What's the Point of Rubato?

[Richard Barrett]

but was hopeful that there was better playback software out there that actually sounds similar to the instruments they claim to "be"!

There is of course but it's very expensive (the "Vienna Symphonic Library" of orchestral samples costs around 2 grand) & those of us who write actual orchestral music ought to be capable of hearing inwardly what music sounds like without such aids (pace Tetrachord), although sampled orchestras are much in use for film/TV/game soundtracks.

The issue here is the precedence of actual performing practice over the capabilities of notation, which was of course first developed as a mnemonic shorthand, although soon afterwards its potential for making a new kind of music conceivable (involving several synchronised parts) led to its taking on a life of its own as a "compositional medium". The relation of the blunt instrument of rhythmical notation has always existed in a changing relationship to different styles of rhythmical practice - the Viennese waltz and jazz have already been mentioned. The reason for phrasing sounding "natural" or not has a lot to do with its relationship to breathing (and therefore also both speech and singing, before we come to wind instruments) which, like the rhythms our limbs are capable of realising, is I think "hard-wired" into human musical sensibilities. But a great deal of care needs to be taken in using a word like "natural" in relation to music! - it's a much more complex issue than "the way I like it / the way it's regarded by the culture I grew up in" which is often what its usage in music boils down to. (Recall the story of Stockhausen meeting the Zen master DT Suzuki, telling him he made music in an "artificial" way, in a laboratory with electronic equipment, and Suzuki replying that this too was perfectly natural.) Returning to your point: a particular rubato might be used in the same way every time by a performer in the same way that a jazz player might tend to play the rhythms in a jazz standard with the same kind of swing each time, or that the gradual acceleration in a gagaku piece will be the same each time it's played. It (like any other musical phenomenon) doesn't gain or lose its point through being either improvised or prepared; these are different methods which different people in different times and places might see as more or less suitable ways of achieving the rhythmical quality they're looking for.

[Ian]

There is of course but it's very expensive (the "Vienna Symphonic Library" of orchestral samples costs around 2 grand) & those of us who write actual orchestral music ought to be capable of hearing inwardly what music sounds like without such aids (pace Tetrachord), although sampled orchestras are much in use for film/TV/game soundtracks.

2K sounds quite cheap compared to hiring an orchestra.

I've never really thought about sample libraries as disability aids that composers should not have to use.

[Richard Barrett]

I've never really thought about sample libraries as disability aids that composers should not have to use.

Neither have I.

[Ian]

Neither have I.

so what do you mean by this:

"those of us who write actual orchestral music ought to be capable of hearing inwardly what music sounds like without such aids"


Why should they ought to? What if they can't?

[Richard Barrett]

Why should they ought to? What if they can't?

If they can't, their ability to write orchestral music is probably going to be somewhat limited. If it's so simple that a flesh-and-blood orchestra will sound for all practical purposes little different from the sampled simulation, what's the point in writing for orchestra at all?

[Ian]

If they can't, their ability to write orchestral music is probably going to be somewhat limited.

True, which is why samples can be used as a sort of ‘disability aid’ to help overcome that limitation.

If it's so simple that a flesh-and-blood orchestra will sound for all practical purposes little different from the sampled simulation, what's the point in writing for orchestra at all?

One reason might be that orchestras will enjoy playing such music, and audiences will enjoy listening to it being performed.

The samples, used as an aid, don’t have to be completely realistic - just useful enough to provide a guide.

Your question is also akin to questioning the point of live performance given the availability of recordings.

[Richard Barrett]

Your question is also akin to questioning the point of live performance given the availability of recordings.

Don't be silly, it's exactly the opposite of that. One of the main points of writing concert music in my opinion, especially for orchestra, is that the live experience can be so much richer than anything a recording can provide, although if it's really not much different from a digital simulation it hardly seems worth the bother. I agree that there are many people (including some composers!) who aren't particularly concerned by the aforementioned richness, but I don't regard that as something to accept unquestioningly. One's music reflects one's world view.

Also I would object to your use of the term "disability aid" in this context. People don't choose to be disabled. On the other hand, composers can choose to acquire skills in orchestration, or they can not bother to do so which will limit them to an impoverished idea of what an orchestra can do.

Anyway, this is all offtopic.

[ahinton]

True, which is why samples can be used as a sort of ‘disability aid’ to help overcome that limitation.

I'm afraid that, for me, the nearest that this is capable of getting to a "disability aid" is as an aid to developing a disability; it has therefore the means to become a distraction from the real orchestral sounds that the composer can imagine in his/her mind. On a related topic, we all know the arguments and counter-arguments about writing at the piano and writing away from the piano (Ravel, Stravinsky et al) but I'll never forget the puzzlement on the face of someone who, when I'd answered his question with "no, I never write at the piano", then asked "not even when writing for the piano?", to which I responded "especially not when writing for the piano!". There's no rights and wrongs about that, of course; the composer should do whatever he/she feels works best.

All that's a distance away from the point of rubato, though. The perceived need for rubato in most music before and after the 19th century is questionable but, to my mind, when it's used in certain music of what one might loosely term the Romantic era (in the performance of which it's most widely encountered), the risk that it descends into rhythmic distortion if not strictly controlled and used very sparingly indeed is everywhere. The composer whose work perhaps above all used to suffer from what all too often sounded like rubatissimo was Chopin, much of whose work is very vocally inclined (the influences of Donizetti and Bellini and later that of Bach abound), yet Chopin, who must have been irked by exaggerated use of rubato, often encouraged his students to practice with a metronome ticking. Rubato is, to me a valid expressive device in certain music provided that it is only ever used with great care and never to an extent that might threaten to distort the pulse.

[ahinton]

Don't be silly, it's exactly the opposite of that. One of the main points of writing concert music in my opinion, especially for orchestra, is that the live experience can be so much richer than anything a recording can provide, although if it's really not much different from a digital simulation it hardly seems worth the bother. I agree that there are many people (including some composers!) who aren't particularly concerned by the aforementioned richness, but I don't regard that as something to accept unquestioningly. One's music reflects one's world view.

Also I would object to your use of the term "disability aid" in this context. People don't choose to be disabled. On the other hand, composers can choose to acquire skills in orchestration, or they can not bother to do so which will limit them to an impoverished idea of what an orchestra can do.

Anyway, this is all offtopic.

All very valid points, not least the advantages of live performance over recorded ditto, valuable in its own right though that can of course be; there can simply be no substitute for being there and to have every instrumentalist in the orchestra playing their instruments directly without any digital or analogue intermediary.

I responded to the "disability aid" expression above; I hadn't even thought to do so in the way that you have here, which is an important though quite different criticism of its use in this context.

[Ian]

Don't be silly, it's exactly the opposite of that.

Not really - a sampled simulation can only ever be a recording. However, I did take your statement:

"If it's so simple that a flesh-and-blood orchestra will sound for all practical purposes little different from the sampled simulation, what's the point in writing for orchestra at all?"

to mean that if you can simulate the sound of a work using samples there would be no point to an orchestra playing it. Whereas you probably meant that if the work was simple enough so that it could be effectively realized by samples the work wouldn’t be worth writing. Which I suppose is as good as way as any to prejudge a work.

One of the main points of writing concert music in my opinion, especially for orchestra, is that the live experience can be so much richer than anything a recording can provide, although if it's really not much different from a digital simulation it hardly seems worth the bother.

Yes - but the digital simulation can only ever be as ‘not much different’ to a recording of the real thing. As you say the live thing is a different experience.

Also I would object to your use of the term "disability aid" in this context. People don't choose to be disabled. On the other hand, composers can choose to acquire skills in orchestration, or they can not bother to do so which will limit them to an impoverished idea of what an orchestra can do.

It was you that introduced the concept of samples as an ‘aid’ - what is it aiding if not a lack of perfect pitch - or indeed relative pitch? Attributes that I don’t think anyone can choose to have. Acquiring orchestration skills is an esentail but different thing.

[vinteuil]

.

... I think the best - the most effective - rubato is the one of which the listener is unaware : it will be 'felt' subliminally but not necessarily heard consciously. In the same way that a good harpsichordist will use agogic accent in such a way that the listener will 'hear' the effect as making notes sound louder or quieter when in fact they are shorter/longer/off-stress ; an illusion which 'works' but of which the listener is unaware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19JBIZaGCy8

[Richard Barrett]

Perhaps this is the root of a problem not infrequently expressed by singers that some composers don't write well for voices: the composers maybe thinking "in" phrasing as they write, rather than breathing?

I think this "problem" is created by singers at least as often as by composers. Another thing about rubato - the clue is in the name! There needs to be a context from which "time is robbed" - if it isn't possible to hear/feel the context in which this flexibility is being exercised, then it isn't rubato any more. This kind of question comes up when discussing "complex" notation: some would say that it's concerned with notating a kind of rubato which is a deliberate compositional determinant and thus independent of any assumed cultural context like for example the kind of timing associated with romantic music, or jazz; whereas others (myself included) would say that it has nothing to do with rubato at all, it's not composing something that occurs within an implied context but composing the context itself. This again is a somewhat tangential issue, to say the least.

[Richard Barrett]

... I think the best - the most effective - rubato is the one of which the listener is unaware : it will be 'felt' subliminally but not necessarily heard consciously. In the same way that a good harpsichordist will use agogic accent in such a way that the listener will 'hear' the effect as making notes sound louder or quieter when in fact they are shorter/longer/off-stress ; an illusion which 'works' but of which the listener is unaware.

Yes, but if you are aware of it, as you yourself obviously are, that still doesn't suddenly reveal the illusion as fake! - you can be aware of what's going on and still experience the agogic accents as quasi-dynamic stresses, don't you think?

[LeMartinPecheur]

Authentic rubato

I hesitate to raise my voice among experts but...

...aren't there two different types of rubato stemming from different periods?

If I understand it correctly, in the time of Mozart and Chopin rubato was the maintenance of a steady pulse in the accompaniment while allowing departure from strict note-values in the melody. IIRC a stated principle was that what was 'robbed' in one place had to be given back in another (so everyone finished at the same time!).

Later of course, the term got stretched to apply to any noticeable variation of tempo applied in all parts at the same time. And it is this type only which has incurred displeasure (and occasional pleasure) in this thread.

I'd be very interested to hear of recordings clearly demonstrating, for unmusical idiots like me, the earlier type.

[Richard Barrett]

...aren't there two different types of rubato stemming from different periods?

I'm not aware of that.