subject:"\[Finale\] half rests in 6\/4\?"



On Jun 30, 2005, at 1:07 AM, Chuck Israels wrote:



Christopher Smith / 2005/06/29 / 06:00 PM wrote:


Just to thoroughly discredit my own argument, though, here are two
exceptions. There are two pieces of common repertoire which are
ordinarily written in 6/8 (divided 3+3) with swing SIXTEENTHS - All
Blues by Miles Davis, and Better Get Hit in Your Soul by Charles
Mingus. In the case of the former, I am convinced that jazz musicians
read this in 6/8 for no other reason than because the first published
lead sheet was notated that way, without reference to Miles or any of
his musicians.



I wrote an arrangement of this and notated it in 6/4.  Bill Evans 
questioned that decision, because he had (of course) seen the original 
(in 6/8), but he did not quarrel with the results, which simply made 
the reading easier for jazz players who, as I think Chris said before, 
are hopelessly tied to a quarter note basic pulse.  (And I count 
myself among those players.)




Well, there's a piece of information you can take to the bank. It WAS 
originally notated in 6/8, and one of the original musicians testifies 
to it. I stand corrected.


Pure gold, this list, I tell you!

Christopher



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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-30 Thread A-NO-NE Music

Darcy James Argue / 2005/06/30 / 01:38 AM wrote:

and neither you nor George raised any objections.


Are you saying we have met before?!!
Oh, this is embarrassing.
How come you never mentioned it?!


-- 

- Hiro

Hiroaki Honshuku, A-NO-NE Music, Boston, MA
http://a-no-ne.com http://anonemusic.com


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-30 Thread Stephen Peters

Chuck Israels [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:45 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

 (the I want to live in America effect

 I don't remember how Bernstein wrote this, but I'd write it with one
 combined time signature 6/8 and 3/4 and think that that was pretty
 clear.  

I've actually seen two different scores of America -- one time had
it written just as 6/8, the other as 6/8+3/4.

Hope this helps.

-- 
Stephen L. Peters  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

2005-06-30 Thread Ken Durling

Well, if you think of it as a subdominant *function* it's not so very 
wrong.  In a similar way vii serves a dominant function.


Ken



At 09:54 PM 6/29/2005, you wrote:

On Jun 29, 2005, at 9:14 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:

Subdominant (used to mean the 4th of the scale, or the chord built on it. 
Now means ANY chord that can lead to a dominant


Really?  I only know the term as referring to the chord built on the 4th 
of the scale.


So you're telling me that a IIm7 chord would be described as 
subdominant?  To me that sounds very wrong.


mdl

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-30 Thread Andrew Stiller



I am obviously stupid, but can someone explain to me what this means, 
and in what way it is an example for 6/4 being 3x2/4? The poem seems 
to be in 2x3/4.


Johannes



Sorry, I misread your post to mean the opposite of what it actually 
said.


Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

Yes, I realise that, just as there are many more dominants available 
than the one built on the 5th degree (speaking of both dominant 
function and dominant quality).


Some of these concepts have grown so much that they deserve their own 
terms. Like the bVII dominant7 chord resolving to I in jazz is so much 
more common than say, a Neopolitain chord in the idiom that it is only 
right that it should have its own name, too. One school calls it a 
backdoor resolution, which is at least easy to spell and say, even if 
it is less than descriptive.


Christopher


On Jun 30, 2005, at 10:49 AM, Ken Durling wrote:

Well, if you think of it as a subdominant *function* it's not so very 
wrong.  In a similar way vii serves a dominant function.


Ken



At 09:54 PM 6/29/2005, you wrote:

On Jun 29, 2005, at 9:14 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:

Subdominant (used to mean the 4th of the scale, or the chord built 
on it. Now means ANY chord that can lead to a dominant


Really?  I only know the term as referring to the chord built on the 
4th of the scale.


So you're telling me that a IIm7 chord would be described as 
subdominant?  To me that sounds very wrong.


mdl

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-30 Thread Andrew Stiller

(the I want to live in America effect

The actual line is I like to be in America. 

I don't remember how Bernstein wrote this, but I'd write it with one combined time signature 6/8 and 3/4 and think that that was pretty clear.  It seems cluttered to change time signatures every measure for something as consistent as this example.  I'd trust musicians to understand that in a flash.

Chuck


I have the score in front of me. He writes it as 6/8 (3/4) with the header Tempo di Huapango (fast). The beaming of the hemiolated (3/4) measures is inconsistent.


Andrew Stiller
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

2005-06-30 Thread Andrew Stiller

 Some of my colleagues have replaced this term with Predominant to 
be more clear.



Christopher



Is that the predominant opinion?

Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!



On Jun 30, 2005, at 11:39 AM, Andrew Stiller wrote:

 Some of my colleagues have replaced this term with Predominant to 
be more clear.



Christopher



Is that the predominant opinion?



Ooh, TWO puns aimed my way in less than twelve hours! I love it!

Christopher (hoping to convert the world!)


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-30 Thread Owain Sutton




Andrew Stiller wrote:






The beaming of the hemiolated (3/4) 
measures is inconsistent.





Well, that's consistent with the utter mess of the hand-scrawled parts 
that I've played off!

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

2005-06-30 Thread Phil Daley


 On Jun 29, 2005, at 9:14 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:

 Subdominant (used to mean the 4th of the scale, or the chord built
 on it. Now means ANY chord that can lead to a dominant

 Really?  I only know the term as referring to the chord built on the
 4th of the scale.

 So you're telling me that a IIm7 chord would be described as
 subdominant?  To me that sounds very wrong.

 mdl

Thinking about this, I believe I was taught that a iim7 chord resolving to 
dominant was called a secondary dominant.


My theory teacher was from the Rochester school.

Phil Daley   AutoDesk 
http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley



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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-30 Thread Neal Schermerhorn

Andrew Stiller wrote:


 The beaming of the hemiolated (3/4)
 measures is inconsistent.

Just conducted WSS last fall. It is 6/8 (3/4).

Yes, it is irregular in spots but it plays itself. Only a few spots where it
isn't one then the other, and those are easily pointed out in rehearsal. I
conducted most of it in one anyhow, so as not to confuse the musicians.

Owain Sutton wrote:

 Well, that's consistent with the utter mess of the hand-scrawled parts
 that I've played off!

It's now available with parts and score done on computer, spiral bound. Not
sure if it was Finale, Sibelius or what. That is a wonderful thing! It was
hard enough with neat parts!

Neal Schermerhorn
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Re: Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

2005-06-30 Thread richard.bartkus

 On Jun 29, 2005, at 9:14 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:

 Subdominant (used to mean the 4th of the scale, or the chord built
 on it. Now means ANY chord that can lead to a dominant


If this is true, then do you call the 7th a sub-tonic ?

Call me aa A-retentive tradionalist, but I believe that by changing the meaning 
of the term obfuscates it's meaning and makes subsequent discussions between 
musicians/composers/arrangers much more difficult than it already is.

If someone says to me sub-dominant within a music discussion, I will take 
that to mean the pitch just BELOW the Dominant or the 4th pitch in the scale.   
 

Richard Bartkus

PS - Does a sub-dominatrix lead to a dominatrix, or is that anyone who is 
submissive to a dominantrix ? LOL



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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!



On Jun 30, 2005, at 1:36 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


On Jun 29, 2005, at 9:14 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:


Subdominant (used to mean the 4th of the scale, or the chord built
on it. Now means ANY chord that can lead to a dominant




If this is true, then do you call the 7th a sub-tonic ?



If it is a tone below the tonic, yes. A semitone below would be a 
leading tone. I'm not sure why this point leads from subdominant 
discussions, though.





Call me aa A-retentive tradionalist, but I believe that by changing 
the meaning of the term obfuscates it's meaning and makes subsequent 
discussions between musicians/composers/arrangers much more difficult 
than it already is.


If someone says to me sub-dominant within a music discussion, I will 
take that to mean the pitch just BELOW the Dominant or the 4th pitch 
in the scale.




I was unclear in my original comment. Some people say a subdominant 
chord or a predominant chord interchangeably, to mean a predominant 
FUNCTION chord or a predominant AREA chord. So he might say, the 
iim7 and the IV are both predominants interchangeably with the iim7 
and the IV are both SUBdominants when he might have MEANT to say 
subdominant FUNCTION or AREA.


In jazz, the predominant function extends to a whole bunch of other 
chords, too, from borrowed modes and extended chords. But THEY aren't 
REALLY predominant all the time either, so the name is kind of 
misleading, which is my original point. These chords don't have to go 
to a dominant, so they aren't really PREdominant. We don't have a 
really good and descriptive name that avoids confusion.






PS - Does a sub-dominatrix lead to a dominatrix, or is that anyone who 
is submissive to a dominantrix ? LOL




Heh, heh! It's obvious to me that the dominatrix is simply the feminine 
version of the dominant. So, in music as in poetry, a resolving 
dominatrix is a dominant that is stressed (though usually it is the 
submissive who is more stressed! He might need resolution, too, for all 
I know - I have no intimate knowledge of these matters.)

 8-)


Christopher

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

On 30 Jun 2005 at 0:14, Christopher Smith wrote:

 On Jun 29, 2005, at 11:34 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
 
  On 29 Jun 2005, at 9:28 PM, Raymond Horton wrote:
 
  The work in question is most definitely in two groups of 3 beats
  each (although it often hemiolas into 3/2 temporarily).
 
  That's not the right meaning of hemiola. A hemiola is:
 
  W   W W
  H H H | H H H
 
  across two measures in a 3/2 context, (or H H H in two 3/4
  measures). In 3/2, the hemiola is overlaying a 3/1 measure over top
  of two 3/2 measures.
 
 I think hemiola is one of those terms which has gone beyond its
 traditional meaning, to mean any 3 against 2 OR 2 against 3 counter
 accent in our modern times.

Well, I think it's a problem, because it uses only 1/2 of the 
definition/function of the hemiola in the music in which it emerged.

 Other terms that I think have moved on in a similar fashion:
 
 Subdominant (used to mean the 4th of the scale, or the chord built on
 it. Now means ANY chord that can lead to a dominant (though it doesn't
 invariably have to). Some of my colleagues have replaced this term
 with Predominant to be more clear. But what if it doesn't go to the
 dominant, but directly to the tonic? Is it still a predominant? If
 not, then why have a different name for the same chord in the same
 key?

I don't know of anyone who uses subdominant to refer to ii, for 
instance. They may talk about subdominant function chords, or the 
group of chords that function as predominants but I don't hear 
anyone explicitly calling a non-IV chord a subdominant.

 Modal - had a big discussion about this one last year on the list.
 Doesn't mean now what it used to mean a couple of centuries ago. Of
 course leads to

Actually, this is a case where it never meant a single thing, and now 
we've gotten to the point that we recognize that there are at least 
two distinct meanings.

It's like the word organum, which has at least 3 distinct meanings.

 Tonal - which might be one of those words that can't be used any more
 in ANY context except historical, because of all the different ways it
 is construed



 Picardy third (now often applied to ANY major-quality resolution chord
 where a minor one is expected in the key, wrongly or not)

Well, that's one where I don't know of any more limited definition.

 Toncisation (used to mean only with a secondary dominant, now can mean
 articulating a temporary tonic by any applicable means) (on that
 subject, what do you call a plagal resolution to a temporary tonic? A
 plagalisation? I shudder at it, but it IS logical. Musicians who
 play gospel (where it is most common) call it backcycling, but that
 is a bit obtuse IMHO. Drawing on applied dominant perhaps applied
 predominant? Not clear. Applied how?)

I don't recognize the validity of your claim of the original 
restriction -- that makes no sense. It could be that the term was 
first used to talk about those progressions, but that doesn't mean it 
can't easily be adapted to cover other progressions as well.

If the term were dominanticization then you'd have a point.

 All of these expanded uses came about because we needed to talk about
 them, but didn't have a brand-new term, so we used an old term that
 did something similar, but restricted, in an older context. I even
 hear some jazz musicians (mostly bass players) talk about musica
 ficta in a jazz context, meaning that they use sharper notes walking
 up to a target and flatter notes moving down to a target; a great
 departure from the raised 4th and lowered 7th the term used to refer
 to.

I don't see a problem with those.

I *do* see a problem with calling something a hemiola that is EXACTLY 
THE OPPOSITE of what a hemiola actually is.

All of your examples that I would agree are acretions of additional 
meanings are extensions by metaphor, or extensions of usage from the 
original context, and the extensions all apply to things that are 
SIMILAR, not the EXACT OPPOSITE of the original meaning. 

Hence, our invention of the term REVERSE HEMIOLA.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

On 30 Jun 2005 at 9:20, Christopher Smith wrote:

 On Jun 30, 2005, at 12:54 AM, Mark D Lew wrote:
 
  On Jun 29, 2005, at 9:14 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:
 
  Subdominant (used to mean the 4th of the scale, or the chord built
  on it. Now means ANY chord that can lead to a dominant
 
  Really?  I only know the term as referring to the chord built on the
  4th of the scale.
 
  So you're telling me that a IIm7 chord would be described as 
  subdominant?  To me that sounds very wrong.
 
 Described as a subdominant function or subdominant area, yes. This
 confusion is why so many theorists use the term predominant as I had
 mentioned. But that term has its pitfalls, too.

Using the term subdominant function is not even close to using the 
exact term subdominant to apply to non-IV/iv chords.

And it's nothing like the mis-use of hemiola to mean something that 
exactly contradicts the actual meaning of the word.

 Ideally (IMHO) a music theory jargon term would be
 
 1) easy to pronounce and spell,
 2) unambiguous in application, and
 3) have a sense of what it meant built in. Kind of like the German way
 of building compound words (Fork might be
 Foodpickerupandputterintomouth to use my old theory teacher's
 example that always got a giggle. The purpose of the thing is evident
 as soon as you say it.)
 
 Predominant, while it satisfies the first two requirements, causes
 confusion as to its function. Subdominant function is long, and
 certainly could be called ambiguous, since subdominant also means
 just the IV chord and the 4th scale degree.

I don't see any problem whatsoever with either of the terms, but my 
entire theoretical training was based around this approach, and the 
consistent use of those terms.

How would you apply this list, then, to what you argue is a 
permissable shift in the meaning of the word hemiola?

I think people misuse it because they never have actually been taught 
the original definition, probably because a lot of the people using 
it have never actually played much of the music in which the genuine 
hemiola is part of the musical style.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

2005-06-30 Thread Harold Owen


Hello folks.

Has anyone mentioned the term sesquialtera? One source i have says 
IIn Hispanic Music, it may refer to the mixture of duple and triple 
time within groups of six quavers (eighth notes).


Hal Owen
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2830 Emerald St., Eugene, OR 97403
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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http://uoregon.edu/~hjowen
FAX: (509) 461-3608
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 30 Jun 2005 at 11:35, Andrew Stiller wrote:

  (the I want to live in America effect
 
 The actual line is I like to be in America.

That was my memory misfire.

  I don't remember how Bernstein wrote this, but I'd write it with one
  combined time signature 6/8 and 3/4 and think that that was pretty
  clear.  It seems cluttered to change time signatures every measure
  for something as consistent as this example.  I'd trust musicians to
  understand that in a flash.
 
  Chuck
 
 I have the score in front of me. He writes it as 6/8 (3/4) with the
 header Tempo di Huapango (fast). The beaming of the hemiolated (3/4)
 measures is inconsistent.

Ack!!! Andrew! How can someone who is so particular about terminology 
get this one wrong? The subdivision shift is not a hemiola!

And hemiolated sounds like something you'd need Preparation H for! 
;)

A serious question: when you say the beaming in the 3/4 measures is 
inconstent what do you mean? Are you looking at a full score or a 
piano/vocal score? In terms of the vocal parts, I can't hear in my 
mind anything other than quarter notes in those measures, so perhaps 
it's in the orchestra that there are 8th notes? And in that case, 
maybe Bernstein wanted cross accents, with the voices in 3/4, the 
accompaniment in 6/8?

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc


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(Fwd) Re: Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the origin

On 30 Jun 2005 at 13:36, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  On Jun 29, 2005, at 9:14 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:
 
  Subdominant (used to mean the 4th of the scale, or the chord
  built on it. Now means ANY chord that can lead to a dominant
 
 If this is true, then do you call the 7th a sub-tonic ?

In my experience, subtonic is reserved for bVII.

 Call me aa A-retentive tradionalist, but I believe that by changing
 the meaning of the term obfuscates it's meaning and makes subsequent
 discussions between musicians/composers/arrangers much more
 difficult than it already is.

I am not at all aware of anyone seriously using subdominant to name
any chord other than IV/iv.

 If someone says to me sub-dominant within a music discussion, I
 will take that to mean the pitch just BELOW the Dominant or the 4th
 pitch in the scale.

And you'd be correct to do so.

I don't think it's at all confusing to talk about chords of 
subdominant function or predominants.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread Johannes Gebauer

That's only if you are using 6/4 as an equivalent to 3/2. The 
traditional use of 6/4, however, is that of two 3/4 halfbars. In such a 
use of 6/4 I would not consider it correct to use half rests. The 
correct rests for the quarternote on the last beat would be:

dotted half rest, quarter rest, quarter rest.

Johannes

Darcy James Argue schrieb:

On 29 Jun 2005, at 12:58 AM, Raymond Horton wrote:

I know that it is generally felt that one should not, in the best of 
company, use half rests in 3/4 time.  How about 6/4?



Hi Raymond,

Half rests are used in 6/4.  It would look ridiculous to have, for 
example, five quarter rests in a row, followed by a quarter note.  The 
only stipulation is that they should not occur on any beats other than 
one, three, and five.


The more contentious question would be whether it was okay to use 
_whole_ rests in non-empty 6/4 measures -- for example, a whole rest 
followed by a half note.


- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY



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RE: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread keith helgesen

I would query your assertion that 6/4 traditionally is 2 X 3/4.
From my experience 6/4 is generally 3 X 2/4.

Either way the rests (and/or notes)should indicate the beat. In fact, when
sightreading music, the grouping of the rests or notes is the only indicator
to the conductor as to which of the above formats it is.
 
This is a similar dilemma as explaining to students the difference between a
group of six, or two groups of three. ie. Dada,Dada,Dada, or Dadada,Dadada.

(God, that looks stupid written down!- but it works).

Cheers Keith in OZ



Keith Helgesen.
Director of Music, Canberra City Band.
Ph: (02) 62910787. Band Mob. 0439-620587
Private Mob 0417-042171

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Johannes Gebauer
Sent: Wednesday, 29 June 2005 5:49 PM
To: finale@shsu.edu
Subject: Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

That's only if you are using 6/4 as an equivalent to 3/2. The 
traditional use of 6/4, however, is that of two 3/4 halfbars. In such a 
use of 6/4 I would not consider it correct to use half rests. The 
correct rests for the quarternote on the last beat would be:
dotted half rest, quarter rest, quarter rest.

Johannes

Darcy James Argue schrieb:
 On 29 Jun 2005, at 12:58 AM, Raymond Horton wrote:
 
 I know that it is generally felt that one should not, in the best of 
 company, use half rests in 3/4 time.  How about 6/4?
 
 
 Hi Raymond,
 
 Half rests are used in 6/4.  It would look ridiculous to have, for 
 example, five quarter rests in a row, followed by a quarter note.  The 
 only stipulation is that they should not occur on any beats other than 
 one, three, and five.
 
 The more contentious question would be whether it was okay to use 
 _whole_ rests in non-empty 6/4 measures -- for example, a whole rest 
 followed by a half note.
 
 - Darcy
 -
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Brooklyn, NY
 
 
 
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread Johannes Gebauer


keith helgesen schrieb:

I would query your assertion that 6/4 traditionally is 2 X 3/4.

From my experience 6/4 is generally 3 X 2/4.




Is it? I doubt that for most music written before 1900, after that I 
guess things are a little more complex.


I'd be interested to know about any piece in 6/4 before 1850 which is 
clearly 3x2/4, do you know one?


Johannes
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread Ken Durling

Even after 1900 - Bartok makes a very clear pedagogical point of it toward 
the end of Mikrokosmos I - contrasting two pieces in 3/2 and 6/4.  The 3/2 
is 3 x 2/4 and 6/4 is clearly 2 x 3/4.  The relationship of 6/4 to 6/8 as a 
compound duple meter is to my mind beyond much argument. 3/2 is clearly 
simple triple.


Ken



At 02:45 AM 6/29/2005, you wrote:

keith helgesen schrieb:

I would query your assertion that 6/4 traditionally is 2 X 3/4.
From my experience 6/4 is generally 3 X 2/4.


Is it? I doubt that for most music written before 1900, after that I guess 
things are a little more complex.


I'd be interested to know about any piece in 6/4 before 1850 which is 
clearly 3x2/4, do you know one?


Johannes



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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread John Howell


At 12:43 PM +0100 6/29/05, Owain Sutton wrote:

Johannes Gebauer wrote:

keith helgesen schrieb:


I would query your assertion that 6/4 traditionally is 2 X 3/4.


From my experience 6/4 is generally 3 X 2/4.





Is it? I doubt that for most music written before 1900, after that 
I guess things are a little more complex.


I'd be interested to know about any piece in 6/4 before 1850 which 
is clearly 3x2/4, do you know one?




What's the earliest we can go back to? ;)


There are mensural pieces, perhaps as early as the 13th century but 
certainly by the 14th, for which the original notation and the 
relations between tempus and prolatio have to be resolved when 
transcribing into modern notation.   By the 14th century it was quite 
possible to indicate either interpretation.  And there are dance 
breaks in Act I of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo which go like the wind when 
the exact interpretation of both mensuration signs and proportion 
signs is observed.


John


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread Ken Durling


At 07:16 AM 6/29/2005, you wrote:
There are mensural pieces, perhaps as early as the 13th century but 
certainly by the 14th, for which the original notation and the relations 
between tempus and prolatio have to be resolved when transcribing into 
modern notation.   By the 14th century it was quite possible to indicate 
either interpretation.  And there are dance breaks in Act I of 
Monteverdi's L'Orfeo which go like the wind when the exact 
interpretation of both mensuration signs and proportion signs is observed.


John



My medieval theory is a little rusty, but wasn't it deVitry or someone in 
the Ars Nova that is generally - perhaps too loosely - credited with 
legitimizing, not to say inventing,  the duple subdivision?


Ken

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 10:16, John Howell wrote:

 At 12:43 PM +0100 6/29/05, Owain Sutton wrote:
 Johannes Gebauer wrote:
 keith helgesen schrieb:
 
 I would query your assertion that 6/4 traditionally is 2 X 3/4.
 
 From my experience 6/4 is generally 3 X 2/4.
 
 Is it? I doubt that for most music written before 1900, after that I
 guess things are a little more complex.
 
 I'd be interested to know about any piece in 6/4 before 1850 which
 is clearly 3x2/4, do you know one?
 
 What's the earliest we can go back to? ;)
 
 There are mensural pieces, perhaps as early as the 13th century but
 certainly by the 14th, for which the original notation and the
 relations between tempus and prolatio have to be resolved when
 transcribing into modern notation.   By the 14th century it was quite
 possible to indicate either interpretation.  And there are dance
 breaks in Act I of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo which go like the wind when
 the exact interpretation of both mensuration signs and proportion
 signs is observed.

Well, from the 150 years on either side of 1600, 3/2 was a meter 
that, as a convention, constantly slipped back and forth between 3 
beats and 2 beats (the I want to live in America effect).

And it's also something that doesn't not happen together in all the 
parts at the same time (some parts might be in 3, others in 2), but 
that's an obvious thing in a time when the musical style was 
basically polymetric, with independent parts each having their own 
metrical context whose strong beats did not necessarily line up with 
the other parts.

The 3/2 vs. 6/4 thing was characteristic of dance music, but also 
part of the fundamental musical style, as seen in the prevalence of 
the cadential hemiola (which outlasted the conventional I want to 
live in America affect well into the late Baroque).

Of course, the music wasn't originally notated with either 3/2 or 6/4 
as time signature -- those are transcriptions into modern time 
signatures. Some of the polyphonic fantasies in the viol repertory 
can tie you up into knots finding a modern meter that makes the music 
come out looking sensibly. Last Spring my consort played a 4-part 
Byrd fantasy from an edition that started in 3/2, had a few passages 
in 6/4, and at the end even went into 5/2 for a while (all on one 
line):

http://www.dfenton.com/Collegium/HomeChurchTheatre/08 Byrd - Fantasy 
à4.mp3

(last year we replaced two members of the consort with new, 
inexperienced players, so we barely got through that performance!)

It was a mistake, in my opinion, because it never comes out right in 
all the parts, since the points of imitation, each of which has its 
own metrical implications, can come in on any beat or half beat of 
any meter you choose. I think in these contexts, meters should be 
chosen so that the metrical framework of the cadential passages of 
each section come out right. The use of 5/2 didn't actually help that 
very much, but it was a better edition in other respects in 
comparison to the two alternatives.

All that said, I don't even know of any modern music (post-1850) that 
treats 6/4 as 3 beats -- to me that is nonsensical overcomplication 
where 3/2 would be the choice that is simpler (well, d'oh, it has a 
THREE in the time signature).

-- 
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 13:12, Phil Daley wrote:

 At 6/29/2005 12:58 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  On 29 Jun 2005 at 3:59, Darcy James Argue wrote:
  
   I didn't realize that the 2x3/4 division was more common than the
   3x2/4 division, but of course you're right about the correct rests
  in  that case.  6/4 has always been a 2-beat measure, just like
  6/8.  If that were not the case, there'd be no reason for either
  meter to exist at all, as 6/8 divided into 3 beats is just 3/4, and
  6/4 divided likewise, just 3/2.  Why would anyone use a 6 for 3
  beats?
 
 Why does anyone do anything?

Ignorance of convention?

Failure to understand the way modern time signatures work?

 I have seen 3/2 music written in 6/4.
 
 Don't ask me why . . .

You seem to think there's nothing inherently illogical about using 
6/4 for a 3 subdivision. I think it goes against the whole 
organization of the way time signatures work, using something that 
clearly means one thing (2 beats) to mean something else for which 
there's another, simpler symbol (3/2).

To me, it smells of borderline incompetence, a lack of comprehension 
of the way the notational system actually works.

-- 
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David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread Aaron Sherber


At 12:58 PM 06/29/2005, David W. Fenton wrote:
Why would anyone use a 6 for 3 beats?

Because if you have a section in quarter notes that's going back and 
forth between 4, 5, and 6 beats to the bar (for example), intermixing 
4/4, 5/4, and then 3/2 can look confusing to the player. 6/4 makes it 
clear that the beat is still the quarter note.


I'm looking at a Hindemith score that uses 6/4 in exactly this way.

I'm not saying I'd necessarily make the same choice, but I do 
understand the rationale.


Aaron.

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?



On Jun 29, 2005, at 12:58 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


On 29 Jun 2005 at 3:59, Darcy James Argue wrote:


I didn't realize that the 2x3/4 division was more common than the
3x2/4 division, but of course you're right about the correct rests in
that case.


6/4 has always been a 2-beat measure, just like 6/8.

If that were not the case, there'd be no reason for either meter to
exist at all, as 6/8 divided into 3 beats is just 3/4, and 6/4
divided likewise, just 3/2.

Why would anyone use a 6 for 3 beats?




Well, as an alternative to 4/4 + 2/4, for clarity, as a situation I was 
in recently.


The piece was in a medium 4/4, but at one point we needed an extra two 
beats (two half notes turned into a half and a whole) so rather than 
insert a measure of 2/4 and screw up everyone's bar numbers, I made it 
a measure of 6/4. That made it very clear that the beat was a quarter 
note, and there were six of them in that measure, rather than whatever 
3/2 would have implied (beat is a half note, with three of them? More 
confusing for sight reading, IMHO, especially if I beat it in 6, which 
I did.)


There are numerous Afro-Latin beats that are written in 6/8 or 3/4 or 
6/4 or 12/8 that divide into 3+3 and 2+2+2 in alternate measures, or 
alternate halves of measures, as well. There is one that I am playing 
right now with a band, ostensibly in 12/8 but at any moment you can 
hear each measure not only in 4 (dotted quarters), but in a big 3 (half 
notes), a medium 6 (quarters), or even a medium-to-small 8 (!) (dotted 
eighths) depending on which instrument of the rhythm section you are 
listening to at a given time.


I suppose what I am saying is that even though there is ample 
historical precendent for 6 generally being in 3+3, just about anything 
goes these days.


Christopher

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread Dennis Bathory-Kitsz

At 12:58 PM 6/29/05 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote:
Why would anyone use a 6 for 3 beats?

All of this discussion presumes that the barlines are not visual
placeholders. The evolution of music in the past half-century has included
substantial visual barring, where notes are grouped for their ease of
reading and the barlines and time signatures are peripheral to the metrical
progress, even if they may remain helpful to the sense of the note lengths.

In the case of 6/4, the visual placeholder may fall for one, a few,
several, many or all 'measures' where the note arrangement is dominated by
clusters of six quarter notes, even if the same 6/4 measures also contain,
say, three half notes, 4 dotted quarters, numerous tuplets, and
eighth-quarter-dottedhalf-quarter-eighth symmetries, with no duple or
triple beating implicit. Analysis or a score notation is needed due to the
absence of a reasonable fallback solution that doesn't carry beat
implications.

But sometimes saying the barlines are merely visual doesn't help much at
performance time. I have an example. A quintet I wrote about a decade ago
contained no barlines because the lines were long and irregular phrases
without traditional rhythmic verticalities. The performers found it
difficult to rehearse, and asked if I could add regular barlines to help
them find their way. I was reluctant, but ultimately created a barred score
(dashed barlines) so they could rehearse more easily. The result was music
played with syncopations where there were none -- because now that the
musicians had barlines, they acted as if those barlines had rhythmic
meaning. Grim.

Performers of early music transcriptions fall into syncopations where the
melodic line doesn't shoehorn into post facto divisions, but I leave that
argument to the experts. Suffice it to say that there are some bizarre
performances of Ma Bouche Rit... :)

Dennis







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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 13:20, Aaron Sherber wrote:

 At 12:58 PM 06/29/2005, David W. Fenton wrote:
  Why would anyone use a 6 for 3 beats?
 
 Because if you have a section in quarter notes that's going back and
 forth between 4, 5, and 6 beats to the bar (for example), intermixing
 4/4, 5/4, and then 3/2 can look confusing to the player. 6/4 makes it
 clear that the beat is still the quarter note.

OK, fine, but that's not 3 beats per measure. I was responding to 
Darcy's remarks that he wasn't familiar with 6/4 used as anything but 
3 beats per measure.

 I'm looking at a Hindemith score that uses 6/4 in exactly this way.
 
 I'm not saying I'd necessarily make the same choice, but I do 
 understand the rationale.

If it's not one recurrent metrical structure throughout, it's not 
really in 3/2. That is, in a context where you're switching 
subdivision and accent patterns, it's fairly arbitrary which one you 
choose.

But I was speaking to those sitautions where there *is* a pretty 
clear underlying 3 to the meter, but where 6/4 is used for that -- 
that's a practice that makes little sense to me at all.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 13:29, Christopher Smith wrote:

 On Jun 29, 2005, at 12:58 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  On 29 Jun 2005 at 3:59, Darcy James Argue wrote:
 
  I didn't realize that the 2x3/4 division was more common than the
  3x2/4 division, but of course you're right about the correct rests
  in that case.
 
  6/4 has always been a 2-beat measure, just like 6/8.
 
  If that were not the case, there'd be no reason for either meter to
  exist at all, as 6/8 divided into 3 beats is just 3/4, and 6/4
  divided likewise, just 3/2.
 
  Why would anyone use a 6 for 3 beats?
 
 Well, as an alternative to 4/4 + 2/4, for clarity, as a situation I
 was in recently.
 
 The piece was in a medium 4/4, but at one point we needed an extra two
 beats (two half notes turned into a half and a whole) so rather than
 insert a measure of 2/4 and screw up everyone's bar numbers, I made it
 a measure of 6/4. That made it very clear that the beat was a quarter
 note, and there were six of them in that measure, rather than whatever
 3/2 would have implied (beat is a half note, with three of them? More
 confusing for sight reading, IMHO, especially if I beat it in 6, which
 I did.)

Well, to me, the confusion comes either way. If I saw 6/4 in that 
context I'd think two beats of dotted half, which seems a much 
worse alternative than 3/2 implying three beats of half note. The 
former is completely contradictory of your intent, while the latter 
at least lines up the strong accents in the right place.

I would think the smartest thing to do is to use 6/4 with a dotted 
barline, or to simply write out what you mean, which is 4/4 + 2/4, or 
even 4+2 over 4.

I'm not at all clear on what is wrong with the switch to 2/4. If you 
want to make sure that the 2/4 is not landed on like a downbeat, then 
3/2 seems to me to work very well.

 There are numerous Afro-Latin beats that are written in 6/8 or 3/4 or
 6/4 or 12/8 that divide into 3+3 and 2+2+2 in alternate measures, or
 alternate halves of measures, as well. . . .

Well, that goes back to the Renaissance convention I talked about in 
another post. In that case, you're not in one meter or the other, so 
it's something of an arbitrary choice which time signature you use.

 . . . There is one that I am playing
 right now with a band, ostensibly in 12/8 but at any moment you can
 hear each measure not only in 4 (dotted quarters), but in a big 3
 (half notes), a medium 6 (quarters), or even a medium-to-small 8 (!)
 (dotted eighths) depending on which instrument of the rhythm section
 you are listening to at a given time.
 
 I suppose what I am saying is that even though there is ample 
 historical precendent for 6 generally being in 3+3, just about
 anything goes these days.

I don't think your latter example contradicts the point at all. 

I was responding to the idea that a piece that is really 3 half-note 
beats would be notated as 6/4, which makes no sense to me at all.

Once other metrical divisions of the beat come into play, 6/4 has its 
merits and 3/2 becomes misleading and wrong.

-- 
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David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?


On 29 Jun 2005, at 1:15 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


You seem to think there's nothing inherently illogical about using
6/4 for a 3 subdivision. I think it goes against the whole
organization of the way time signatures work, using something that
clearly means one thing (2 beats) to mean something else for which
there's another, simpler symbol (3/2).

To me, it smells of borderline incompetence, a lack of comprehension
of the way the notational system actually works.


Oh come off of it.

I recently wrote a piece in a slow (q=72) 6/4, subdivided in three -- 
mostly.  However, it frequently alternates between bars of 6/4 and 4/4, 
or 5/4, or 7/4.


It would have made absolutely no sense to use 3/2 for this, for any 
number of reasons.  For starters, the quarter note is the beat, not the 
half note; the time signature changes would be needlessly confusing and 
obscure what was actually going on if I alternated 3/2 with 4/4; etc.


- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY








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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread Johannes Gebauer

I am obviously stupid, but can someone explain to me what this means, 
and in what way it is an example for 6/4 being 3x2/4? The poem seems to 
be in 2x3/4.


Johannes

Andrew Stiller schrieb:
'd be interested to know about any piece in 6/4 before 1850 which is 
clearly 3x2/4, do you know one?


Johannes
--



William Billings: Modern Music. The text of the 6/4 section addresses 
the issue directly,  and makes it clear that compound 6/4 was commonplace:


Through common and treble we jointly have run.
We'll give you their essence compounded in one.
Although we are strongly attached to the rest,
Six-four is the movement that pleases us best.

Numerous other examples could be cited, but this one is particularly 
blatant.


Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 11:48, John Howell wrote:

 I think that what he provided (or someone in his circle did) an 
 actual notational means to indicate duple subdividion called 
 coloration, literally done by switching to red ink for the duple
 passages, and after white notation caught on in the 15th century by
 using black notation for the duples.  But reading between the lines,
 why would he have developed coloration if he and other musicians were
 not already using duple subdivision (which was theoretically possible
 even the the 13th century Frankonian notation by indicating perfect or
 imperfect tempus and prolation, even though the music of the time was
 predominently in triple subdivision).

Well, it's not always the case that practice comes before 
theorization. It's not pretty much accepted that Edward Roesner's 
hypothesis that the 2nd mode in modal, pre-Garlandian notation (i.e., 
short-long) is a construct that came into the music only after a 
theoretical structure was created to describe the whole rhythmic 
system. That is, it was the theoretical structure that implied the 
existence of the short-long rhythmic mode, to balance out the other 
parts of the theory.

Dunno why I went into that -- I meant to just comment on the fact 
that it's amazing how long white/black notation lasted. I'm in a 
group doing lots of French music from around 1700 (Charpentier, 
François Couperin, Bernier, Clerambault, etc.). Black notation occurs 
frequently in Charpentier's MSS, even when it could be notated 
clearly in the current metric framework. It seems to be something of 
a visual marker for the pre-cadential hemiola, even when there is no 
need for some special symbol to indicate it.

-- 
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David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc


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RE: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread keith helgesen

Apologies- I neglected to observe the significance of the word traditional.
99% of my music usage is-and has been, 20th Century.

Cheers K in OZ

Keith Helgesen.
Director of Music, Canberra City Band.
Ph: (02) 62910787. Band Mob. 0439-620587
Private Mob 0417-042171

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Johannes Gebauer
Sent: Wednesday, 29 June 2005 7:45 PM
To: finale@shsu.edu
Subject: Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

keith helgesen schrieb:
 I would query your assertion that 6/4 traditionally is 2 X 3/4.
From my experience 6/4 is generally 3 X 2/4.
 

Is it? I doubt that for most music written before 1900, after that I 
guess things are a little more complex.

I'd be interested to know about any piece in 6/4 before 1850 which is 
clearly 3x2/4, do you know one?

Johannes
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 15:37, Darcy James Argue wrote:

 On 29 Jun 2005, at 3:20 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

  Question: do you think a piece in 3 half-note beats should correctly
  be notated in 6/4?
 
 I would distinguish between should and could.  Such a piece might
 be better written in 3/2, or it might be better written in 6/4 -- but
 there are many excellent reasons why someone would choose 6/4 over 3/2
 for a piece in 3 half-note beats.

None of the musical training or musical experience I've had anywhere 
in my life would lead me to see that as acceptable.

-- 
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 15:45, Darcy James Argue wrote:

 On 29 Jun 2005, at 3:32 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  Would you use 6/8 for measures with 3 quarter-note beats?
 
 Yes, of course.  This happens all the time in Afro-Cuban and South
 American music.  Usually, it's shifting . . .

That is, it's not in 3 quarter-note beats.

 . . . between subdivisions of 2 and
 3 within the 6/8 bar, but sometimes there can be long sections where
 the 3 subdivision predominates.  But it's still a subdivision of 6/8,
 not an actual meter change to 3/4.

I see no problem with that. It's simply not an example of what I 
asked about.

 Also, the Buleria is a 12/8 pattern that alternates bars of 4x3/8 with
 bars of 3x4/8.  It would be ridiculous to keep changing meter ever
 measure in this kind of situation.  You just write 12/8 and beam/rest
 appropriately, and everyone understands what's going on.

I've repeatedly said throughout this discussion that there is no 
issue with choosing a single time signature for music that switches 
between various ways of parsing the subdivisions and accentuation of 
that meter.

My question is about cases where there is no such switching, where 3 
is not just the predoninant pulse, but the only pulse. In that case, 
I just can't see 6/8 or 6/4 as valid meters.

And that's all I've been saying all along, because that was what I 
understood you to be saying about the use of 6/4, that was a 
perfectly valid though uncommon meter for music moving entirely in 3 
half-note beats.

I infer from what you've wrote above about 6/8 and 3/4 that you agree 
that a piece that never switches to 2 groups of 3 8ths should not be 
notated as 6/8. I therefore think that it should be logical that you 
would agree that 6/4 would likewise not be a valid time signature for 
a piece that never groups the quarter notes in two groups of 3.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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RE: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread keith helgesen

You really do jump off the fence don't you David!
K in OZ

Keith Helgesen.
Director of Music, Canberra City Band.
Ph: (02) 62910787. Band Mob. 0439-620587
Private Mob 0417-042171

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
David W. Fenton
Sent: Thursday, 30 June 2005 3:15 AM
To: finale@shsu.edu
Subject: Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 13:12, Phil Daley wrote:

 At 6/29/2005 12:58 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  On 29 Jun 2005 at 3:59, Darcy James Argue wrote:
  
   I didn't realize that the 2x3/4 division was more common than the
   3x2/4 division, but of course you're right about the correct rests
  in  that case.  6/4 has always been a 2-beat measure, just like
  6/8.  If that were not the case, there'd be no reason for either
  meter to exist at all, as 6/8 divided into 3 beats is just 3/4, and
  6/4 divided likewise, just 3/2.  Why would anyone use a 6 for 3
  beats?
 
 Why does anyone do anything?

Ignorance of convention?

Failure to understand the way modern time signatures work?

 I have seen 3/2 music written in 6/4.
 
 Don't ask me why . . .

You seem to think there's nothing inherently illogical about using 
6/4 for a 3 subdivision. I think it goes against the whole 
organization of the way time signatures work, using something that 
clearly means one thing (2 beats) to mean something else for which 
there's another, simpler symbol (3/2).

To me, it smells of borderline incompetence, a lack of comprehension 
of the way the notational system actually works.

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 21:46, d. collins wrote:

 David W. Fenton écrit:
 Maybe I have insufficient imagination.
 
 I haven't followed the whole thread, but, speaking of tradition, let's
 not forget that of the French courante, where 6/4 (and 3/2) is used
 for _alternating_ patterns of 2x3/4 and 3x2/4 (though the first is
 generally prevailling). In Bach's courantes in the French style, the
 beaming may reflect this alternation (see the French Suite in B minor,
 for instance), and sometimes each hand can even have its own pattern.

My earliest posts in this thread cited music that constantly shifts 
between alternate subdivision patterns, but I thought we were talking 
about music *without* such shifts.

I still don't see any cases where I'm convinced that 6/4 is an 
appropriate meter for a piece that moves entirely in three half-note 
beats.

I'm agnostic on the example of the 6/4 measure in the middle of a 4/4 
piece. I understand why it works to use 6/4 with the musicians 
involved. It wouldn't work well with musicians with different 
expectations.

I think it's unwise to depend on musicians guessing correctly what 
you mean, so I'd be certain to make some kind of note indicating what 
is intended, and clearly eliminating the inappropriate 
interpretation.

-- 
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?



On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:04 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


On 29 Jun 2005 at 15:37, Darcy James Argue wrote:

- but
there are many excellent reasons why someone would choose 6/4 over 3/2
for a piece in 3 half-note beats.


None of the musical training or musical experience I've had anywhere
in my life would lead me to see that as acceptable.





You need to play more jazz, man!

8-)


Christopher


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 16:36, Andrew Stiller wrote:

  'd be interested to know about any piece in 6/4 before 1850 which is
  clearly 3x2/4, do you know one?
 
  Johannes
  -- 
 
 William Billings: Modern Music. The text of the 6/4 section
 addresses the issue directly,  and makes it clear that compound 6/4
 was commonplace:
 
 Through common and treble we jointly have run.
 We'll give you their essence compounded in one.
 Although we are strongly attached to the rest,
 Six-four is the movement that pleases us best.
 
 Numerous other examples could be cited, but this one is particularly
 blatant.

I understand neither the poem of the terminology.

To me compound 6/4 means two beats, and that's not what Johannes 
asked about.

It seems to me that 3/2 and 6/4 are exactly analogous to 3/4 and 6/8 
in every way.

There are literally thousands of examples of music that exploits the 
ability to shift between the two subdivisions within a single piece, 
in all periods.

I'm not sure what the Billings quote adds, unless you're interpreting 
it as meaning that 6/4 treated as 3 half-note beats. In that case, 
I'm puzzled, indeed, as I know of no music from that period that does 
that consistently (though plenty of patches within a piece notated as 
6/4 may very well be in 3; see above).

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread Owain Sutton




David W. Fenton wrote:

On 29 Jun 2005 at 21:46, d. collins wrote:



David W. Fenton écrit:


Maybe I have insufficient imagination.


I haven't followed the whole thread, but, speaking of tradition, let's
not forget that of the French courante, where 6/4 (and 3/2) is used
for _alternating_ patterns of 2x3/4 and 3x2/4 (though the first is
generally prevailling). In Bach's courantes in the French style, the
beaming may reflect this alternation (see the French Suite in B minor,
for instance), and sometimes each hand can even have its own pattern.



My earliest posts in this thread cited music that constantly shifts 
between alternate subdivision patterns, but I thought we were talking 
about music *without* such shifts.


I still don't see any cases where I'm convinced that 6/4 is an 
appropriate meter for a piece that moves entirely in three half-note 
beats.


Your challent seems somewhat problematic - of music which uses minim 
beats, how many examples can you find which use dotted minim beats?





I'm agnostic on the example of the 6/4 measure in the middle of a 4/4 
piece. I understand why it works to use 6/4 with the musicians 
involved. It wouldn't work well with musicians with different 
expectations.


Using 3/2 *just because* it's a six-crotchet bar without dotted-minim 
beats is allowing the theory to dicate the practice.  If there's an 
unambigous crotchet pulse, and the composer wants six pulses in a bar 
(I'm deliberatly avoiding the term 'beat'), what's wrong with 6/4?  It 
does not dictate anything, only the context does that.  3/2, on the 
other hand, strongly suggests a change of the dominant pulse.

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 18:00, Christopher Smith wrote:

 On Jun 29, 2005, at 3:22 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  If the meter is 6/4 and the subdivision is 3x2/4, then I'd say that
  the meter is wrong, not uncommon.
 
 OK, you lost my support there. I see LOTS of divisions of all kinds of
 things these days (and write them, too!) but wouldn't call them
 wrong.

I worded it badly. It's only wrong if the music has as its only 
subdivision 3x2/4 and is notated as 6/4. In the example you cited, it 
wasn't really 3x2/4, except in the same way that 4/4 is 2x2/4. You 
still really wanted 6 beats, just as in 4/4 you want 4, even though 
we might say it's 2x2/4.

Skip to my next response...

  What's the utility of using 6/4 instead of 3/2 for 3x2/4?
 
  That would be like using 6/8 for the meter of 3 quarter notes (i.e.,
  3/4). Nobody would do that, so why should they do it with 6/4?
 
 Hmm. I think I see the problem with our communications.
 
 In the kind of music Darcy and I mostly do (jazz and jazz-influenced
 music) the quarter note has a special meaning and interpretation, as
 does the eighth, which is not mathematically transposable to eighths
 and sixteenths, at least not usually (it DOES happen, but usually
 needs a special note to the performer, like double time feel or
 something to indicate that the normal feel is altered.) The pulse IS
 the quarter note most of the time in jazz, and it is as hard to
 communicate swing sixteenths as it is to communicate swing quarter
 notes. Obviously, there is nothing STOPPING anyone from swinging a
 quarter note, but it is so contrary to the usual notation of jazz
 rhythms that most musicians would have trouble with it if it showed up
 arbitrarily.

I have difficulty doing inegal on French music in the original note 
values when it's in 3/2, whereas the same passage with note values 
halved probably wouldn't bother me. In one of the Couperin Lessons of 
Tenebrae that my group performed this past Easter I encountered this 
exact problem. The original edition I started working with had the 
note values halved, whereas I ended up switching to a different 
edition after having started learning the music (the original edition 
was score only, while the other edition had a printed bass part), and 
when I hit the passage in 3/2, it through me for a loop -- it did not 
automatically scream this is a place where you should consider 
inegal.

Same thing, seems to me.

But the reason I had a problem was because I wasn't used to thinking 
inegal in quarter notes, whereas in the original notation, they would 
have used inegal there.

 Part of the reason, I suppose, is that syncopations are so complicated
 to notate (our system is badly set up for that) and they are so common
 in jazz that we have settled on using mostly the same subdivisions all
 the time, so as to reduce the number of different rhythmic notations
 we are expected to be able to sight read effectively.

Well, time signatures suck, too. 3/H or 2/H. make much more sense. 
Then you could also have 6/Q being its own separate meter, rather 
than in our system where 6/Q and 2/H. are indistinguishable without 
some kind of understanding of a tradition, or a note from the 
composer.

 So you see that a bar of 3/2 showing up all of a sudden in a context
 of medium jazz 4/4 is likely to cause a momentary confusion, more than
 6/4 would. . . .

All along I've been talking not about a single measure occuring in 
the middle of a different meter, or pieces in which there are 
shifting subdivision patterns. I've been talking about relatively 
straightforward music, where the subdivision is 3x2/4 throughout the 
whole piece, with no significant exceptions. In that case, I just 
don't see 6/4 as justified.

In your jazz repertory, I don't think you'd not notate that with the 
half note at the beat -- you'd notate it as 3/4. You'd only choose 
6/4 in a context where you didn't really want anything other than a 
maintenance of the underlying quarter-note beat, and it's neither 
3x2/4 nor 3x3/4, but 6x1/4 -- the ideal situation for the 6/Q time 
signature.

 . . . And I hope you see, too, that once one has started a /4
 denominator, one must be very careful about what one does with the
 denominator after that (to ensure clearest communication in a jazz
 situation, that is.)

I'm not sure how much more explicit I could have been in syaing that 
the whole context of my remarks has been limited to pieces that don't 
change meter and that aren't exploiting a shift between the two 
alternate subdivisions.

 I could cite a couple of examples of jazz 6/4 without a clear 3+3
 subdivision, but I wouldn't think they would mean much except to
 specialists familiar with the repertoire. All About Rosie by George
 Russell is one, Down By The Riverside arranged for Jimmy Smith by
 Oliver Nelson is another one, I Got What which is I Got Rhythm
 arranged by either Chuck Owen or Steve Owen (I forget which one) is a
 third. Hihat on 2,4, and 6 in all

Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?


On 29 Jun 2005, at 6:00 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:

I could cite a couple of examples of jazz 6/4 without a clear 3+3 
subdivision, but I wouldn't think they would mean much except to 
specialists familiar with the repertoire. All About Rosie by George 
Russell is one


Actually, in the published version, the 6/4 measures in this chart are 
actually notated (confusingly) in 3/2, almost certainly because the 
editor objected to 6/4 meaning 3x2/4.  But having played that chart, 
I can testify that it would be much easier to read if all the 3/2 bars 
were re-notated as 6/4.


- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY

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RE: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 30 Jun 2005 at 8:12, keith helgesen wrote:

 And because it makes no sense to you it is therefore wrong?- or
 proponents thereof are borderline incompetent?

The message you made this reply to did not include that term in it.

I have seen no one offering as an example any music that meets the 
critieria I identified as borderline incompetent. Maybe I'm 
artificially limiting the applicability, but that's precisely my 
point.

Christopher has identified an excellent reason why jazz traditions 
are different, one that resonates with my experience of playing 
French 18th-century music. But most of his examples (all but one, if 
I'm counting correctly) are not music that is notated in 6/4 with the 
half note as the beat, but music that is notated in 6/4 and has the 
QUARTER NOTE as the beat. 

That's a possibility I didn't consider (since it doesn't really exist 
in traditional music), but it also is a possibility that isn't part 
of the limited set of circumstances I said were problematic, since 
it's not music in 3x2/4 notated as 6/4.

-- 
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David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 18:15, Christopher Smith wrote:

 On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:04 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  On 29 Jun 2005 at 15:37, Darcy James Argue wrote:
  - but
  there are many excellent reasons why someone would choose 6/4 over
  3/2 for a piece in 3 half-note beats.
 
  None of the musical training or musical experience I've had anywhere
  in my life would lead me to see that as acceptable.
 
 You need to play more jazz, man!

I don't think 6 quarter notes is at all the same thing as 3x2/4 or 
2x3/4, any more than 4/4 is indistinguishable from two measures of 
2/4.

I had not considered the meter of 6/Q because it doesn't really exist 
in traditional music.

It also doesn't really fall under my formulation, as I have very 
clearly limited my comments to music that is subdivided as 3x2/4 that 
is notated in 6/4. What I'm saying is that music that is in 3/H 
should not be notated with 2/H. as the time signature.

Can someone come up with a reason why that should be done?

Basically what I'm saying is:

If you use 6/4 to mean 6/Q, then it makes perfect sense to me.

But if you use it to mean 3/H, it's confusing (because there seems to 
be no reason that 3/2 would not be preferable) and, I'd say, wrong.

-- 
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread Owain Sutton




David W. Fenton wrote:



Are you really talking about notation there? What I mean by that is 
that isn't the musical content coming before the writing down? 



Should the musical content not always be the priority?!
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 23:23, Owain Sutton wrote:

 David W. Fenton wrote:
  On 29 Jun 2005 at 21:46, d. collins wrote:
  
 David W. Fenton écrit:
 
 Maybe I have insufficient imagination.
 
 I haven't followed the whole thread, but, speaking of tradition,
 let's not forget that of the French courante, where 6/4 (and 3/2) is
 used for _alternating_ patterns of 2x3/4 and 3x2/4 (though the first
 is generally prevailling). In Bach's courantes in the French style,
 the beaming may reflect this alternation (see the French Suite in B
 minor, for instance), and sometimes each hand can even have its own
 pattern.
  
  My earliest posts in this thread cited music that constantly shifts
  between alternate subdivision patterns, but I thought we were
  talking about music *without* such shifts.
  
  I still don't see any cases where I'm convinced that 6/4 is an
  appropriate meter for a piece that moves entirely in three half-note
  beats.
 
 Your challent seems somewhat problematic - of music which uses minim
 beats, how many examples can you find which use dotted minim beats?

Well, first off, it's not a challenge.

Second, that's not what I'm asking about.

Translating into your funny terms ;), what I'm saying is:

 of music which uses minim beats, how many examples can you find
 which are notated with a time signature that says they use dotted
 minim beats? 

That's very, very different.

  I'm agnostic on the example of the 6/4 measure in the middle of a
  4/4 piece. I understand why it works to use 6/4 with the musicians
  involved. It wouldn't work well with musicians with different
  expectations.
 
 Using 3/2 *just because* it's a six-crotchet bar without dotted-minim
 beats is allowing the theory to dicate the practice.  If there's an
 unambigous crotchet pulse, and the composer wants six pulses in a bar
 (I'm deliberatly avoiding the term 'beat'), what's wrong with 6/4? . . .

Nothing.

 . . . It
 does not dictate anything, only the context does that.  3/2, on the
 other hand, strongly suggests a change of the dominant pulse.

It depends on what the dominant pulse is.

Again, it's a flaw of our notation of time signatures. We are forced 
to use 6/4 for both 2/H. and 6/Q and that's the source of the 
confusion.

My argument is basically that there is no music whose structural 
meter is 2/H. that should be notated with the 6/4 time signature.

That is, 6/4 can mean either 6/Q or 2/H. but 3/H is not a valid 
meaning for it (it's very hard to write sentences with H. and Q. in 
them and engineer them so that the sentence always ends after the H. 
or Q.!).

I don't see that anyone at all has argued that music that is in 3/H 
should be notated with the 2/H. time signature.

-- 
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David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?


On 29 Jun 2005, at 6:09 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


I infer from what you've wrote above about 6/8 and 3/4 that you agree
that a piece that never switches to 2 groups of 3 8ths should not be
notated as 6/8. I therefore think that it should be logical that you
would agree that 6/4 would likewise not be a valid time signature for
a piece that never groups the quarter notes in two groups of 3.


David,

I think the crux of the matter is this:  as Chris said in an earlier 
post, the choice of rhythmic denominator has profound consequences in 
jazz and popular music, and if what you want is 3x2/4, 3/2 is not an 
acceptable substitute.


I would agree that for a nonjazz, nonpop piece that literally *never* 
groups the quarter notes into two groups of three, 3/2 is likely a 
better choice.  But in contemporary music, such pieces are extremely 
rare.  So, in pieces that involve a mix 2x3/4 and 3x2/4, you have to 
consider the context (how often do the shifts occur, which subdivision 
predominates, etc) and intelligent people may well differ about which 
time signature is most appropriate.


- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 18:40, Darcy James Argue wrote:

 On 29 Jun 2005, at 6:00 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:
 
  I could cite a couple of examples of jazz 6/4 without a clear 3+3
  subdivision, but I wouldn't think they would mean much except to
  specialists familiar with the repertoire. All About Rosie by
  George Russell is one
 
 Actually, in the published version, the 6/4 measures in this chart are
 actually notated (confusingly) in 3/2, almost certainly because the
 editor objected to 6/4 meaning 3x2/4.  But having played that chart,
 I can testify that it would be much easier to read if all the 3/2 bars
 were re-notated as 6/4.

But the problem is tha the editor read the passage as meaning 3x2/4 
instead of 6x1/4.

If 4/4 is not 2x2/4 (and it's not), then I don't think it's write to 
say that the passage you're talking about is 3x2/4. If it *is*, then 
3/2 (which is 3/H) is completely appropriate. That you say it is not 
proves that it's not in 3x2/4, but 6x1/4.

-- 
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?


On 29 Jun 2005, at 6:57 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


If 4/4 is not 2x2/4 (and it's not), then I don't think it's write to
say that the passage you're talking about is 3x2/4. If it *is*, then
3/2 (which is 3/H) is completely appropriate. That you say it is not
proves that it's not in 3x2/4, but 6x1/4.


David,

I think the problem here is that you are used to music where only one 
time feel is happening at any one time.


In the All About Rosie passage under discussion, the drums are 
playing 4/4 swing time and the bass is playing two half notes to the 
bar.  You can think of it is simultaneous 4/4 and 2/2 if you like.  But 
by convention, that rhythmic feel is still written as 4/4.  (Although 
we would say the bass was playing with a 2 feel.  In fact, even when 
*both* the drums and bass are playing with a 2 feel for the entire 
piece, we still notate that in 4/4.)


Going back to All About Roise -- when the (written) 3/2 measures 
interrupt the 4/4 feel, the drums continue in 6/4 swing time (which 
basically involves six quarter notes on the ride cymbal, with some 
skip beats (offbeat eighth notes) inserted at will, and hihat stomps 
on beats, 2, 4, and 6.  And in these (written) 3/2 measures, the bass 
plays three half notes per bar.  So you can think of that as 
simultaneous 6/4 and 3/2.


The reason the switch between 4/4 and 3/2 in the published version of 
All About Rosie is confusing because while the 4/4 sections are 
notated to reflect what the drums are doing, the 3/2 sections are 
notated to reflect what the bass is doing.  But there is not a 
corresponding shift in the relative importance of those instruments.  
When the 3/2 measures hit, it's supposed to be a subtle prolongation of 
the measure, not a big dramatic in-your-face metrical shift.


Since this is a piece from 1957, I doubt the editor had any 
understanding of these jazz-specific issues.  He probably just looked 
at it and said You can't have 6/4 divided in three -- it has to be 
3/2, without considering any of the reasons why 6/4 might be more 
appropriate.


- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?



On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:37 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


Well, time signatures suck, too. 3/H or 2/H. make much more sense.
Then you could also have 6/Q being its own separate meter, rather
than in our system where 6/Q and 2/H. are indistinguishable without
some kind of understanding of a tradition, or a note from the
composer.



Well, I think that perhaps 6/4 these days (or 6 anything, really) 
doesn't have the imperative triple feel that it once had.





So you see that a bar of 3/2 showing up all of a sudden in a context
of medium jazz 4/4 is likely to cause a momentary confusion, more than
6/4 would. . . .


All along I've been talking not about a single measure occuring in
the middle of a different meter, or pieces in which there are
shifting subdivision patterns. I've been talking about relatively
straightforward music, where the subdivision is 3x2/4 throughout the
whole piece, with no significant exceptions. In that case, I just
don't see 6/4 as justified.

In your jazz repertory, I don't think you'd not notate that with the
half note at the beat -- you'd notate it as 3/4. You'd only choose
6/4 in a context where you didn't really want anything other than a
maintenance of the underlying quarter-note beat, and it's neither
3x2/4 nor 3x3/4, but 6x1/4 -- the ideal situation for the 6/Q time
signature.



There we go! Common ground at last!



. . . And I hope you see, too, that once one has started a /4
denominator, one must be very careful about what one does with the
denominator after that (to ensure clearest communication in a jazz
situation, that is.)


I'm not sure how much more explicit I could have been in syaing that
the whole context of my remarks has been limited to pieces that don't
change meter and that aren't exploiting a shift between the two
alternate subdivisions.



Oh, I got that. But what I was explaining was where there would be a 
DUPLE (or even no fixed subdivision, like a lot of modern jazz) 
subdivision, but three duples in a row. Or no discernable accent at 
all. And all this where a quarter note is clearly the pulse. I just 
don't think that EVERYONE looks at a 6/4 bar and mentally thinks OK, 
just like two bars of 3/4 the way they do with 6/8. ESPECIALLY in a 
jazz context.





I could cite a couple of examples of jazz 6/4 without a clear 3+3
subdivision, but I wouldn't think they would mean much except to
specialists familiar with the repertoire. All About Rosie by George
Russell is one, Down By The Riverside arranged for Jimmy Smith by
Oliver Nelson is another one, I Got What which is I Got Rhythm
arranged by either Chuck Owen or Steve Owen (I forget which one) is a
third. Hihat on 2,4, and 6 in all these, more or less, which clearly
contraindicates a 3+3 subdivision.


Are you really talking about notation there? What I mean by that is
that isn't the musical content coming before the writing down? And in
that case, you have a couple of choices for what you choose for the
notated beat.



Hmm, I couldn't say that in any of the above three cases that the 
content came before the notation. In Russell's case, maybe (I have no 
certain knowledge) but he WAS a thoroughly trained musician when he 
wrote it (and wrote it down, too!) so, I AM talking about notation. And 
also, the choices, even in 1946 (or whenever that was written) for the 
notation of swing rhythms were already delineated.





I think we all agree that our system of notating time signatures is
filled with potential confusion.

I wish Finale supported the notation of time signatures with the
denominator as a note.



Oh yeah, baby, I hear you.

Christopher


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?



On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:40 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:


On 29 Jun 2005, at 6:00 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:

I could cite a couple of examples of jazz 6/4 without a clear 3+3 
subdivision, but I wouldn't think they would mean much except to 
specialists familiar with the repertoire. All About Rosie by George 
Russell is one


Actually, in the published version, the 6/4 measures in this chart are 
actually notated (confusingly) in 3/2, almost certainly because the 
editor objected to 6/4 meaning 3x2/4.  But having played that chart, 
I can testify that it would be much easier to read if all the 3/2 bars 
were re-notated as 6/4.




I remember now seeing that in the score you lent me! And the 4/4 bars 
were in cut time, so it sort of made sense, in a swing-era kind of way 
(cut time was a popular way of indicating any tempo above medium, LONG 
after the four-feel had been firmly established. Thankfully, one only 
sees cut time for jazz feel in period pieces these days) I had first 
played Rosie from a pencil copy, which was in 6/4 (with 4/4 bars 
interspersed) and had assumed it was Russell's manuscript. I may have 
been wrong.


Christopher

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?



On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:46 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


I don't think 6 quarter notes is at all the same thing as 3x2/4 or
2x3/4, any more than 4/4 is indistinguishable from two measures of
2/4.



I agree, but sometimes convenience...




If you use 6/4 to mean 6/Q, then it makes perfect sense to me.

But if you use it to mean 3/H, it's confusing (because there seems to
be no reason that 3/2 would not be preferable) and, I'd say, wrong.



Well, there is kind of an implied duple to a lot of jazz. Backbeat and 
that kind of thing, you know. It's not universal, and it's rarely 
(these days) constant, but it is there.


I think we got it right when we agreed that time signatures are a lousy 
way to notate some rhythms.


Christopher


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 23:49, Owain Sutton wrote:

 David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  Are you really talking about notation there? What I mean by that is
  that isn't the musical content coming before the writing down? 
 
 Should the musical content not always be the priority?!

Yes, and the notation should not contradict it.

Music with 3 beats to the half note, but with a 6/4 meter is, to me, 
a case where the notation contradicts the musical content.

But this is because I recognize only two valid interpretations for 
6/4, 2/H. and 6/Q -- and my reason for eliminating 3/H is because I 
can't see a reason for using 6/4 to indicate what 3/2 clearly 
indicates without the confusion of the compound time signature.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread Owain Sutton




David W. Fenton wrote:
But this is because I recognize only two valid interpretations for 
6/4, 2/H. and 6/Q -- and my reason for eliminating 3/H is because I 
can't see a reason for using 6/4 to indicate what 3/2 clearly 
indicates without the confusion of the compound time signature.




But what about when somebody wants to indicate three sub-groups of two 
crotchets, where the crotchet pulse remains dominant? Ot's hardly an 
unimaginable situation.  What alternative would you recommend?

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 18:55, Darcy James Argue wrote:

 On 29 Jun 2005, at 6:09 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  I infer from what you've wrote above about 6/8 and 3/4 that you
  agree that a piece that never switches to 2 groups of 3 8ths should
  not be notated as 6/8. I therefore think that it should be logical
  that you would agree that 6/4 would likewise not be a valid time
  signature for a piece that never groups the quarter notes in two
  groups of 3.
 
 I think the crux of the matter is this:  as Chris said in an earlier
 post, the choice of rhythmic denominator has profound consequences
 in jazz and popular music, and if what you want is 3x2/4, 3/2 is not
 an acceptable substitute.

I thought Chris was arguing for 6/Q not 3/H as what he wanted 6/4 to 
mean.

 I would agree that for a nonjazz, nonpop piece that literally *never*
 groups the quarter notes into two groups of three, 3/2 is likely a
 better choice. . . .

Well, if the majority of measures don't group the quarters in 2 
groups of three, it seems that 3/2 is better, don't you think?

 . . . But in contemporary music, such pieces are extremely
 rare.  So, in pieces that involve a mix . . .

I have never been talking about pieces that MIX. I've repeatedly made 
that COMPLETELY CLEAR IN EVERY SINGLE POST.

 . . . 2x3/4 and 3x2/4, you have to
 consider the context (how often do the shifts occur, which subdivision
 predominates, etc) and intelligent people may well differ about which
 time signature is most appropriate.

I've only ever been talking about MUSIC WITH NOT SHIFTS OF 
SUBDIVISION AT ALL.

I've said that.

REPEATEDLY.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 19:21, Darcy James Argue wrote:

 On 29 Jun 2005, at 6:57 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  If 4/4 is not 2x2/4 (and it's not), then I don't think it's write to
  say that the passage you're talking about is 3x2/4. If it *is*, then
  3/2 (which is 3/H) is completely appropriate. That you say it is not
  proves that it's not in 3x2/4, but 6x1/4.
 
 I think the problem here is that you are used to music where only one
 time feel is happening at any one time.

ABSOLUTELY WRONG.

Much of the music my consort plays is highly polymetric.

I posted about this earlier in some detail in response to Dennis. I 
posted URLs to some bad MP3s of a couple of pieces that include it 
quite clearly.

In one of those pieces, it's notated in 3/2, with a cantus firmus 
that's always in 3/2. But in some passages, the top parts are in 3/4, 
and in 3/4 measures that always begin on a quarter note other than 1 
or 4, while the bottom part remains in 3/2. In another passage, all 
the parts are in 3/2, but with each part shifted by one beat from the 
other parts.

In other music that my group is accustomed to playing, the meter of 
each individual line shifts in and out of 2/2 and 3/4 (with the 
quarter note constant), and not infrequentely into 3/8 (with the 8th 
constant), and the parts do this independently of each other.

Any meter you choose for one part is going to get it wrong for the 
other parts, which seldom make the shifts at the same time.

 In the All About Rosie passage under discussion, the drums are
 playing 4/4 swing time and the bass is playing two half notes to the
 bar.  You can think of it is simultaneous 4/4 and 2/2 if you like. 
 But by convention, that rhythmic feel is still written as 4/4. 

Well, 4/4 is not just 4 quarter notes. It has the important secondary 
accent on the half measure. So, I see no metrical mixing here, just 
part of what 4/4 is all about in the first place.

 (Although we would say the bass was playing with a 2 feel.  In fact,
 even when *both* the drums and bass are playing with a 2 feel for the
 entire piece, we still notate that in 4/4.)

I see no contradictions and no need for explanation. It's almost an 
axiomatic characteristic of 4/4.

 Going back to All About Roise -- when the (written) 3/2 measures
 interrupt the 4/4 feel, . . .

Again, we're already outside the realm of the music I am talking 
about, because there's a CHANGE of time signature (to reflect a 
change of the length of the measure).

 . . . the drums continue in 6/4 swing time (which
 basically involves six quarter notes on the ride cymbal, with some
 skip beats (offbeat eighth notes) inserted at will, and hihat stomps
 on beats, 2, 4, and 6.  And in these (written) 3/2 measures, the bass
 plays three half notes per bar.  So you can think of that as
 simultaneous 6/4 and 3/2.

That sounds like all 3/2 to me (or 6/Q), if nobody is grouping 3 
quarters together.

 The reason the switch between 4/4 and 3/2 in the published version of
 All About Rosie is confusing because while the 4/4 sections are
 notated to reflect what the drums are doing, the 3/2 sections are
 notated to reflect what the bass is doing.  But there is not a
 corresponding shift in the relative importance of those instruments. 
 When the 3/2 measures hit, it's supposed to be a subtle prolongation
 of the measure, not a big dramatic in-your-face metrical shift.
 
 Since this is a piece from 1957, I doubt the editor had any 
 understanding of these jazz-specific issues.  He probably just looked
 at it and said You can't have 6/4 divided in three -- it has to be
 3/2, without considering any of the reasons why 6/4 might be more
 appropriate.

Well, I would think that 6/Q is superior to 6/4, precisely because 
6/4 implies the strong possibility of 2/H. which is not present in 
the passage at all.

Given a choice between only 3/2 and 6/4, I'd go with 6/4, too, if I 
agreed with your description of what's actually going on.

But if I had 6/Q available to use, *that's* definitely what I'd use.

None of these considerations have *anything at all* to do with the 
assertion I've been making, which is all about how to notate music 
that is uniformly in measures with a pulse of 3 half notes. Notating 
that music as 6/4 just confuses things, because neither of the 
interpretations of 6/4 that are distinct from 3/2 is valid for it.

Can I make this more clear?

These are the three interpretations for 6/4:

  2/H.

  6/Q

  3/H

The last interpretation is identical to 3/2, and music that is in 
that meter should be notated in 3/2, never in 6/4 (unless there's 
some kind of shifting going on that makes it useful to do so; but 
I've already eliminated music that is playing around with shifting 
subdivision patterns from the discussion).

As a general rule, what justification could you come up with for 
using 6/4 as the time signature for music with a 3/H meter?

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton

Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 19:35, Christopher Smith wrote:

 On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:37 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  Well, time signatures suck, too. 3/H or 2/H. make much more sense.
  Then you could also have 6/Q being its own separate meter, rather
  than in our system where 6/Q and 2/H. are indistinguishable without
  some kind of understanding of a tradition, or a note from the
  composer.
 
 Well, I think that perhaps 6/4 these days (or 6 anything, really)
 doesn't have the imperative triple feel that it once had.

Other than 6/Q, then, what purpose would it serve, other than to 
represent 2/H. as destinct from 3/2's 3/H beat?

  So you see that a bar of 3/2 showing up all of a sudden in a
  context of medium jazz 4/4 is likely to cause a momentary
  confusion, more than 6/4 would. . . .
 
  All along I've been talking not about a single measure occuring in
  the middle of a different meter, or pieces in which there are
  shifting subdivision patterns. I've been talking about relatively
  straightforward music, where the subdivision is 3x2/4 throughout the
  whole piece, with no significant exceptions. In that case, I just
  don't see 6/4 as justified.
 
  In your jazz repertory, I don't think you'd not notate that with the
  half note at the beat -- you'd notate it as 3/4. You'd only choose
  6/4 in a context where you didn't really want anything other than a
  maintenance of the underlying quarter-note beat, and it's neither
  3x2/4 nor 3x3/4, but 6x1/4 -- the ideal situation for the 6/Q time
  signature.
 
 There we go! Common ground at last!

I actually think we *are* on common ground. The reason there's 
confusion and disagreement is because of the confusion inherent in 
our time signatures, where 6/4 means something rather more 
complicated than a simple meter like 3/2.

Because of that, readers of what I've posted have been interpreting 
the important details differently than I was thinking of them. That's 
why I've switched to using 6/Q and 3/H to explain, because that's 
pretty unambiguous and hard to misinterpret.

  . . . And I hope you see, too, that once one has started a /4
  denominator, one must be very careful about what one does with the
  denominator after that (to ensure clearest communication in a jazz
  situation, that is.)
 
  I'm not sure how much more explicit I could have been in syaing that
  the whole context of my remarks has been limited to pieces that
  don't change meter and that aren't exploiting a shift between the
  two alternate subdivisions.
 
 Oh, I got that. But what I was explaining was where there would be a
 DUPLE (or even no fixed subdivision, like a lot of modern jazz)
 subdivision, but three duples in a row. Or no discernable accent at
 all. And all this where a quarter note is clearly the pulse. I just
 don't think that EVERYONE looks at a 6/4 bar and mentally thinks OK,
 just like two bars of 3/4 the way they do with 6/8. ESPECIALLY in a
 jazz context.

Well, other than 6/Q I don't see any other function for the time 
signature to have.

And my case at all times has been about the issue which meter is 
appropriate to music that runs 3 half notes to the measure. I don't 
see how anyone could argue that 6/4 is appropriate there.

[]

  I think we all agree that our system of notating time signatures is
  filled with potential confusion.
 
  I wish Finale supported the notation of time signatures with the
  denominator as a note.
 
 Oh yeah, baby, I hear you.

I'm a composer, you know, and metrical variety is one of the 
characteristic idioms of my work (lots of 5/8 followed by 2/4 
followed by 3/4 followed by 7/8, with emphasis on shifting quarter 
and dotted quarter pulses), so I've often wanted that very badly for 
clarity.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 30 Jun 2005 at 1:21, Owain Sutton wrote:

 David W. Fenton wrote:
  But this is because I recognize only two valid interpretations for
  6/4, 2/H. and 6/Q -- and my reason for eliminating 3/H is because I
  can't see a reason for using 6/4 to indicate what 3/2 clearly
  indicates without the confusion of the compound time signature.
 
 But what about when somebody wants to indicate three sub-groups of two
 crotchets, where the crotchet pulse remains dominant? Ot's hardly an
 unimaginable situation.  What alternative would you recommend?

Well, it depends on CONTEXT, which I've said all along.

And as Darcy pointed out, you are sometimes also choosing one time 
signature when not everybody's music is in that exact time signature.

To say it one more time, I'm explicitly *NOT* talking about cases 
where there are shifts in the subdivision, or different subdivisions 
in different parts simultaneously. I was only making my assertion 
about music that is not shifting back and forth between groups of 2 
quarters and groups of 3 quarters, music that uniformly moves in 
groups of 2 quarters. In that case, 6/4 seems to have no utility -- 
it offers nothing that 3/2 offers except vastly increased potential 
for confusion.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?


On 29 Jun 2005, at 8:39 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


Well, it depends on CONTEXT, which I've said all along.


No, you did not.

What you originally wrote was:


6/4 has always been a 2-beat measure, just like 6/8.

If that were not the case, there'd be no reason for either meter to
exist at all, as 6/8 divided into 3 beats is just 3/4, and 6/4
divided likewise, just 3/2.

Why would anyone use a 6 for 3 beats?


And then:


Ignorance of convention?

Failure to understand the way modern time signatures work?

You seem to think there's nothing inherently illogical about using
6/4 for a 3 subdivision. I think it goes against the whole
organization of the way time signatures work, using something that
clearly means one thing (2 beats) to mean something else for which
there's another, simpler symbol (3/2).

To me, it smells of borderline incompetence, a lack of comprehension
of the way the notational system actually works.


There is no mention of musical context, only absolute pronouncements.

I'm glad you do in fact believe that context matters, and that there 
are exceptional cases that are not merely the products of ignorance or 
borderline incompetence, but there was absolutely no way anyone could 
be reasonably expected to infer that from your initial posts.


You've since clarified (repeatedly, I know) and I think we are now more 
or less in agreement on this.


- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY




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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?



On Jun 29, 2005, at 7:41 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:


I remember now seeing that in the score you lent me! And the 4/4 bars 
were in cut time, so it sort of made sense, in a swing-era kind of way


I just saw your post, Darcy, about it being in 3/2 AND 4/4, which I 
agree, is odd, and no doubt necessitated an explanation.


Christopher


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

My, we've really explored many sides of the 6/4 meter issue since I 
posted my question late last night! 

I think we've settled that: in general, 6/4 should divide in the middle, 
3/2 should divide in threes, just as 6/8 and 3/4 do.  There are 
exceptions, but the general rule should hold.  The arguments seem to be 
just how much exception one allows.  Fair enough. 

My problem is, I've got the editor from my publisher waiting on me to 
proof his engraving of an arrangement of mine, and I need to tell him, 
like tonight or tomorrow, whether or not to change some of our mutually 
inconsistent rests.  And, so far, my question hasn't been answered with 
any degree of consensus by the experts on this fine list during this 
gentle mayhem that has ensued from the original question. 



The work in question is most definitely in two groups of 3 beats each 
(although it often hemiolas into 3/2 temporarily). 

I just wasn't certain, in 6/4, whether five beats rest should generally 
be a dotted half plus two quarters or a dotted half plus a half.  The 
latter is easy to read, but I suspect that Johannes is indeed on target 
with his asstertion that the former is most correct?


Also, for another example: two beats rest, followed by a quarter note, 
quarter note, half note.  Should the rest(s) be two quarter rests, or 
will a half suffice?


My principal composition teacher, the late Nelson Keyes, was always 
quite irked when he would see a half rest in 3/4 in a published work, 
but it is a rule that is often broken.  I don't know if this is the same 
type of situation.


Please don't let me down this time, folks!

Raymond Horton


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

2005-06-29 Thread Carl Dershem


Raymond Horton wrote:

My, we've really explored many sides of the 6/4 meter issue since I 
posted my question late last night!
I think we've settled that: in general, 6/4 should divide in the middle, 
3/2 should divide in threes, just as 6/8 and 3/4 do.  There are 
exceptions, but the general rule should hold.  The arguments seem to be 
just how much exception one allows.  Fair enough.
My problem is, I've got the editor from my publisher waiting on me to 
proof his engraving of an arrangement of mine, and I need to tell him, 
like tonight or tomorrow, whether or not to change some of our mutually 
inconsistent rests.  And, so far, my question hasn't been answered with 
any degree of consensus by the experts on this fine list during this 
gentle mayhem that has ensued from the original question.


The work in question is most definitely in two groups of 3 beats each 
(although it often hemiolas into 3/2 temporarily).
I just wasn't certain, in 6/4, whether five beats rest should generally 
be a dotted half plus two quarters or a dotted half plus a half.  The 
latter is easy to read, but I suspect that Johannes is indeed on target 
with his asstertion that the former is most correct?


Also, for another example: two beats rest, followed by a quarter note, 
quarter note, half note.  Should the rest(s) be two quarter rests, or 
will a half suffice?


My principal composition teacher, the late Nelson Keyes, was always 
quite irked when he would see a half rest in 3/4 in a published work, 
but it is a rule that is often broken.  I don't know if this is the same 
type of situation.


Please don't let me down this time, folks!

Raymond Horton


While it might not gain me fans among some, I would just say to go with 
the beat.  It's MUCH easier to read.  If you have the measure divided in 
half by the pulse of the piece, I'd use two dotted half-rests, and 
subdivisions of those.  If divided in thirds, three hald rests, and so on.


Just my 2 cents.

cd
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/dershem/#

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!



The work in question is most definitely in two groups of 3 beats  
each (although it often hemiolas into 3/2 temporarily).
I just wasn't certain, in 6/4, whether five beats rest should  
generally be a dotted half plus two quarters or a dotted half plus  
a half.  The latter is easy to read,


My 2c: as long as it's not misleading, isn't that the point?



but I suspect that Johannes is indeed on target with his asstertion  
that the former is most correct?


That may be so, but see above.




Also, for another example: two beats rest, followed by a quarter  
note, quarter note, half note.  Should the rest(s) be two quarter  
rests, or will a half suffice?


Again I say, if it's clear and easy, it's clear and easy.  I can  
think of situations in which being correct according to older  
practice would be more clear, but language (written and spoken, and  
symbolic like written music) changes and tends towards efficiency and  
simplicity, and I'm usually for it.


Chuck





My principal composition teacher, the late Nelson Keyes, was always  
quite irked when he would see a half rest in 3/4 in a published  
work, but it is a rule that is often broken.  I don't know if this  
is the same type of situation.


Please don't let me down this time, folks!

Raymond Horton


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Chuck Israels
230 North Garden Terrace
Bellingham, WA 98225-5836
phone (360) 671-3402
fax (360) 676-6055
www.chuckisraels.com

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 20:56, Darcy James Argue wrote:

 On 29 Jun 2005, at 8:39 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  Well, it depends on CONTEXT, which I've said all along.
 
 No, you did not.
 
 What you originally wrote was:
 
  6/4 has always been a 2-beat measure, just like 6/8.
 
  If that were not the case, there'd be no reason for either meter to
  exist at all, as 6/8 divided into 3 beats is just 3/4, and 6/4
  divided likewise, just 3/2.
 
  Why would anyone use a 6 for 3 beats?

Well, that last line makes it clear that I'm discussing 3, as 6/Q 
doesn't exist in traditional music, and it hadn't yet occurred to me.

 And then:
 
  Ignorance of convention?
 
  Failure to understand the way modern time signatures work?
 
  You seem to think there's nothing inherently illogical about using
  6/4 for a 3 subdivision. I think it goes against the whole
  organization of the way time signatures work, using something that
  clearly means one thing (2 beats) to mean something else for which
  there's another, simpler symbol (3/2).
 
  To me, it smells of borderline incompetence, a lack of comprehension
  of the way the notational system actually works.
 
 There is no mention of musical context, only absolute pronouncements.

You skipped a post:


BEGIN REPOST:
==
On 29 Jun 2005 at 10:16, John Howell wrote:

 At 12:43 PM +0100 6/29/05, Owain Sutton wrote:
 Johannes Gebauer wrote:
 keith helgesen schrieb:
 
 I would query your assertion that 6/4 traditionally is 2 X
 3/4.
 
 From my experience 6/4 is generally 3 X 2/4.
 
 Is it? I doubt that for most music written before 1900, after 
 that I guess things are a little more complex.
 
 I'd be interested to know about any piece in 6/4 before 1850 
 which is clearly 3x2/4, do you know one?
 
 What's the earliest we can go back to? ;)
 
 There are mensural pieces, perhaps as early as the 13th century but
 certainly by the 14th, for which the original notation and the
 relations between tempus and prolatio have to be resolved when
 transcribing into modern notation.   By the 14th century it was quite
 possible to indicate either interpretation.  And there are dance breaks
 in Act I of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo which go like the wind when the
 exact interpretation of both mensuration signs and proportion signs is
 observed. 

Well, from the 150 years on either side of 1600, 3/2 was a meter 
that, as a convention, constantly slipped back and forth between 3 
beats and 2 beats (the I want to live in America effect).

And it's also something that doesn't not happen together in all the 
parts at the same time (some parts might be in 3, others in 2), but 
that's an obvious thing in a time when the musical style was 
basically polymetric, with independent parts each having their own 
metrical context whose strong beats did not necessarily line up with 
the other parts.

The 3/2 vs. 6/4 thing was characteristic of dance music, but also 
part of the fundamental musical style, as seen in the prevalence of 
the cadential hemiola (which outlasted the conventional I want to 
live in America affect well into the late Baroque).

Of course, the music wasn't originally notated with either 3/2 or 6/4 
as time signature -- those are transcriptions into modern time 
signatures. Some of the polyphonic fantasies in the viol repertory 
can tie you up into knots finding a modern meter that makes the music 
come out looking sensibly. Last Spring my consort played a 4-part 
Byrd fantasy from an edition that started in 3/2, had a few passages 
in 6/4, and at the end even went into 5/2 for a while (all on one 
line):

http://www.dfenton.com/Collegium/HomeChurchTheatre/08 Byrd - Fantasy 
à4.mp3

(last year we replaced two members of the consort with new, 
inexperienced players, so we barely got through that performance!)

It was a mistake, in my opinion, because it never comes out right in 
all the parts, since the points of imitation, each of which has its 
own metrical implications, can come in on any beat or half beat of 
any meter you choose. I think in these contexts, meters should be 
chosen so that the metrical framework of the cadential passages of 
each section come out right. The use of 5/2 didn't actually help that 
very much, but it was a better edition in other respects in 
comparison to the two alternatives.

All that said, I don't even know of any modern music (post-1850) that
treats 6/4 as 3 beats -- to me that is nonsensical overcomplication 
where 3/2 would be the choice that is simpler (well, d'oh, it has a 
THREE in the time signature).
==
END REPOST

That post is almost all about context, or so it seems to me.

And my post after the second one you quoted above:

BEGIN REPOST:
==
On 29 Jun 2005 at 13:20, Aaron Sherber wrote:

 At 12:58 PM 06/29/2005, David W. Fenton wrote:
  Why would

Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:45 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:(the "I want to live in America" effect I don't remember how Bernstein wrote this, but I'd write it with one combined time signature 6/8 and 3/4 and think that that was pretty clear.  It seems cluttered to change time signatures every measure for something as consistent as this example.  I'd trust musicians to understand that in a flash.Chuck Chuck Israels 230 North Garden Terrace Bellingham, WA 98225-5836 phone (360) 671-3402 fax (360) 676-6055 www.chuckisraels.com  ___
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On 29 Jun 2005 at 18:57, Chuck Israels wrote:

 On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:45 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  (the I want to live in America effect
 
 I don't remember how Bernstein wrote this, but I'd write it with one 
 combined time signature 6/8 and 3/4 and think that that was pretty 
 clear.  It seems cluttered to change time signatures every measure 
 for something as consistent as this example.  I'd trust musicians to 
 understand that in a flash.

I would have assumed that it was notated with a 6/8 time signature. 
The 3/4 shifts would be obvious in that context.

There's hundreds of years of music that works exactly that way.

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?


Chuck Israels wrote:



On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:45 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


(the I want to live in America effect



I don't remember how Bernstein wrote this, but I'd write it with one 
combined time signature 6/8 and 3/4 and think that that was pretty 
clear.  It seems cluttered to change time signatures every measure for 
something as consistent as this example.  I'd trust musicians to 
understand that in a flash.


Chuck



In all the versions I've seen it's 6/8 all the way through.  I've seen 
it conducted both all in two and alternating twos and threes.  Saw 
Bernstein on TV, in a special on PBS many years ago, conducting his 
Dream Session recordings - alternating twos and threes. 


RBH

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

2005-06-29 Thread Aaron Sherber


At 09:28 PM 06/29/2005, Raymond Horton wrote:
I just wasn't certain, in 6/4, whether five beats rest should generally
be a dotted half plus two quarters or a dotted half plus a half.  The
latter is easy to read, but I suspect that Johannes is indeed on target
with his asstertion that the former is most correct?

I would say yes. In your case, think of the 6/4 measure as two bars 
of 3/4. If you had two beats rest in a 3/4 followed by a quarter 
note, you would use two quarter rests.


Also, for another example: two beats rest, followed by a quarter note,
quarter note, half note.  Should the rest(s) be two quarter rests, or
will a half suffice?

This is the same situation as above, except that you're talking about 
the first half of the measure rather than the second. Use two quarter 
rests. (If you use a half rest, the bar looks suspiciously like a 3/2 
bar, which may confuse things.)


Aaron.

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?


Even more simple than I suggested and all the better.

Chuck


On Jun 29, 2005, at 7:23 PM, Ken Durling wrote:


IIRC, it's written in 6/8 with straight quarters on me-ri-ca

Ken


At 06:57 PM 6/29/2005, you wrote:



On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:45 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:



(the I want to live in America effect



I don't remember how Bernstein wrote this, but I'd write it with  
one combined time signature 6/8 and 3/4 and think that that was  
pretty clear.  It seems cluttered to change time signatures every  
measure for something as consistent as this example.  I'd trust  
musicians to understand that in a flash.


Chuck





Chuck Israels
230 North Garden Terrace
Bellingham, WA 98225-5836
phone (360) 671-3402
fax (360) 676-6055
www.chuckisraels.com

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Chuck Israels
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Bellingham, WA 98225-5836
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread Aaron Sherber


At 10:13 PM 06/29/2005, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 29 Jun 2005 at 18:57, Chuck Israels wrote:

 On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:45 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

  (the I want to live in America effect

 I don't remember how Bernstein wrote this, but I'd write it with one
 combined time signature 6/8 and 3/4 and think that that was pretty
 clear.  It seems cluttered to change time signatures every measure
 for something as consistent as this example.  I'd trust musicians to
 understand that in a flash.

I would have assumed that it was notated with a 6/8 time signature.
The 3/4 shifts would be obvious in that context.

And the answer is6/8 (3/4)   [from the PV]

Aaron.

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

On Jun 29, 2005, at 9:57 PM, Chuck Israels wrote:

On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:45 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

(the I want to live in America effect

I don't remember how Bernstein wrote this, but I'd write it with one combined time signature 6/8 and 3/4 and think that that was pretty clear. It seems cluttered to change time signatures every measure for something as consistent as this example. I'd trust musicians to understand that in a flash.

Well (ahem) I just happen to have my copy of the West Side Story piano/vocal score near at hand, so here goes:

Tempo di Huapango (fast)

6
8

followed by 3/4 in parentheses (no way to show that clearly in plain text)

So, Chuck, you and Lenny agree. Notice the THREE (3) different languages in the tempo marking. And this was WAY before post-modernism!

But even though that's interesting enough, what is WAY more interesting to me is the intro, marked Moderato, Tempo di Seis

It's notated in cut time, with a 3-2 clave rhythm

Q. Q. Q | QR Q Q QR

eventually played in the bass, too

against quarter-note triplets in the accompaniment, accented in DUPLES! The melody is approximately in quarter-note triplets, more or less accented in groups of three against the two's in the accompaniment.

Whee! Lenny, baby!

I remember playing Dixieland one summer, alternating sets with a Mariachi band, and they had a couple of tunes like this in their repertoire. Every time this beat came up I would stand close, brow furrowed, counting and tapping my feet, trying to figure it out (I was young). The bass guitar player would see me, and every time it seemed like I was onto something, he would throw something new in, and they would all crack up laughing at me as I fumbled. For such a simple little setup, there was a LOT of rhythmic subtlety going on. I caught on eventually near the end of the summer (it isn't as simple as Bernstein notated it, but has pushing and pulling going on) and from then on I was one of the gang.

Christopher

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!


On 29 Jun 2005, at 9:28 PM, Raymond Horton wrote:

 And, so far, my question hasn't been answered with any degree of 
consensus by the experts on this fine list during this gentle mayhem 
that has ensued from the original question.


Actually, way back at the beginning, Johannes answered your original 
question -- In such a use of 6/4 I would not consider it correct to 
use half rests -- and I concurred.  I don't believe anyone else has 
disagreed with this, despite the tangent the thread took.


The work in question is most definitely in two groups of 3 beats each 
(although it often hemiolas into 3/2 temporarily).


In those measures, you can (and should) use half rests where 
appropriate.


I just wasn't certain, in 6/4, whether five beats rest should 
generally be a dotted half plus two quarters


Yes.


or a dotted half plus a half.


No.


 The latter is easy to read,


Debatable.

 but I suspect that Johannes is indeed on target with his asstertion 
that the former is most correct?


Yes.

Also, for another example: two beats rest, followed by a quarter note, 
quarter note, half note.  Should the rest(s) be two quarter rests,


Yes.


or will a half suffice?


Not unless this is one of the temporary 3x2/4 situations.

My principal composition teacher, the late Nelson Keyes, was always 
quite irked when he would see a half rest in 3/4 in a published work, 
but it is a rule that is often broken.  I don't know if this is the 
same type of situation.


Yes, it is.


Please don't let me down this time, folks!


I think most people assumed, as I did, that the question had already 
been answered to your satisfaction.


- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

On 29 Jun 2005 at 23:15, Darcy James Argue wrote:
[nothing I'm quoting here, but I can't find the original post, but 
wanted to respond to something Raymond said]

 On 29 Jun 2005, at 9:28 PM, Raymond Horton wrote:

  The work in question is most definitely in two groups of 3 beats
  each (although it often hemiolas into 3/2 temporarily).

That's not the right meaning of hemiola. A hemiola is:

W   W W
H H H | H H H

across two measures in a 3/2 context, (or H H H in two 3/4 measures). 
In 3/2, the hemiola is overlaying a 3/1 measure over top of two 3/2 
measures.

In the group I play in, we call the switch to 3/2 in a 6/4 passage a 
reverse hemiola, because it speeds up the pulse, whereas the 
function of the hemiola is always to slow down the pulse. In the 
music where the hemiola is part of the dialect, it's usually a pre-
candential harmonic rhythm change that is slowed down, going from 
harmonic rhythm of HHH to harmonic change at half that speed.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!

You are correct that the question was answered, once, but I was hoping 
for a consensus.  Thanks for the summary. 


RBH

Darcy James Argue wrote:


On 29 Jun 2005, at 9:28 PM, Raymond Horton wrote:

 And, so far, my question hasn't been answered with any degree of 
consensus by the experts on this fine list during this gentle mayhem 
that has ensued from the original question.



Actually, way back at the beginning, Johannes answered your original 
question -- In such a use of 6/4 I would not consider it correct to 
use half rests -- and I concurred.  I don't believe anyone else has 
disagreed with this, despite the tangent the thread took.


The work in question is most definitely in two groups of 3 beats each 
(although it often hemiolas into 3/2 temporarily).



In those measures, you can (and should) use half rests where appropriate.

I just wasn't certain, in 6/4, whether five beats rest should 
generally be a dotted half plus two quarters



Yes.


or a dotted half plus a half.



No.


 The latter is easy to read,



Debatable.

 but I suspect that Johannes is indeed on target with his asstertion 
that the former is most correct?



Yes.

Also, for another example: two beats rest, followed by a quarter 
note, quarter note, half note.  Should the rest(s) be two quarter rests,



Yes.


or will a half suffice?



Not unless this is one of the temporary 3x2/4 situations.

My principal composition teacher, the late Nelson Keyes, was always 
quite irked when he would see a half rest in 3/4 in a published work, 
but it is a rule that is often broken.  I don't know if this is the 
same type of situation.



Yes, it is.


Please don't let me down this time, folks!



I think most people assumed, as I did, that the question had already 
been answered to your satisfaction.


- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4? - back to the original question, please!



On Jun 29, 2005, at 11:34 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:




On 29 Jun 2005, at 9:28 PM, Raymond Horton wrote:



The work in question is most definitely in two groups of 3 beats
each (although it often hemiolas into 3/2 temporarily).


That's not the right meaning of hemiola. A hemiola is:

W   W W
H H H | H H H

across two measures in a 3/2 context, (or H H H in two 3/4 measures).
In 3/2, the hemiola is overlaying a 3/1 measure over top of two 3/2
measures.



I think hemiola is one of those terms which has gone beyond its 
traditional meaning, to mean any 3 against 2 OR 2 against 3 counter 
accent in our modern times.


Other terms that I think have moved on in a similar fashion:

Subdominant (used to mean the 4th of the scale, or the chord built on 
it. Now means ANY chord that can lead to a dominant (though it doesn't 
invariably have to). Some of my colleagues have replaced this term with 
Predominant to be more clear. But what if it doesn't go to the 
dominant, but directly to the tonic? Is it still a predominant? If 
not, then why have a different name for the same chord in the same key?


Modal - had a big discussion about this one last year on the list. 
Doesn't mean now what it used to mean a couple of centuries ago. Of 
course leads to


Tonal - which might be one of those words that can't be used any more 
in ANY context except historical, because of all the different ways it 
is construed


Picardy third (now often applied to ANY major-quality resolution chord 
where a minor one is expected in the key, wrongly or not)


Toncisation (used to mean only with a secondary dominant, now can mean 
articulating a temporary tonic by any applicable means) (on that 
subject, what do you call a plagal resolution to a temporary tonic? A 
plagalisation? I shudder at it, but it IS logical. Musicians who play 
gospel (where it is most common) call it backcycling, but that is a 
bit obtuse IMHO. Drawing on applied dominant perhaps applied 
predominant? Not clear. Applied how?)


All of these expanded uses came about because we needed to talk about 
them, but didn't have a brand-new term, so we used an old term that did 
something similar, but restricted, in an older context. I even hear 
some jazz musicians (mostly bass players) talk about musica ficta in 
a jazz context, meaning that they use sharper notes walking up to a 
target and flatter notes moving down to a target; a great departure 
from the raised 4th and lowered 7th the term used to refer to.


This points up a need for a jazz theorist's convention, where we could 
all talk to one another and come up with proper terms for all this 
stuff, but not so far removed from the common classical terminology 
that nobody outside of jazz knows what we are talking about. I am 
insistent with my students that they make the connections between what 
they learned in their classical theory courses and how it applies to 
their jazz performance, composition, and arranging. It IS mostly the 
same as classical, after all, just expanded a bit more in places, and 
with a few different idiosyncracies. It seems that every jazz school 
has its OWN way of describing things, and often there are huge holes in 
the analysis and terminology.


Comments? (no swearing please.) Helpful hints? Resources?

Christopher

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

It is quite proper to use a 3/2 bar in the middle of a 4/4 work, using a 
quarter note pulse, with the intention of keeping the quarter note pulse 
but the 3/2 divided 2+2+2.  This is done quite correctly and frequently, 
not constantly. 

But that does not keep it from being very confusing to the uninitiated. 

When I was a young 8th grader, my band director was leading my high 
school band through a reading of one of the greatest of all concert band 
works, Percy Grainger's folk song-inspired _Lincolnshire Posy_.  (For 
anyone unfamiliar with the work, I HIGHLY reccomend that you seek out a 
recording and, if possible, a score, for this gorgeous and original 
work.)  The director, otherwise a quite accomplished musician, came to a 
4/4 - 3/2 metric sequence and started rushing through the 3/2 bars at 
double tempo.  He stopped and said If this is not what the composer 
wants at this point, then he has notated this passage INCORRECTLY!  I 
though it odd, and have made a mental note of such metric passages ever 
since.  (He hadn't had any trouble with the 2/2 - 2/4 bars in the 
Overture to _Candide_, oddly enough.)


Another time, many years later, I was helping my wife as she was 
directing a volunteer church choir.  An anthem had a similar 4/4 - 3/2 
metric passage, and a tenor (of course) would simply not HEAR of a meter 
with a THREE at the top and a TWO at the bottom being beat in SIX, and 
the QUARTER NOTE getting the beat.  HE HAD LEARNED about time 
signatures, and that SIMPLY WAS NOT THE WAY THAT THEY WORKED, and he 
didn't care WHAT KIND OF COLLEGE DEGREES the both of us had, BECAUSE IF 
WE HADNT LEARNED ABOUT TIME SIGNATURES, TOO, etc. etc. etc.


(a little knowledge is  a dangerous thing, and the littler the knowledge 
...) 


RBH
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

2005-06-29 Thread A-NO-NE Music

Darcy James Argue / 2005/06/29 / 07:21 PM wrote:
The reason the switch between 4/4 and 3/2 in the published version of 
All About Rosie is confusing because while the 4/4 sections are 
notated to reflect what the drums are doing, the 3/2 sections are 
notated to reflect what the bass is doing.  But there is not a 
corresponding shift in the relative importance of those instruments.  
When the 3/2 measures hit, it's supposed to be a subtle prolongation of 
the measure, not a big dramatic in-your-face metrical shift.

But it sorta is.
I was going to ignore this thread but I have to speak for George.  That
3/2 bar was meant to shift.  It's a 10 bars phrase.  That 3/2 bar is a
landmark of the odd length phrase, and drummer is not supposed to ride
through it.  I have been George's assistant conductor last 17 years.

Or did I misunderstand what you are saying?

and

Christopher Smith / 2005/06/29 / 06:00 PM wrote:
Just to thoroughly discredit my own argument, though, here are two 
exceptions. There are two pieces of common repertoire which are 
ordinarily written in 6/8 (divided 3+3) with swing SIXTEENTHS - All 
Blues by Miles Davis, and Better Get Hit in Your Soul by Charles 
Mingus. In the case of the former, I am convinced that jazz musicians 
read this in 6/8 for no other reason than because the first published 
lead sheet was notated that way, without reference to Miles or any of 
his musicians.

If you say Miles, I can't keep my mouse shut :-)
The melody, to me, clearly dictates 6/8, while he does solo in 6/4
groove later, the head/theme pattern is 6/8 with dotted Q subdivision,
not swing sixteens.

-- 

- Hiro

Hiroaki Honshuku, A-NO-NE Music, Boston, MA
http://a-no-ne.com http://anonemusic.com


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?

Christopher Smith / 2005/06/29 / 06:00 PM wrote: Just to thoroughly discredit my own argument, though, here are two exceptions. There are two pieces of common repertoire which are ordinarily written in 6/8 (divided 3+3) with swing SIXTEENTHS - "All Blues" by Miles Davis, and "Better Get Hit in Your Soul" by Charles Mingus. In the case of the former, I am convinced that jazz musicians read this in 6/8 for no other reason than because the first published lead sheet was notated that way, without reference to Miles or any of his musicians. I wrote an arrangement of this and notated it in 6/4.  Bill Evans questioned that decision, because he had (of course) seen the original (in 6/8), but he did not quarrel with the results, which simply made the reading easier for jazz players who, as I think Chris said before, are hopelessly tied to a quarter note basic pulse.  (And I count myself among those players.)Chuck Chuck Israels 230 North Garden Terrace Bellingham, WA 98225-5836 phone (360) 671-3402 fax (360) 676-6055 www.chuckisraels.com  ___
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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?



On Jun 30, 2005, at 12:57 AM, A-NO-NE Music wrote:


If you say Miles, I can't keep my mouse shut :-)


Nice pun! Very impressive, and not in your mother tongue!



The melody, to me, clearly dictates 6/8, while he does solo in 6/4
groove later, the head/theme pattern is 6/8 with dotted Q subdivision,


And why not 6/4 divided conventionally in dotted half notes? The pulse 
doesn't change; to notate the head to the solo section as 6/8 to 6/4 
(presumably l'istesso tempo) is just confusing. (assuming, of course, 
that someone would notate Miles' performance! I assume a 
transcription...)




not swing sixteens.




Really? What about the piano left hand/bass melody? VERY swingy 
sixteenths. Drum ride? Swing sixteenths subdivisions. Whether or not 
Miles played approximately even sixteenths on the head here is 
immaterial, as he commonly played very even 8ths in conventional 
grooves. It's one of the wonders of the jazz world that Miles could 
play so even, and the drummer could put his subdivided second swing 
note SO close to the next downbeat (in several different groups, 
culminating with Tony Williams) and yet it all swings sublimely with no 
hint of disturbing rhythmic dissonance.


But the question here is the overall rhythmic groove, not just the 
phrasing of the melody. And we can't ignore that swingin' piano left 
hand.


Christopher

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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?


On 30 Jun 2005, at 12:57 AM, A-NO-NE Music wrote:


Darcy James Argue / 2005/06/29 / 07:21 PM wrote:

The reason the switch between 4/4 and 3/2 in the published version of
All About Rosie is confusing because while the 4/4 sections are
notated to reflect what the drums are doing, the 3/2 sections are
notated to reflect what the bass is doing.  But there is not a
corresponding shift in the relative importance of those instruments.
When the 3/2 measures hit, it's supposed to be a subtle prolongation 
of

the measure, not a big dramatic in-your-face metrical shift.


But it sorta is.



I was going to ignore this thread but I have to speak for George.  That
3/2 bar was meant to shift.  It's a 10 bars phrase.  That 3/2 bar is a
landmark of the odd length phrase, and drummer is not supposed to ride
through it.  I have been George's assistant conductor last 17 years.


Hiro,

The shift is subtle and deceptive -- I'm sure intentionally so.  You 
are so familiar with the chart after all these years, it may be hard 
for you to put yourself in the position of hearing it for the first 
time. Keep in mind when the first 6/4 (3/2, whatever) bar happens, the 
bass line for the first four beats of the 6/4 bar is* exactly the same 
figure* we've heard twice in 4/4 already.  It's only by beat 5 of the 
6/4 bar (or more likely, several bars later) that any first-time 
listener could possibly realize what was going on.


Also, on both the original recording (will Bill Evans, etc) and the 
Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band version (with the great Mel Lewis on 
drums), the drums do indeed play swing through the interruptive 6/4 
bars.  There is no dramatic, obvious feel change on the downbeat of the 
6/4 bars -- like, for instance, stop time, or a sudden half-time feel.


Also, at [D], when the meter changes to 6/4 (3/2) for a more extended 
spell, it begins with drums only, playing a swing pattern with the 
hihat on 2, 4, and 6.  Unless the drummer really hits the downbeat of 
the second bar of [D] (which, again, doesn't happen on either of the 
recorded versions I have) -- a first-time listener would initially have 
no way of knowing that we were in 6 instead of 4.  IMO, these 
ambiguous, deceptive meter changes are a big part of the genius of the 
chart.


Also, when we did this at NEC, the drummer played regular 6/4 swing 
time (2+2+2) through both the interruptive 6/4 bars and in the extended 
6/4 section and neither you nor George raised any objections.


- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY







 


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Re: [Finale] half rests in 6/4?