Re: notation rule question

[David Kastrup]

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.  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.

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 think you'll find similar things with Bach's St John's and St Matthews
Passions IIRC.  And of course, Renaissance is full of it.

-- 
David Kastrup