On Jun 29, 2005, at 9:57 PM, Chuck Israels wrote:
On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:45 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
(the "I want to live in America" effect
I don't remember how Bernstein wrote this, but I'd write it with one combined time signature 6/8 and 3/4 and think that that was pretty clear. It seems cluttered to change time signatures every measure for something as consistent as this example. I'd trust musicians to understand that in a flash.
Well (ahem) I just happen to have my copy of the West Side Story piano/vocal score near at hand, so here goes:
Tempo di Huapango (fast)
6
8
followed by 3/4 in parentheses (no way to show that clearly in plain text)
So, Chuck, you and Lenny agree. Notice the THREE (3) different languages in the tempo marking. And this was WAY before post-modernism!
But even though that's interesting enough, what is WAY more interesting to me is the intro, marked Moderato, Tempo di "Seis"
It's notated in cut time, with a 3-2 clave rhythm
Q. Q. Q | QR Q Q QR
eventually played in the bass, too
against quarter-note triplets in the accompaniment, accented in DUPLES! The melody is approximately in quarter-note triplets, more or less accented in groups of three against the two's in the accompaniment.
Whee! Lenny, baby!
I remember playing Dixieland one summer, alternating sets with a Mariachi band, and they had a couple of tunes like this in their repertoire. Every time this beat came up I would stand close, brow furrowed, counting and tapping my feet, trying to figure it out (I was young). The bass guitar player would see me, and every time it seemed like I was onto something, he would throw something new in, and they would all crack up laughing at me as I fumbled. For such a simple little setup, there was a LOT of rhythmic subtlety going on. I caught on eventually near the end of the summer (it isn't as simple as Bernstein notated it, but has pushing and pulling going on) and from then on I was one of the gang.
Christopher
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