On Jun 22, 2006, at 2:53 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:
On Jun 22, 2006, at 2:27 PM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
On Jun 21, 2006, at 10:03 PM, Jamin Hoffman wrote:
Dear all -
Is the proper way to represent unmeasured tremolos three slashes across the note, regardless of the value of the note?
Yes. This same notation is also used for wind fluttertongue and percussion rolls. ...
Andrew,
You know I respect the heck out of you, but none of the references I've found agrees with you (your first word, the rest is sound). They all say that beamed notes get their beams subtracted from the number of slashes, so that the sum of beams and slashes is always three. This means adding TWO slashes to eighth notes, and only ONE to sixteenths, as I said in my last message.
George Heussenstamm and Clinton Roemer say this.
The one dissenting opinion I can find is Kurt Stone, who says that the number of slashes should be a number indicating a fast rhythm, so he would use 2 in a fast tempo and 4 in a slow tempo where they might be confused with 32nds. But even he doesn't say three slashes regardless of note value....
What about *my* book, he whined. True, I never actually show three strokes over a beam, but I say in at least 3 places to use 3 strokes, period.
Anyway, a quick survey of actual scores shows that you are largely, but not entirely, right. I've been using the 3-strokes-always convention for my entire career, and I know I didn't just make it up.
Maybe it's an American thing. In _Black Angels_, Crumb varies his usage according to context, aranging things so that the vast majority of tremolos (all unmeasured of course) are in fact notated w. 3 strokes--but when there's a note of different-than-usual value, the number of strokes does change. The first 5 systems, for instance, contain mostly 32d notes, beamed together in various combinations and almost all tremolo. These beamed 32d-note tremolos are all notated w. 3 strokes *in addition to* the 3 beams (the tempo is 8th-note = 60)--but when the occasional 16th note shows up, it is given *four* tremolo strokes. A fore-and-aft-dotted half (10 beats duration) is given *five* strokes.
Later, in the "Devil-music" section, 3 strokes are used under feathered beams, then 4 under the first of a group of stemless noteheads, followed by the instruction "(trem. sempre ---->)" then 3 under 42 32d notes grouped in sixes. Clearly, as might be expected of Crumb, his intent was to produce the most visually compelling effect regardless of any rules.
In my defense, I'll simply observe that it's been everyone for themselves in the notation department for the past 50 years.
--Andrew
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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