At 6:03 PM +0100 10/28/08, Eric Fiedler wrote:
But (and this is especially for David F. and John H.) don't you get just a little bit queasy looking at measures 8-9 in the bass? Be honest now ;-)
Not at all. No more than the cantus in the same measures, which also hangs over "the barline." That is precisely what you would see in the viol partbooks of the English consort repertoire, no bar lines, the shape of the phrases visually quite clear. Yes, it takes some getting used to, and when the music is forced into score and given barlines (of ANY kind!) it is, as David says, difficult to transfer the intellectual understanding that the bar lines should NOT be there to the fact that they ARE, and it obscures the individuality of the lines.
I know you understand that, but it's a compromise I'm not ready to make IF I have a choice! Too often I do not.
My approach to this music is to attempt to see it as individual chant-like lines, blended together, each with its own patterns of twos and threes just as in chant. What looks like a syncopation in bar-line music is much more often simply a superimposed triple time. The Elway Bevin "The Leaves Be Green" à3 has two sections that do this with each part in a different and conflicting "meter," if you happen to know that piece, and it's a real joy to survive those sections with your mind intact!!
John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
