Re: Notational conventions

[David Kastrup]

Hans Åberg <address@hidden> writes:

>> On 9 Nov 2016, at 00:35, Thomas Morley <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>>>> 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?
>>> 
>>> But for whom do you notate? Flamenco music does not notate the
>>> correct time signature. If you would toss skilled Western musicians
>>> a score, how would you notate it? Getting them to study Flamenco
>>> music and its notational traditions would be very costly.
>>> 
>> 
>> Isn't _every_ written notation an approximation? Baroque often notates
>> only a skeleton and the musician performing it has to fill in,
>> ofcourse needing the knowledge howto. (Only one example, a plethora of
>> others existing....)
>
> Indeed, mostly one only writes what is needed for a performance,
> subject to musical interpretation. J.S. Bach was criticised in his
> times for writing down the ornaments,

He still did not write down implied appoggiature at the end of phrases.
Specialized Baroque soloists will usually add them, choir and orchestra
will rarely do so.

> as in those days there was the view the musician should supply it, but
> it makes his music very performable to us in our times. Modern sheet
> music of Baroque music usually use modern notation and is edited,
> which may make it hard to know what the original actually was, but
> only experts on Baroque music can use the originals.

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).

>> And I _am_ a western musician, who learned Flamenco.  I looked for
>> and found a good teacher and yes, this costs money.
>
> So then you might find a way to notate it, if you so would like, so
> that other western musicians do not need to make that roundabout. I do
> not recall the details, but if the actual note lengths would be
> written down, I think one would end up with irregular meters, as in
> Balkan music, and LilyPond can handle that.

We don't write foreign language poetry in IPA.  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's the thought behind the music
rather than its utterance.

We have a whole lot of recording devices and recordings at our disposal
in our times so we are freed to some degree from using musicians as
glorified gramophones.

-- 
David Kastrup