Re: [Why you don't really want] irrational tuplets [nor CF approximations]

[Thomas Morley]

2016-11-08 22:20 GMT+01:00 Hans Åberg <address@hidden>:

> And a reason of writing a complex time signature might be to make it 
> impossible for the performer to follow it: In Balkan music, one plays by ear, 
> and the variation is greater than the irrational time signature examples I 
> gave. A Western musician when seeing 12/8, 12 = 3+2+2+3+2 with quadruplets on 
> them, might try to play it as exactly as possible, but that is not how it 
> should be performed.

Let me step in here.

This sounds (partly) like obfuscating the music to force the reader of
the score to do some thorough studies before trying to perform.

Isn't it a good idea to do _always_ such studies?
You can't even perform baroque-music adequat without them.
Another example, I recall several printed editions of
Flamenco-Alegrias in 3/4, but following exactly the 3/4 would come out
completely wrong. It's often easier to get an raw glance, though.

Reading a score is not (and never was) enough to get an impression how
the music _should_ sound or to perform it.

So I ask myself, why make it even more difficult for the reader with
impossible things?

Cheers,
  Harm