Re: Notational conventions

[Hans Åberg]

> On 9 Nov 2016, at 10:45, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> Hans Åberg <address@hidden> writes:

>> 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.

I used Edition Peters Urtext for the flute, where the edits are notated, in 
case one would want to do otherwise.

>> 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).

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.

In Balkan music, ornaments are only measured at high tempo; check out some 
Petar Ralchev instructional videos.

>>> 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 languages, one usually starts off writing as it sounds, and then the spoken 
language tend to drift faster than the written one. Also, IPA is phonemic, so 
the same symbol may be executed differently in different languages.

> 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.

> It's the thought behind the music
> rather than its utterance.

And that is one part lost in the calls for highly accurate notation in LilyPond.

> 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.

In the days of J.S. Bach, music notation was their recording system, but that 
has changed today.