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Author Topic: Musical abbreviations  (Read 2216 times)

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Bob Ellis

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Musical abbreviations
« on: April 24, 2016, 11:40:08 AM »

As some of you may know, I am working on a book on the traditional dance music of the Yorkshire Dales. While transcribing a tune from the MS of a Dales fiddler, I came across two musical abbreviations with which I am unfamiliar. On two occasions, he wrote 'So.' below the stave, once with a capital 'S' and once with a lower case 's'. I am guessing that this is short for 'sostenuto', but I am not sure. On another occasion, he wrote 'Sy' above the stave. I haven't a clue what that might mean. Can anybody help?
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Bob in beautiful Wensleydale, Les Panards Dansants, Crook Morris and the Loose Knit Band.
Clément Guais 3-row D/G/acc.; Castagnari 1914 D/G; Karntnerland Steirische 3-row G/C/F; Ellis Pariselle 2.6-row D/G/acc.; Gabbanelli Compact 2-row D/G with lots of bling, pre-war Hohner Bb/F; Acadian one-row in D.

Jack Campin

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Re: Musical abbreviations
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2016, 11:46:29 AM »

"Sy" = "symphony" = the whole band, at a guess.

"So" = "solo".
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playandteach

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Re: Musical abbreviations
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2016, 01:26:53 PM »

Could be a host of things - was he in the habit of using Italian terms elsewhere? Any chance of a context - like where in the phrase it was or better still a photo of the score?
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Steve_freereeder

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Re: Musical abbreviations
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2016, 01:48:22 PM »

Yes - what P&T said. We need to see this in context to make a meaningful guess at what the abbreviations mean. A scan of the relevant page(s) is what we need, Bob.
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Rob Lands

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Re: Musical abbreviations
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2016, 03:40:30 PM »

If the fiddler was "untutored" this is unlikely to be a complex Italian term.  Much more likely to be English/dialect abbrevation. Solo sounds good unless he played with Solomon (So) & Simon (Sy)
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Jack Campin

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Re: Musical abbreviations
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2016, 04:34:47 PM »

"Sym." for "symphony" is extremely common in the decades around 1800 (meaning either a tutti or a place where the solo voice is silent).  "Sy" will just be a shorter form of the same thing.  It probably comes at the start of a phrase or section.  "So." is the obvious contrast to it.  There is no convention about whether these occur above or below the staff.

Does that make musical sense in the context?
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Bob Ellis

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Re: Musical abbreviations
« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2016, 10:31:44 PM »

The tune is The Beggars Girl in the MS of William Calvert. You will see the position of the 'So.', 'sy' and 'so.' on the attached image. This MS contains 52 secular tunes, 13 psalms and 2 hymns, but these abbreviations don't appear in any tune in the MS other than The Beggars Girl. You may also notice two other peculiarities: the tune comprises 20 bars (a 10-bar 'A' music and 10-bar 'B' music, which does not occur in any other version that I have found) and three of the bars have too many beats to fit into the 6/8 structure. While these are issues with which I have been able to deal, the abbreviations have me stumped.

It is likely that William Calvert played with other musicians when playing in church, but there is no evidence one way or the other about whether he did so when playing for Village Dances or balls at 'the big house', so 'symphony' and 'solo' may be the correct interpretations, but I am not sure.
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Bob in beautiful Wensleydale, Les Panards Dansants, Crook Morris and the Loose Knit Band.
Clément Guais 3-row D/G/acc.; Castagnari 1914 D/G; Karntnerland Steirische 3-row G/C/F; Ellis Pariselle 2.6-row D/G/acc.; Gabbanelli Compact 2-row D/G with lots of bling, pre-war Hohner Bb/F; Acadian one-row in D.

ChrisP

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Re: Musical abbreviations
« Reply #7 on: April 24, 2016, 11:00:47 PM »

I agree with Jack. I've seen it often enough for it to be far the most likely. And there is no equally plausible alternative.

playandteach

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Re: Musical abbreviations
« Reply #8 on: April 25, 2016, 12:03:24 AM »

The two bars where the sy are, are a link passage between verses (hence the seemingly strange 10 bar structure). If you think of a Gilbert and Sullivan song where the last two bars are repeated by the chorus or orchestra, you'll get the idea.
What the letters actually stand for, I could only guess just now. But the musical shape is one of 8 bars solo, 2 bars answering phrase (usually tutti) which, harmonically is the same as bars 7 and 8, but melodically an embellishment. It is a standard device - but that doesn't really help with the actual words being abbreviated. Solo and Symphony aren't a bad guess in the context.
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Bob Ellis

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Re: Musical abbreviations
« Reply #9 on: April 25, 2016, 10:17:33 AM »

Thanks for your help with this, folks. Your interpretation does seem very plausible. I was sceptical at first because I couldn't imagine other musicians joining in for just two bars. Then it occurred to me that this might be the tune to a song and the instructions may refer to the audience joining in a chorus of some sort. That might also explain the irregular length of some of the bars.

Right, back to work! I've just made a couple of interesting discoveries: a reference to a longsword team at Hawes and a detailed description of the life and work of a musician from Leyburn who died in 1843. It's a shame that there are no tunes, but it is still exciting...or maybe I should get out more!  :|bl
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Bob in beautiful Wensleydale, Les Panards Dansants, Crook Morris and the Loose Knit Band.
Clément Guais 3-row D/G/acc.; Castagnari 1914 D/G; Karntnerland Steirische 3-row G/C/F; Ellis Pariselle 2.6-row D/G/acc.; Gabbanelli Compact 2-row D/G with lots of bling, pre-war Hohner Bb/F; Acadian one-row in D.

Jack Campin

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Re: Musical abbreviations
« Reply #10 on: April 25, 2016, 12:37:26 PM »

This seems to be the piece Calvert was arranging:

https://www.loc.gov/resource/ihas.100003829.0/

which explains the solo/instrumental sections.
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Bob Ellis

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Re: Musical abbreviations
« Reply #11 on: April 25, 2016, 03:18:00 PM »

Thanks for that, Jack. I have also found The Beggar Girl as a song whilst looking through George Deacon's "John Clare and the Folk Tradition" earlier today, where the words are on p.250 and the tune is on p.329. The tune is very similar to William Calvert's version, but Clare's version has a regular structure with 8-bars to both the 'A' and 'B' music and no bars of irregular length. I think you are right in concluding that the irregularities in Calvert's version result from the way that he arranged and performed it.
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Bob in beautiful Wensleydale, Les Panards Dansants, Crook Morris and the Loose Knit Band.
Clément Guais 3-row D/G/acc.; Castagnari 1914 D/G; Karntnerland Steirische 3-row G/C/F; Ellis Pariselle 2.6-row D/G/acc.; Gabbanelli Compact 2-row D/G with lots of bling, pre-war Hohner Bb/F; Acadian one-row in D.

Jack Campin

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Re: Musical abbreviations
« Reply #12 on: April 25, 2016, 08:21:02 PM »

The published version has irregular section lengths, due to the instrumental interludes - Calvert's version is less folk-processed than Clare's.  The only apparently odd barlengths in Calvert are where he's left out a tuplet sign or written a gracenote fatter than we would these days.
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