Re: Notational conventions

[David Kastrup]

Hans Åberg <address@hidden> writes:

>> On 9 Nov 2016, at 10:45, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>> 
>> The problem with appoggiature is that their timing is loose as the
>> transition to the main note is not supposed to be a rhythmical accent.
>> If you listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQseNJP_bzk in
>> comparison to most renditions, you'll find that I execute the
>> appoggiature on the long side, passing the "proper" moment (and yes,
>> I know that I have only executed the explicitly written ones in the
>> manuscript with "violine concertante" as I was too lazy to figure out a
>> strategy myself when the top voice is almost but not quite a solo voice
>> in a string quartet).
>
> You need an expert: one of my teachers could do Baroque improvisations.
>
> The long grace notes, I usually prefer toward the half written value,
> though some perform the full value.

An appoggiatura does not feel like a "grace note" to me.  Vaccai states
in his singing exercises that the appoggiatura should be _at least_ the
written value.  The point being that the _main_ note pitch is
uninteresting and is what the note relaxes rather than resolves to.

Of course masking this change by executing it simultaneously with
_significant_ changes in other voices is a perfectly valid kind of
execution.  But it becomes almost impossible to do this with an
articulation that differentiates the appoggiatura from a regular note:
when transcribing music played in that manner, no appoggiatura would
ever appear.

Which is vaguely disturbing to me.  So I might be overdoing my "musical
pronunciation" as a sign of me being unable to convey very subtle
differences in a sovereign manner.

>> For better or worse, the prominent function of writing systems is to
>> pin down the semantic content of an expression rather than its
>> execution.  When wanting to think about music and your options to
>> perform it, you'll rather use notes than tablature (which is sort of
>> musical IPA in that it focuses on execution rather than content).
>
> It varies: in gamelan music, performers prefer the traditional one,
> being more compact. The staff system is used by some, but has not
> caught on that much in general.

I find that for chant, modern notation is quite distracting from the
flow of speech to me.  I prefer how square notation keeps things
together.

-- 
David Kastrup