At 9:45 PM +0100 11/03/03, Johannes Gebauer wrote:How would one indicate a rest for exactly half a measure of 18/8 (which is basically two 9/8 measures, with six beats per measure, one beat per dotted quarter)? In the 18th century print I am working from I see a half rest, how would this be notated in modern notation?
Johannes
You got me. By sheer coincidence I came across this same problem myself just two weeks ago, working on an arrangement of Silent Night with triplet subdivisions. I couldn't figure out how to make sure that everyone read partial measures correctly (three dotted quarter rests? A dotted half rest and a dotted quarter rest? Or the undotted equivelants: quarter rest/eighth rest three times, or a half rest, a quarter rest, and then quarter rest eighth rest, not very good?) so I gave up and notated it in 9/8 with double the number of measures. I suppose that even our modern and carefully-studied system of notation has some blind spots sometimes. I seem to be coming up against them more regularly now that I am older.
Christopher
Christopher's suggestion is indeed how it should be notated, traditionally (there is no historical justification for a prohibition of dotted rests--we've been all thru this a few months ago).
Anyway, in my own notation of compound meters, I make free use of a notational convention pioneered some 70 years ago by Willi Apel for musicological purposes: the vertical double-dot, in which the placement of a second dot *above* the first dot increases the duration of the note by half of its single-dotted value. A vertically double-dotted half note (or rest) would therefore have the value of a dotted half plus a dotted quarter, and this is precisely the symbol needed to fill half a bar of 18/8.
I am far from alone among composers in using this (IMO) extremely useful notation. George Crumb uses it routinely, for instance. I have found that I almost never have to explain it to performers, as the meaning is so very clear.
-- Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press
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