On 13 Nov 2002 at 23:54, jef chippewa wrote: > while i certainly cannot doubt your knowledge regarding > baroque/renaissance traditions and interpretation [having almost none > myself], i will suggest that it is erroneous to import a brahms > performance context into a 20th century notational context in order to > justify the claim that 'quarter=dotted quarter' when changing from 4/4 to > 12/8 still applies as a standard and can be taken for granted, and thus > not have to be notated. > > equal visual representation of duration = equal temporal interpretation of > duration; 8th=8th regardless of the change in time signature [when no > other indication is present at the junction].
I strongly disagree. The quarter=quarter interpretation is a MIDI/playback thing. 4/4 to 2/2, the quarter equals the quarter, but 4/4 to 12/8, the dotted quarter in the new meter by default should be assumed to be equal to the previous quarter. That is because there is a special relationship between the compound meters and their simple meter analogs. So, 2/4 to 6/8, 3/4 to 9/8 and 4/4 to 12/8 all maintain the same beat, while 3/4 to 6/8 would maintain the 8th note. The example that started all of this, 4/4 to 2/2 is a special case where there is no really clear tradition of whether a change from one to the other should be interpreted in any particular manner. I would say that the default would be half = half, but that there are probably plenty of examples where the beat remains the same (i.e., the new half is equal to the old quarter). But saying there aren't any standards is simply erroneous. There are long-standing conventions and associations here. But one should not assume that everyone is aware of them. It's better to be explicit than to leave the performer wondering if they made the right guess. Of course, in early music, you often must just make a guess. I think all the people who try to make complex and exact conversions between the old meters are making a huge mistake -- all you need to do is absorb the feel of the music involved and the conversion basically takes care of itself. Rigidly attempting to maintain a metronomic equivalence is itself going to be anachronistic in that context, whatever particular theorists may have said. Theorists were, after all, theorists, so they often rigidly define things that were not at all strict in practice. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
