Re: Microrhythm

[David Kastrup]

Kieren MacMillan <address@hidden> writes:

> metachromatic <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>    To see how silly your comment on this issue is, let's calculate the
>>> difference in time twixt a tuplet like 7919/4451 against a tuplet
>>> 7909/4447 over the course of two minutes and 13 seconds of 4/4 time at
>>> a tempo of metronome marking 90:
>>> 
>>>    The difference is (0.00064839149)*60/90 seconds per quarter note =
>>> 0.00043226099 seconds per quarter note.  But after only 200 quarter
>>> notes (that is, 50 measures of 4/4, taking only two minutes and 13
>>> seconds), that difference in timing has grown to ~ 1/11 second. And I
>>> guarantee you that you can easily hear whether one melodic line is
>>> offset from another by 1/11 second, since that equates to a difference
>>> of slightly less than an eighth note at tempo 90.
>>> 
>>>    Now, come on, Han-Wen...are you _really_ telling me the average
>>> listener can't hear the duration of an eighth note a tempo mm = 90?
>>> Seriously?
>
> I have to correct a post from the other day: In my 30+ years on
> electronic networks, *this* is the hardest I’ve ever seen anyone work
> to die on a hill not worth dying on.

Well, there is an immense body of readily composed and performed and
recorded music.  If "good enough" were a universal perception, we'd have
little use for composers and performers any more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Directe_(climb)

> And, bonus, it’s done with an extra helping of condescension.

Hey, I do rock climbing.  Lots of hills around with an elevation not
particularly impressive.  "Action Directe"
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Directe_(climb)> is 15m in length.
The Wikipedia page states that Wolfgang Güllich needed 11 days for first
redpointing the route (climbing in one go from the ground while clipping
the belay rope to the bolts and without ever falling or otherwise
weighting the rope).  That glosses over the detail that he rebuilt the
key moves (or rather jumps) in size in his private gymnasium and spent a
season training them.

Here is a dramatized video: <https://vimeo.com/238576281> without all
the hubbub (I admit to not bothering turning on the sound) and slow
motion the final climb would be about 30 seconds.

Entirely subjective which hill is worth dying on: Güllich was the first
to extensively exposed hard "solo" routes, with the final climb being
without protection where a missed or broken-out hold would have been
deadly.  Nobody thought he'd live to old age, but nobody imagined he'll
die falling asleep behind the wheel.

I digress: particularly when people don't want to see the worthiness of
your hill, condescension helps to set you apart.  Zealotry is first and
foremost about convincing yourself.

Where is the point in composing a fugue on the theme

\language "german" \relative { b a c h } ?

In this particular case, however, we are talking about a climb involving
voluntary porters, and yelling at them and calling them stupid for not
wanting to line up for unpaid duty faster is, well, not conducive to
getting that hill climbed.  I don't think even Old Bach would have had
much success with that approach.

-- 
David Kastrup