Musical questions and answers thread

[cloughie]

If singing a note someone plays on a piano, or we hear and sing along with, how on earth do we get the pitch right? What processes go on in the brain to make sure we tune in?

An interesting question - never tried to analyse it - seems some can and others can't. Maybe a supplementary question is why can some people busk harmonies against a tune where others it appears can only join in the tune?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... why can some people busk harmonies against a tune where others it appears can only join in the tune?

Courage and persistence?

[amateur51]

Courage and persistence?

And being Welsh?!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And being Welsh?!

Taken as read, of course, ami; taken as read.

[EdgeleyRob]

Isn't this thread just superb.
So much incredible knowledge hereabouts.

I was wondering why sharps and flats are sometimes shown in brackets.

[teamsaint]

Depends how you define "sophisticated", ts. Is a Lute less sophisticated than a Boehm flute, for example?

Probably the first key moment was the gradual adoption of Equal Temperament as a tuning system over the 17th & 18th Centuries (after the move from Modes to Keys over the previous century) . When Ab = G#, it becomes less complicated to make Music in keys more remote from those perhaps more traditionally associated with the human voices: so Bach can create two sets of works in which every major and minor key appears. These works themselves set a sort of challenging encouragement to later composers (Chopin's Preludes, for example) and so a repertoire grows. And then there are theories about "key colour" which suggest that each key has its own unique mood/emotional association, and the Romantics want to explore these unchartered expressive regions. And to facilitate such explorations, instrument makers (like Boehm or Sax) developed ... ahem ... sophisticated technical features. And the growth of the virtuoso performer in the 18th & 19th Centuries also contributed - complicated fingerings help show off a performer's technical prowess.

The point about sophisticated instruments wasn't to suggest that some early instruments weren't sometimes extraordinary. A visit here

http://mim.org/?gclid=CJfEpc-m_8ECFeLItAod92UAwg

will confirm, and I suggest a visit to anybody who finds themselves in Brussels or thereabouts. Brilliant.

( I think MrGG probably lives in a techno suite in the basement......)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I was wondering why sharps and flats are sometimes shown in brackets.

These are called "cautionaries", Edgey, and usually appear when a pitch has been modified recently. For example, if a composer uses a G# in a bar, they'll put a natural sign in brackets next to a G in the next bar just to make clear that it's gone back to what it used to be. They're sometimes found in blues-type chords where, say, there's an A and an Ab in the same chord: if the key signature has an Ab in it the composer will put an Ab cautionary next to the note just to confirm that this A isn't "naturalized" like the other A in the same chord.

In highly chromatic tonal Music, cautionaries are a great help to the performers.

[cloughie]

And being Welsh?!

Maybe but not compulsory! A surprising number of very good choristers can sing parts under orders but cannot busk harmonies!

[cloughie]

These are called "cautionaries", Edgey, and usually appear when a pitch has been modified recently. For example, if a composer uses a G# in a bar, they'll put a natural sign in brackets next to a G in the next bar just to make clear that it's gone back to what it used to be. They're sometimes found in blues-type chords where, say, there's an A and an Ab in the same chord: if the key signature has an Ab in it the composer will put an Ab cautionary next to the note just to confirm that this A isn't "naturalized" like the other A in the same chord.

In highly chromatic tonal Music, cautionaries are a great help to the performers.

I find double sharps and flats annoying when reading for singing, also tied crotchets instead of a minim.

[Serial_Apologist]

An interesting question - never tried to analyse it - seems some can and others can't. Maybe a supplementary question is why can some people busk harmonies against a tune where others it appears can only join in the tune?

As my descent into the basses accompanied my voice-breaking school choir journey, I found instinctively supplying the correct bass line easier than intermediatory lines, which I could only get by reading my part. From that experience I wrongly, or oversimplifyingly, assumed that the bass line must have been the earliest form of accopmpaniment to a melodic line.

I too wonder about the restriction involved in being tone-deaf. We had 2 or 3 such at my school, and they all thought they were singing in perfect tune!

[ahinton]

In highly chromatic tonal Music, cautionaries are a great help to the performers.

Er - funnily enough, I happen to have noticed that! One problem with their conscientious use, however, is that, unless the bars (assuming there to be such things) are relatively short, the text ends up risking the accretion of cautionary accidentals as each bar progresses towards it end.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Er - funnily enough, I happen to have noticed that! One problem with their conscientious use, however, is that, unless the bars (assuming there to be such things) are relatively short, the text ends up gathering incresing numbers of cautionary accidentals as each bar progresses towards it end.

When I was a student, I was told off by the second violinist of a String Quartet for putting natural signs in a twelve-note piece I'd written - "It just looks clumsy: if there isn't a sharp or flat in front of a note, we'll play it as a natural!"

You know what's coming, I suspect.

The following year, the same violinist played through a work I'd written for Violin and Piano. Much of the rehearsal time was spent going over all his "Is this F a sharp or a natural?" -type questions; "You need to make it clear in Serial Music"!

One can see the attractions of electronic Music.

(The same player also queried a "Bartok pizzicato" symbol I placed over a note; "You need to write 'pizz' as well to make it clear." To this day, I've never encountered a "snap arco".)

[ahinton]

When I was a student, I was told off by the second violinist of a String Quartet for putting natural signs in a twelve-note piece I'd written - "It just looks clumsy: if there isn't a sharp or flat in front of a note, we'll play it as a natural!"

You know what's coming, I suspect.

The following year, the same violinist played through a work I'd written for Violin and Piano. Much of the rehearsal time was spent going over all his "Is this F a sharp or a natural?" -type questions; "You need to make it clear in Serial Music"!

Indeed! However, it's got nothing to do with whether a piece is serial, non-serial atonal or tonal with much chromaticism at least to the extent that, insofar as there can ever be any "rules" to cover this kind of problem, the same applies to all equally. It has to be a matter of discretion but, that said, the nub of the problem is that of writing music using just seven note names (and places) to the octave when there are actually twelve semitones within same (and, of couse, I'm referring here only to non-microtonal music where notational problems can be somewhat different but often greater again). I remember going though a piano work of mine many years ago with Ronald Stevenson who said "but why all these b****y naturals when most of the first page is in and around E minor? are you ashamed of its being in E minor? if so, rewrite it!". It was embarrassing enough to go through something of mine at the piano with him in the first place; you don't want to parade your utter pianistic inadequacies in front of a pianist of his calibre, oh no, siree!

To this day, I've never encountered a "snap arco"

"Snap arco" can surely only occur as a consequence of a most unfortunate accident rather than being something that a composer would prescribe in a score (unless said composer was Nam June Paik, perhaps)...

[cloughie]

Indeed! Howeedr, it's got nothing to do with whether a piece is serial, non-serial atonal or tonal with much chromaticism at least to the extent that, insofar as there can ever be any "rules" to cover this kind of problem, the same applies to all equally. It has to be a matter of discretion but, that said, the nub of the problem is that of writing music using just seven note names (and places) to the octave when there are actually twelve semitones within same (and, of couse, I'm referring here only to non-microtonal music where notational problems can be somewhat different but often greater again). I remember going though a piano work of mine many years ago with Ronald Stevenson who said "but why all these b****y naturals when most of the first page is in and around E minor? are you ashamed of its being in E minor? if so, rewrite it!". It was embarrassing enough to go through something of mine at the piano with him in the first place; you don't want to parade your utter pianistic inadequacies in front of a pianist of his calibre, oh no, siree!

"Snap arco" can surel onlyh occur as a consequence of a most unfortunate accident rather than being something that a composer would prescribe in a score (unless said composer was Nam June Paik, perhaps)...

One can see the attractions of electronic Music.

(The same player also queried a "Bartok pizzicato" symbol I placed over a note; "You need to write 'pizz' as well to make it clear." To this day, I've never encountered a "snap arco".)

[/QUOTE]

I sometimes wonder if there are things we will never hear for the want of a way to write it down - these days it would be recorded but in years gone by.....

[Serial_Apologist]

Indeed! Howeedr, it's got nothing to do with whether a piece is serial, non-serial atonal or tonal with much chromaticism at least to the extent that, insofar as there can ever be any "rules" to cover this kind of problem, the same applies to all equally. It has to be a matter of discretion but, that said, the nub of the problem is that of writing music using just seven note names (and places) to the octave when there are actually twelve semitones within same (and, of couse, I'm referring here only to non-microtonal music where notational problems can be somewhat different but often greater again). I remember going though a piano work of mine many years ago with Ronald Stevenson who said "but why all these b****y naturals when most of the first page is in and around E minor? are you ashamed of its being in E minor? if so, rewrite it!". It was embarrassing enough to go through something of mine at the piano with him in the first place; you don't want to parade your utter pianistic inadequacies in front of a pianist of his calibre, oh no, siree!

"Snap arco" can surel onlyh occur as a consequence of a most unfortunate accident rather than being something that a composer would prescribe in a score (unless said composer was Nam June Paik, perhaps)...

One can see the attractions of electronic Music.

(The same player also queried a "Bartok pizzicato" symbol I placed over a note; "You need to write 'pizz' as well to make it clear." To this day, I've never encountered a "snap arco".)

What was it RVW said to Holst about one of the latter's late polytonal works using different key signatures per part: possibly the Terzetti? Something to the effect that "one good Christian key signature" would have sufficed? I must look it up...