On 26 Mar 2008 at 6:39, dhbailey wrote: > David W. Fenton wrote: > > On 23 Mar 2008 at 21:55, Owain Sutton wrote: > > > >> (Why > >> notate anything as 2/2, if it's likely to be heard as 2/4?) > > > > This kind of comment makes me crazy. > > > > You notate it as 2/2 because MUSICIANS PLAY IT DIFFERENTLY THAN THE > > PLAY 2/4. > > > > Certain styles of music make more sense in 2/2 than they would in 4/4 > > or 2/4. > > You can really hear a difference in music performed in 2/4 rather than > 2/2?
You know perfectly well that's not what I said! > Come on, now, put yourself in an audience and write the meters > down that you hear, and I'll be that your movements in 2 will be correct > half the time and wrong half the time, assuming you've never seen the > printed music before. Red herring. > What's the performing difference when dividing the beat in half, if > using a half-note pulse and playing quarter notes or using a > quarter-note pulse and playing 8th notes? A beat divided in half is a > beat divided in half. Isn't it? Because musicians respond differently the notation. They play 2/4 differently than they play 2/2 (unless they are insensitive clods, of course). Darcy gave some examples of exactly this from jazz with regard to swing on various subdivisions. The same holds true for other periods of music. I deal with this issue all the time with editions of Renaissance music that "helpfully" reduce the note values, and, frankly, once you're accustomed to the original note values (or, rather, in most cases, half the original note values), it's *harder* to play it in the "modern" note values. I may not be able to say whether a player is reading 2/4 or 2/2, but I'll be there will be a difference between how that same player performs the same music notated in the two different meters. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
