At 12:20 AM 7/3/2007 +0100, Owain Sutton wrote: >How about when a harmonic can be produced either as a natural harmonic >or an artificial one - if a composer prefers the timbre of one over the >other, which we can hopefully agree is a major difference, why not >notate it as such?
If there is, and if it matters, then of course. But how often are those differences more significant than the differences among instruments and performers? The natural and artificial harmonics have differences that are audible in solo writing, and depending on which harmonic is used among the artificials, they also comprise different (even if limited) spectra. To my mind, if those differences exceed the likely differences from one performer/instrument to another, then yes, notate it. But if it is a passing effect or an orchestral (choir) effect whose cumulative difference is less significant, then I'd leave it to the performer. (My own writing is more interested in the 'cloud' than the 'droplets', so to speak, meaning the notation of specific instructions like these is excessive and effectively meaningless.) Now I haven't looked at, for example, the score to Barlow's "Orchidiae Ordinariae" in which the string harmonics imitate the sound of the human voice. Maybe the balance among the dozens of harmonics was critical to achieve that effect; I don't know. >I refer to my Britten example from earlier - I honestly don't think I >could have worked out how to play it without the mechanical instruction >of the original. Perhaps so; I don't know how much training in harmonics a violinist gets compared to, say, a guitarist, whose scores are littered with harmonics. In looking at your Britten example, I can see which strings those harmonics might fall on for greatest volume, if only because of knowing the harmonic series pretty intimately for electronic work. But there are so many harmonic combinations for a given result, and I'm not sure what Britten was looking for, nor how idiomatic it was intended to be. If I needed it, I'd grab Zukofsky's great chart and use that (which I assume violinists would know by heart, and not need me anyway). >And similarly in Stravinsky, I'm thinking of one >passage in his concerto where the violin *could* play artificial >harmonics throughout, but can also produce the same pitches with a much >stronger tone by the use of far less obvious natural harmonics. If a >composer creates something specifically to make idiomatic use of an >instrument in the latter way, notating it as such is absolutely correct. Agreed. It's a matter of how important a particular harmonic quality is. Harmonics are by their nature quite pale, so the reason to use one instead of another is more a question of volume, intonation (the problem in 12TET music) and the increased in proportional noise on harmonics higher in the series. But if a given string brand, instrument quality and performer technique produces better volume of this essentially colorless tone in a less traditional position, then that would be the choice for the performer, not me. (The same with electronics; I'd prefer to specify the parameters and result rather than the knobs to turn and buttons to press.) Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
