Re: Notation convention: dotted notes, duplet or else?

[David Kastrup]

Kieren MacMillan <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi David,
>
>> The whole point of hemiolas is to fit with the timing.
>
> Yes.
>
>> Changing the meter ruins the pun.
>
> Only if a "hemiola feel" is what you want.  ;)
>
>> it seems like a crutch for people uncapable of dealing with the duality
>> of inner and outer rhythmic structure of a syncopated phrase.
>
> As with most blanket generalizations, I disagree with that
> statement. [It reminds me of the extremity of one of my composition
> professors, who claimed that all music can be effectively written in
> 4/8 using accents and other indications to replicate "downbeats" and
> the other natural gestural aspects of music with time signatures

Which is exactly the opposite approach in that it banishes all but one
aspect of the music.

> — he made me compose all my pieces for him that way!]

It would appear to me that if one wants to have a flow of accents
unrelated to some no longer underlying meter, one should better revert
to basically meterless notation, like those used for Gregorian chant.

> I often write (e.g.)  a 3/4 measure desiring it to be performed with
> syncopation, followed by exactly the same notes/durations in a 6/8
> measure desiring it to be performed "in the beat"; that is, I use the
> conventions of notation to get the performers to execute subtleties
> that would be impossible through other notational choices.

I probably am not all too enthused about this concept of subtlety.  Bach
uses the conventions of polyphony and natural word emphasis to make the
music contain subtleties that are not spelled out in the notation (short
of making it into beaming patterns sometimes).  Like with poetry, if you
have to use means of forcing the meter to the performer, and if the
performer has to take explicit means to force the meter to the
listeners, one might suspect that the content to be conveyed might have
benefitted from a better fit of the message/medium.

Spelled out differently: for me the art of subtlety consists in letting
things fall into place without force.  Printing a meter change for
hemioles is like indicating the exact placement for canned laughter in a
comedy script, perhaps by marking out sentence parts as "funny" and "not
funny".

> The issue is analogous to the one with swing notation: does one write
> triplets, or dotted-eighth-and-sixteenths, or straight eighths with a
> text instruction? It depends on the music, and the precise effect the
> composer is hoping to elicit from the performer(s).

If a composer is hoping to elicit precise effects, he should not make
his music available except to ensembles he is conducting himself.  I
know someone who did it like that and his widow is still keeping the
scores pretty tightly under wrap.

-- 
David Kastrup