On Jun 30, 2005, at 9:55 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
I'm puzzled by why one would want to "rationalize" 6/8 to 6/12,
While I agree that 6/12 is a bad solution, that does not mean there is no problem. Composers for at least a century have found the traditional notation of compound meters to be an unsatisfying kludge, and have searched for a better way. Orff, for example, used actual note shapes for the "denominator." In my own music, I put dots after the numbers to signify that the meter is compound.
The problem arises from the fact that 6/8 (for example) can mean either 6 8th-note beats or two dotted-quarter beats (and please don't say it can't do the former; we went through all this last year). Nothing in the notation can tell you which, and one's choice will have a drastic effect on tempo (6 allegro 8th-notes, or 2 allegro dotted-Q?). Some passages are simply insoluble, such as the lone 6/8 bar immediately before rehearsal G in the first mvt. of Hindemith's _Symphonische Metamorphosen_. The prevailing meter is 2/4; is the beat to be held constant through the 6/8 measure (compound meter), or the note values (simple meter)? Both solutions are represented in recordings. Unless a composer wants to tack down the meaning with what can be a profusion of E = E indications, there is always a risk of the intended musical meaning being misinterpreted, because the traditional notation is inherently unclear.
Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
