On 3 Jun 2003 at 13:31, Stu McIntire wrote: > I don't think what the percussionist's tutor was trying to get out of the > hapless mechanical student in the original post was really all that > mysterious; sounds to me like the teacher wasn't very clear or resourceful. > "Musicality" in this case, maybe most of the time, is not some ghost in the > machine that can't be measured; it is quite simply small but measurable > changes in "real" attributes of the sounds, and spaces between the sounds, > that comprise the music. You can tweak a midi file to sound musical in the > sense meant by this post, I am convinced. Small adjustments to velocity, > duration, and pitch as appropriate in a musical context can do the trick. I > sometimes wonder if metaphysical beliefs about the nature of music > frequently blind teachers from developing practical suggestions that can > help students improve in this area.
Well, it's interesting that this should come on the tail end of a discussion that in one branch consisted of pretty definitive statements of how notating swing precisely as it sounds is neither desirable nor really possible. I agree that musicality mostly consists of what I call "making the music dance," and that most of that has to do with controlling relative accentuation and agogics. Yes, that could be be taught by rote, just as it can to a certain extent be imposed on a MIDI performance. But there is no single pattern that can be imposed on every measure of a piece, so that means adjustments need to be made constantly according to the flow of the music, and it is the ability to perceive the need for those adjustments and the sense to know the extent of necessary adjustment that is what I think is called "musicality." It's the envelope around the pitches and rhtythms and dynamics, and the constant adjustment of that enveloped along multiple parameters that results in a performance that sounds free and open and "musical." And some people have it and some people don't. -- 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
