On 25.08.2004 22:09 Uhr, "Mark D Lew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Aug 25, 2004, at 2:34 PM, James Bailey wrote:
>
>> But this is the point. Words have meanings, but if, as you say (and I
>> agree)
>> the English meaning doesn't match the Italian meaning, what is the
>> English
>> meaning? That's the whole point, as far as I'm concerned. We have all
>> the
>> musical terms that we've changed the meaning of.
>
> Huh??? That makes no sense. The "accurate literal translation" is NOT
> the real meaning of a musical term.
So then how does the real meaning of a musical term come about?
>> My composition teacher in
>> college was a stickler for the absolute accurate literal translation of
>> musical terms, where many of the other professors were not.
>
> The other professors were right. Did he use a wooden stick to conduct
> with? After all, that's the "accurate literal" meaning of "baton".
No, but if you put a word in a score, you had better be able to explain what
you expected a performer to do when he saw it, and then he'd tell you what
the meant in whatever language it came from.
>> In my observation, performers use what they *think* the word means, and
>> don't frequently consult musical dictionaries to discover the actual,
>> literal translation of a word.
>
> Surely you don't mean to suggest that if I want to know what a sonata
> is, I should look up "sonata" in an Italian dictionary?
It couldn't hurt.
> How far do you carry this? There are thousands of words in English
> that have a foreign derivation, and not just in music. Do you want to
> tie them all to the meaning of the same word in the original language?
Words are actually fun for me, and knowing the etymology of a word is
interesting to me. I like to know where the words in my language come from.
I've learned that while I'm not alone in this, I am something of an anomaly.
And don't get me wrong, I realise that languages evolve and change over
time, I just like to know where words come from, and to use them in the most
appropriate place. As I said, for me it's fun.
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
