On 30 May 2003 at 9:48, Mark D. Lew wrote: > At 4:06 PM 05/29/03, David W. Fenton wrote: > > [answering me] > > >> My main musical milieu is the community of opera singers. . . . > > > >OH, well, that explains a lot. > > > >*I* was talking about *musicians*. ;) > > LOL. If you think I'm going to dispute the implication, you're wrong. > > >Well, what's wrong with simply not obscuring your changes? > > Short of a whole lot of brackets or a whole lot of textual addenda, you > can't have it both ways. Either you make a change or you don't. . . .
I'm not advocating *not* changing it. I'm saying make it easy for the performer to tell what has been changed. It doesn't have to be immediately obvious what the original was, it just needs to be clear (in my opinion) what you've changed. The original readings are probably trivial in most cases. > . . . Let's take > the question of beaming. As you probably know, the traditional style for > vocal music for a long time was to break a beam for every syllable. Common > practice today, even in reprints of classical work, is to beam the vocal > part the same as you'd beam another instrument, but occasionally adding > breaks for obviously contextual phrasing breaks (which is itself an > editorial judgment, of course). I understand the argument for preserving > the tradition, but on the whole I find the modern practice more readable > (and in some cases, much more readable). For better or worse, that's my > choice. > > So now the original beaming is part of the information that I have > destroyed. . . . Except the original beaming didn't tell you any information that is not duplicated in the syllable breaks of the words, right? So, by using modern beaming, you haven't lost any actual information. Now in the accompaniment, I'd say you'd have different choices, but in the voice part, I can't see how you'd be losing anything at all. > . . . OK. So how do I preserve it, short of writing out so many > brackets that I may as well publish an entire appendix saying "this is how > it was originally beamed"? I'd just note somewhere in your notes on the edition that you'd change the beaming of the voice line to match modern standards because there was nothing in the original beaming that did not conform to the syllable breaks, which are obvious from the text. > It's just not practical to document everything. . . . That's not what I'm arguing for. I'm arguing for the point of view as you're considering what to do with any particular instance of non-standard notation: 1. does the particular notational "modernization" of the original sacrifice any musically significant information? 2. if so, is there some modern notational convention that will convey the same information? 3. is that same information available in some other form, so that losing that information is just losing a redundancy? > . . . Sure, it can be done. (If > nothing else, one can just attach a photocopy of the source.) But it's > considerable extra work and extra verbiage for the sake of information that > probably no one who is ever going to see my work cares about, and for a > project that I do on my own time for little or no financial gain. I would say a note that you've modernized the beaming would suffice. > >Why not a couple of notes listing what you've changed? For the > >interested person, they can revert to the original if they find your > >changes unconvincing. The vast number of performers will ignore the > >notes, but for the person who *cares*, it will be very valuable. > > That's essentially what I do, though without going into minute detail. > Frankly I think even that falls in the category of being excessive, but no > one has ever accused me of being unduly concise in my writing. I seriously > doubt that anyone who looks at my editions really cares if I (to name two > genuine examples) changed a three-beam measured tremolo to two-beam because > the former is unplayable on the piano at the appropriate tempo, or doubled > the octave in the bass because a single note isn't loud enough on the piano > to approximate what the orchestra sounds like there. Well, just in case the thing should ever be published, at least maintain notes for yourself. > As for the "vast number of performers" who will ignore the notes, I can > only laugh. There are no vast numbers looking at my work. The "person who > *cares*", assuming he or she exists at all, is welcome to send me an email > and inquire. If your score has an odd number of pages and a blank page at the back, why not print the notes there? If they are going to be ignored, they are going to be ignored, but if they're not there, they might not think to ask. For instance, if there's something odd that strikes them as a possible error, with notes, they can see if the editor has made a change. Without them, they are on their own, unless they want to take the time to contact you (and hardly anyone will). > >How do you know the original was not in D and that you're not looking > >at a transposition for this particular edition? > > Come to think of it, I don't. But that makes no difference to my editorial > quandary. I would again say that, as with putting in a note saying you've modernized the vocal beaming, you could just say that in the passage at measure x through y, you've transposed to easier key signatures. > [quoting me again] > >> I don't include editorial notes on the music itself, though I do generally > >> offer a few lines of notes separately for those who care to look. In this > >> case, I expect I would mention the key change. (My beaming practice is > >> mentioned elsewhere as a general note for all my editions.) I certainly > >> would not, however, list every instance where I switched a stem direction, > >> changed the rhythmic spelling of a rest, cross-staffed a note, or fixed a > >> typographical error. Anyone who cares about details like that is welcome > >> to compare my page with the original for himself. > > > >I would say that is fine. Even critical editions don't do that. > > Oh, OK, in that case we have no significant disagreement here. I thought I > sensed an insistence that every bit of information must be preserved, which > for me is just not practical. Well, every piece of musically *significant* information should be preserved. And I also think when you correct an "error" you should note it in the musical text (you may have corrected it wrong). I'd probably indicate changed pitches with an ossia measure (or simply a graphic) and ignore rhythmic errors, unless there was something consistent enough to make a note of it. I've seen 18th-century editions that consistently leave out necessary double dots, or that mis-represent the rhythmic value of very short notes. It doesn't really compromise the readability, as it's quite obvious what is actually meant, but I'd defininitely make it correct rhythm in my edition. I would just put a note that I'd done so and list the measures where the change was made. But for myself, I'd still make a note of *every* notational change I'd made, just in case I later came to feel it was musically significant. I wouldn't necessarily provide that with the score, but I'd definitely file it away with my materials for that piece (surely you keep the photocopies you transcribe from in a file somewhere?). -- 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
