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Author Topic: time signatures  (Read 10341 times)

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Tone Dumb Greg

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Re: time signatures
« Reply #40 on: July 01, 2016, 09:32:46 PM »

Can't dynamic and agogic accents be used to map rhythm (edit, although I don't know if agogic accents have accepted symbols, or are just implied by everything else)?

My my we're moving well into music theory now aren't we? Unless I misunderstood things (many moons ago now!) an agogic accent is created by putting a longer note into a series of notes of equal length, thus drawing attention to it by breaking the flow, like putting a long stride into a series of hops. I'm open to being shot down in flames on this one. :D  :|glug


It is fifty years since I thought much about agogic accents. As far as I can remember, they are usually implied by  emphasis marks combined with things like chord timing, but some composers specifically  used an emphasis marks (>)  to indicate agogic (slightly time shifted with respect to the beat is how I understood it, a bit like rubata, rather than louder emphasis). I think that timing and attack pretty much describe  rhythm and the notation is already in common use, although, maybe,  not generally used that way in popular dance music.

While I think about it, I seem to remember a thread a while back about a  (free?)  on line music theory course, or did I imagine this. Can anyone enlighten me on whether it's still available and if they found it worthwhile?
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dave t

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Re: time signatures
« Reply #41 on: July 01, 2016, 10:20:16 PM »

the abc might have sounded a little more like Martin's version if some of the dotted pairs were changed to a cut note (acciacatura) preceeding a quaver, and a little more like Anahata's if the triplets were replaced with dotted pairs.

I disagree with the specifics of the example. If the abc were written in 12/8 then it would accurately reflect both Anahata’s and Martin’s performances. No need for acciacaturas as these are ornaments that are placed before the beat, not on it. The only tricky thing about transcribing a tune like this is what to do with the short-long rhythms. The abc that you posted got around it by using semiquaver-dotted quaver. What’s actually being played is more like quaver-crotchet.

So why not write such a tune in 12/8? Probably because most people find 4/4 easier to read quickly and the notated version combined with the recording tells you all you need to know in order to learn the tune.
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playandteach

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Re: time signatures
« Reply #42 on: July 01, 2016, 11:48:38 PM »

Thread drift perhaps, but dotted notes in certain periods are played as double dotted rhythms by the players at the time. Just kept simpler on the page for speed of reading. I played on quite a few films in my orchestral days (very expensive to hire a studio and orchestra) and they always wrote things out as intuitively as possible. Studio time was, way back then, £600 a minute, so you want the players to read your music quickly and efficiently, not start to over-intellectualise finer points. I think the notation system we have is amazing and it's ok that you need an alert mind to reflect finer details.
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Anahata

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Re: time signatures
« Reply #43 on: July 02, 2016, 06:54:52 AM »

So why not write such a tune in 12/8? Probably because most people find 4/4 easier to read quickly and the notated version combined with the recording tells you all you need to know in order to learn the tune.

The same could be said about any 4/4 hornpipe expected to be played in dotted rthythm. The dotted quaver/semiquaver pairing is always played in triplets (2/3 + 1/3) often hinted at by the presence of runs of 3 or more triplets in the tune.
But we never write those tunes in 12/8.

Despite Jack's implication that it's not really a strathspey, I have frequently seen it described as such, and strathspeys are written in 4/4. Like hornpipes, they have 4 strong beats and I'm think I'm right in saying the dance steps involve no footfalls at the 2/3 or 3/4 (depending on whch way you write it) point of each beat. Contrast with jigs, where there are steps on that off-beat quaver and you'll typically put a LH chord at that point. I'd never do that in The Sweetness of Mary.
That might also explain whay I play it rather faster than others, though not with full Scottish-style strathspey crispness.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2016, 06:56:57 AM by Anahata »
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Chris Brimley

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Re: time signatures
« Reply #44 on: July 02, 2016, 08:40:45 AM »

I find this a very useful discussion, because I've often noticed differences in styles of playing in terms of these rhythms, and have not found any explanations in the music notation itself. 

I'm intrigued by whether there's a difference between the 4/4 'dotted' hornpipe as played by you, Anahata, and a Strathspey - Jack, do you feel that if there's a difference, it's in the length of the 'Scotch snap'? - in other words, are Strathspeys typically 'double dotted'? Anahata makes a good point about the shortness of the off-beat note and the LH, for the 'dotted' 4/4 vs the 'tripleted' style. 

For hornpipe tunes (or playing of hornpipe tunes) where the 'triplet' rhythm predominates, it seems to me there's a lot to be said for writing them in 12/8.  It's not really much more difficult to read quickly - each bar just looks like two 6/8 jig bars stuck together, after all, and many of the long notes are simply undotted crotchets.  Many years ago (before The Session was around), I had real trouble trying to write out a score for King of the Fairies.  There's a lot of 4/4 versions around (for example if you look on The Session nowadays, you'll find half a dozen different versions in 4/4, some dotted, some straight), and I was painstakingly trying to do the same thing with dotted notes and quavers.  It didn't seem to work out right, and for the life of me I couldn't work out why not.  Then I suddenly realised that the rhythm we were trying to play was actually a jig but with 4 main beats, and when I tried writing the tune in 12/8, it all just fell into place, and looked much easier to follow.  I don't know how people are playing the versions shown on The Session, but I suspect many of them are actually playing the tune to a 12/8 rhythm.  (Dare I say it, I have a little hunch that more than one or two are reading it thinking it's a dotted 4/4, but actually playing it in 12/8 time, without realising it!)

Pete Dunk's abc of the tune is a well thought-through notation, I feel, and it brings out a variation in rhythm nicely and simply.

I joined this thread because I have often thought that traditional music notation sometimes doesn't give us (particularly dance musicians) enough messages about rhythm, and I've wondered how other players felt.  The very fact that it seems to have generated quite a lot of discussion, and evident differences in approach, perhaps supports my view.  In many cases (such as the hornpipe discussion), the melody itself can carry the message, but that's not always the case, for example for much of Latin American dance music.  (It's also not the case if we use simplified score time signatures and rely on a couple of vague words of guidance at the top, such as 'play with swing'.) I'd suggest that it would often be useful to indicate main beats and sub-beats somehow, where the writer wants to use a repeated rhythm style.
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Pete Dunk

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Re: time signatures
« Reply #45 on: July 02, 2016, 11:27:27 AM »

Pete Dunk's abc of the tune is a well thought-through notation, I feel, and it brings out a variation in rhythm nicely and simply.

I need to point out here for the sake of accuracy that this abc file wasn't transcribed by me from an audio source. I can transcribe music from old manuscripts and hand written sources but listening to a piece of music and then writing it down is completely beyond me. I will have either found an abc file on the net or possibly a PDF or jpeg that I transcribed to add to my collection. I have this in two keys, A and G, and the file in A quotes "Ho-Ro Gheallaidh Scottish Fiddlers’ Session Tunebook" as the source so I may have transcribed that from a scan or just found the file, I really can't remember. In case anyone wants it, here is the tune in A. The Q:1/4=110 was added by me in both files.

X:83
T:Sweetness Of Mary, The
C:Joan MacDonald Boes
S:Ho-Ro Gheallaidh Scottish Fiddlers’ Session Tunebook, v. 1&2, p. 84.
M:4/4
L:1/8
R:strathspey
N:Moderately slow
Q:1/4=110
K:Amaj
(3EAB|:c2 (3cBA F2 (3FAB|c>e d<f e2 (3efg|a>gf>e e>dc>d
|1 e<a c>A B2 A>B:|2 e<a c>B A2|:a>b|c’>e a<c’ b>e g<b|
a>g f<a e2 d>c|f>A d<f e>dc>d|1 e<a c>A B2 a>b|c’>e a<c’ b>e e<b|
a>g f<a e2 d>c|f>Ad>f e>dc<d|e<a c>B A2:|2 e<a c>A B>EA>B|
c2 (3cBA F2 (3FAB|c>e d<f e2 f>g|a>gf>e e>dc>d|e<a c>B A2||
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Anahata

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Re: time signatures
« Reply #46 on: July 02, 2016, 11:36:48 AM »

Quote
I joined this thread because I have often thought that traditional music notation sometimes doesn't give us (particularly dance musicians) enough messages about rhythm

You simply can't notate everything about the way music is played.
Look up "expressive intonation" if your want your mind really boggled. You thought a note was either in tune of out of tune? think again. There's tons of stuff written about when to play with Pythagorean tuning, equal temperament or just intonation, playing sharp to stand out etc. None of this is notated in the music.
Similarly with rhythm, dynamics and note lengths - every note in a tune is played with a slightly different loudness and length. Even when composers specify speed with metronome markings (some do, some don't) those markings are routinely ignored, and you'd think the speed was a fundamental thing about playing a piece of music right. Stravinsky even conducted multiple recordings of his own compositions  at markedly different speeds.

The point is that there's a whole lot that is left to the musician to interpret, and that's how it should be, otherwise we'd all sound the same. Additionally, and more to the point here, there's a whole lot about playing in a particular musical tradition that you can only learn by listening. A musician's most important tool is his ears, and with all the notation in the world you can't play a Bossa Nova (or Irish reel, Or Bulgarian horo) and make it sound right unless you've heard it done (preferably by many different players) and know what it should sound and feel like. And once you do know how to do that, you don't need it written down.
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Tone Dumb Greg

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Re: time signatures
« Reply #47 on: July 02, 2016, 02:18:56 PM »


For hornpipe tunes (or playing of hornpipe tunes) where the 'triplet' rhythm predominates, it seems to me there's a lot to be said for writing them in 12/8.  It's not really much more difficult to read quickly...


I found your notation idea intriguing, Chris, so I tried it on a bog standard setting of King of the Fairies, selected from the multitude of ways of playing it, to see what it looked like and how usable it seemed. I found it a bit tricky to read and easily confused with a slide,  so I put it into 6/8. Better, but the jig grouping still made it tricky. I regrouped it into 4 groups of dotted quaver length and got something I found very easy to read, was mathematically consistent and  much closer to the way people usually play hornpipes and 4/4 set dances, but it looked quite weird and unlike anything I've ever seen.
Obviously, totally unconventional and unnecessary, if you're familiar with the tune or the style of playing, but actually quite usable as a tool. Also, a good way to give an Irish Trad musician an apoplexy. I wonder what reaction I would get if I posted it on The Session? >:E
Just for interest, this is it:   

X: 1
T: King Of The Fairies
R: hornpipe
M: 6/8
L: 1/16
K: Eaeo
E3 E2F G3 G2A|B2c B2A G3 G2A|B3 E3 E3 G3|F2G A2F D6|
E3 E2F G3 G2A|B2c B2A G3 G2A|B3 E3 G2F E2D|E6 e6|]
e2f e2d B3 B3|e2f e2d B6|f2g a2f d3 g3|f2g a2f d3 g2a|
b3 g2b a3 f2a|g3 e2g f3 d2f|e3 e2f g2f e2d|e3 e2f g6|
e2f e2d B3 B3|g3 a2b d6|d2c B2A c2B A2G|F2G A2F D4|
G2F G2A B2A B2d|e2d e2f g2f e2d|d2c B2A B2A G2F|E6 e6|]
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Chris Brimley

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Re: time signatures
« Reply #48 on: July 02, 2016, 06:51:20 PM »

Quote
The point is that there's a whole lot that is left to the musician to interpret, and that's how it should be, otherwise we'd all sound the same.

Anahata, sorry, but that's not really the point for me, at all.  Given the right tools, players can start from a shared understanding, but still sound very different.

TDG,
Quote
was mathematically consistent and  much closer to the way people usually play hornpipes and 4/4 set dances
  Mmm.  Good luck with posting it on The Session!
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Pete Dunk

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Re: time signatures
« Reply #49 on: July 03, 2016, 07:03:19 PM »

I need to point out here for the sake of accuracy that this abc file wasn't transcribed by me from an audio source. I can transcribe music from old manuscripts and hand written sources but listening to a piece of music and then writing it down is completely beyond me. I will have either found an abc file on the net or possibly a PDF or jpeg that I transcribed to add to my collection. I have this in two keys, A and G, and the file in A quotes "Ho-Ro Gheallaidh Scottish Fiddlers’ Session Tunebook" as the source so I may have transcribed that from a scan or just found the file, I really can't remember.

A bit of googling today and I finally found the source, The Session of all places, well down the page. I rarely visit The Session myself so I think it might have been reposted elsewhere, anyway that's that mystery solved. I do have a copy of the Ho-Ro Gheallaidh Scottish Fiddlers’ Session Tunebook Vol.1 as it happens but a bit of research shows that The Sweetness of Mary was published in Vol.2. There are four volumes all told with an interesting mix of Scottish, Irish and Cape Breton trad tunes and new tunes.
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