on you! Pox on you for a fop!", which he may find both illustrative and instructive Wink
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Chafing Dish
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« Reply #3 on: 14:39:02, 12-05-2007 »
All I can say is, give me a Scotch and I'll snap it up!
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John W
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« Reply #4 on: 15:21:14, 12-05-2007 »


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ahinton
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« Reply #5 on: 07:38:38, 13-05-2007 »
Quote from: Ian Pace on 13:31:40, 12-05-2007
Member Grew's elucidation
Where did that occur? I must have missed that bit (I really must pay more attention)...

Quote from: Ian Pace on 13:31:40, 12-05-2007
of the objective quality of such a two-note sequence is confounded by the fact that there are languages in which one experiences an accented short first syllable followed by an unaccented second one - Czech would be one of these. And this member would imagine some Scottish dialects and accents might exhibit similar qualities.
Indeed.

Quote from: Ian Pace on 13:31:40, 12-05-2007
For those good people who speak in such languages or dialects, the sonic phenomenon Member Grew describes would not be perceived as an error.
Quite.

Quote from: Ian Pace on 13:31:40, 12-05-2007
Or are we to believe that such peoples are to be excluded from Member Grew's category of the 'man of taste'?
Ah - methinks that Member Pace has hit the nail on the head with a large marteau here! If so, one may assume that Member Grew's stance at least exonerates me, as a Scot, from the risk of being accepted by him as any kind of a "man of taste"; after all, we Scots have known long and well that there are certain kinds of Englishman (and "we" presume the Member Grew to be one such) who regard Hadrian's Wall (or what's left of it) as the last northerly outpost of culture in rather the same manner as certain French once regarded the Pyrénées as the last westerly one. The determined adherence to so complacent a view will likewise also exonerate Member Grew from any responsibility to listen to the music of Mackenzee or (Francis George) Scot, Mussgrave or Stephenson, Dillun or MacMillon, Macray or Horn (note deliberate and pointless Grewesque perversity of spelling) and, most especially, the persona ingratissima that is the present writer who also imagines that the Member Grew must be at least as indignant as the rest of us at the recent replacement of Sir Edward Elgar by Adam Smith on the English 400-shilling banknote, albeit for rather different reasons from the said rest of those of us who mrely regard this move by the Eng of Bankland as a glaring example both of crassly inept timing (in the 150th anniversary year of Elgar's birth) and singularly poor - er - um - "taste"...

Once the Member Grew has read this, perhaps he will next turn his attention to any instances of the "Scotch Snap" that he may have uncovered in the Eighth Symphony of Shostykovic and give us those "negative æsthetic" conclusions thereon which one could only ever hope to encounter within that weak-batteried pencil-torch that contitutes his mercifully unique beaconry of wisdom...

Oh, sorry - was that another kind of "Scotch Snap"?...

Best,

Alistair
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Kittybriton
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Thank you for the music ...


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« Reply #6 on: 12:51:22, 13-05-2007 »
Meow?
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John W
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« Reply #7 on: 13:12:35, 13-05-2007 »
Woof?
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ahinton
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« Reply #8 on: 13:43:08, 13-05-2007 »
Being a cat-servant rather than a dog-owner, I prefer the former...

Best,

Alistair
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Baziron
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« Reply #9 on: 19:36:17, 14-05-2007 »
Quote from: Sydney Grew on 13:23:24, 12-05-2007
The effect upon the man of taste who hears one note briefly struck only to be followed by a second note held longer is, "The first must have been an error!" That is the inherent and objective expressive quality of such a two-note sequence.

...and then:

Quote from: Sydney Grew on 08:47:04, 13-05-2007
This will not do. It has been our experience, gained over the course of a good number of years, that those who most confidently and forcefully put forward an assertion, generally have the least justification for doing so.

...so no wonder we then find:

Quote from: Sydney Grew on 13:29:08, 12-05-2007
In the past we have stated that we like all persons of taste and discrimination adhere to objective and absolute standards, and we need not repeat our arguments here. But since we suspect many Members are still confused about this question...

We are thus unable to resist the temptation of enquiring of Member Grew whether he has ever felt the need, motivation, or (indeed) the resolve to take a leaf out of his own book.

Baziron
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ahinton
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« Reply #10 on: 20:58:43, 14-05-2007 »
Quote from: Baziron on 19:36:17, 14-05-2007
Quote from: Sydney Grew on 13:23:24, 12-05-2007
The effect upon the man of taste who hears one note briefly struck only to be followed by a second note held longer is, "The first must have been an error!" That is the inherent and objective expressive quality of such a two-note sequence.

...and then:

Quote from: Sydney Grew on 08:47:04, 13-05-2007
This will not do. It has been our experience, gained over the course of a good number of years, that those who most confidently and forcefully put forward an assertion, generally have the least justification for doing so.

...so no wonder we then find:

Quote from: Sydney Grew on 13:29:08, 12-05-2007
In the past we have stated that we like all persons of taste and discrimination adhere to objective and absolute standards, and we need not repeat our arguments here. But since we suspect many Members are still confused about this question...

We are thus unable to resist the temptation of enquiring of Member Grew whether he has ever felt the need, motivation, or (indeed) the resolve to take a leaf out of his own book.

Baziron
Once again, I have to ask "who's "we?"", for I must admit that I can certainly resist that temptation, quite easily, since we all surely know that, on the evidence of his many expressions here, Member Grew has no book worthy of such leaf extraction, let alone any motivation to perform such extraction...

Best,

Alistair
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Baziron
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« Reply #11 on: 21:16:11, 14-05-2007 »
I don't really know who we is - who can?

Baziron

P.S. In my last sentence we was only me!
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ahinton
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« Reply #12 on: 21:21:50, 14-05-2007 »
Quote from: Baziron on 21:16:11, 14-05-2007
I don't really know who we is - who can?

Baziron

P.S. In my last sentence we was only me!
"We" in the context in which I last used it here was and is intended to mean anyone who may care to read the material concerned; quite what "we" is supposed (or not) to represent when the Member Grew uses that first person plural is, on the other hand, entirely unknown to me.

Best,

Alistair
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John W
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« Reply #13 on: 21:28:33, 14-05-2007 »
Surely the Grew We is the poster and the printed opinions of the late author/critic Sydney Grew.

I remember in the 'other place' when he was Mumbles or whatever, you could cut'n'paste a very polysyllabic phrase from one of his postings, stick it in google and the whole posting would appear before you under it's true authorship  Roll Eyes
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Tony Watson
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« Reply #14 on: 21:36:23, 14-05-2007 »
I remember Sydney Grew as Esme Muchgoddery but I never thought he was Mumblesford. He's explained his use of "we" here before - as a politer and less direct mode of speech than using I (as in Sweet's Grammar of about 1900). But the style has been used mostly by certain authors (in phrases such as: "We saw in the last chapter how...") to embrace the reader. That's not SG's intention but it can seem like it sometimes.
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