Mike Solomon <
address@hidden> writes:
On Jul 23, 2014, at 3:19 PM, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
"Karol Majewski" <address@hidden> writes:
Thanks David, but you answered an old question :)
My current question is related to:
c4 c8 c8~ c4 c4
vs
c4 c8 c4. c4
Jazzers would pick #1, Baroque composers #2.
I don’t recall seeing c4 c8 c4. c4 in any scores - I’d be curious to
see who would use that and why. The only use case I can think of off
the cuff is a compound 3/8 + 5/8 time signature. Otherwise, I think
my brain would glitch if I didn’t see the beginning of the 2nd beat in
common time, irrespective of the style.
Baroque and Renaissance stuff often does not even heed the bar line
regarding note lengths, and, as opposed to modern music, putting
excessive metric stresses to off-beat notes ruins the subtleties.
This is true. In the example you sent at rehearsal B, the feel is 3/4 alternating with 6/8. This is a common convention in Renaissance dance music. As a result, the measure at B has a 3 feel and is written as such whereas the second measure has a 6/8 feel and has a dotted quarter.
What I was talking about in the previous e-mail was common time - I can’t think of a piece I’ve seen that uses the convention Karol was talking about.
A
device quite often employed (and partly restricted to some voices) is
that of the hemiola. Often with Bach it is not readily apparent in the
notation, but it emerges when you use the normal word stresses on
syllables.
I’ve never seen a hemiola in 4/4 - the most frequent use of it I’ve seen is in 3/8 in Händel’s music.
Here are fragments from Dowland's "The Earl of Essex his Galliard" (and
yes, getting this flowing nicely was a bit of a challenge for me even
though I only had to play the violin). The point here is not that you
can claim "one measure is this way, another is that, and those are
actually a hemiola". The whole fun is with the ambiguity. Using more
ties than absolutely necessary distracts from that by overemphasizing
the beats.
I completely agree - that is one of the interesting aspects of this music.