Musical questions and answers thread

[mercia]

Depends on the composer - where they work most successfully, the composer already has the sound in his/her "harmonic vocabulary" - along with diminished seventh chords, augmented sixths etc etc etc - and uses it where it has best effect: good part-writing means that there aren't any "accidents" or mere coincidences.

If it is entirely an "accident", "false relations" are more accurately described as "imaginary friends".

thanks - my question was prompted by listening to that John Sheppard on CD Review

[EdgeleyRob]

Been meaning to ask for a while.
Mordents and trills.
Am I correct in thinking that a mordent can sometimes be played as a trill but not the other way round.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Been meaning to ask for a while.
Mordents and trills.
Am I correct in thinking that a mordent can sometimes be played as a trill but not the other way round.

Not entirely, Edgey. A mordent is a sort of miniscule trill, (think of the opening notes of the Shostakovich 4th Symphony: dadiYaaaH - the "dadi" bit is the mordent. The opening of the "Bach" D minor Toccata & Fugue is an Inverted Mordent: the second note is lower than the two around it) but a trill is a Mordent that doesn't stop.

[Pulcinella]

Not entirely, Edgey. A mordent is a sort of miniscule trill, (think of the opening notes of the Shostakovich 4th Symphony: dadiYaaaH - the "dadi" bit is the mordent. The opening of the "Bach" D minor Toccata & Fugue is an Inverted Mordent: the second note is lower than the two around it) but a trill is a Mordent that doesn't stop.

But wouldn't a symbol normally be used for a mordent?
Presumably the Shostakovich is fully notated; not sure about the T&F.
Like the general description, though. Some trills do indeed go on and on and on, but I think they do stop eventually! Mine certainly do when my fingers can't take any more!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But wouldn't a symbol normally be used for a mordent?

Good question - is a mordent/trill/turn/ornament of choice just the symbol or the sound produced by said symbol?

Presumably the Shostakovich is fully notated; not sure about the T&F.

The Shostakovich is written as demi-semi-quaver acciaccaturas - the Bach as a mordent (in the edition I have).

Like the general description, though. Some trills do indeed go on and on and on, but I think they do stop eventually! Mine certainly do when my fingers can't take any more!

[Richard Barrett]

Good question - is a mordent/trill/turn/ornament of choice just the symbol or the sound produced by said symbol?

You could say the same about "notes" of course. Does music consist of notes, or of sounds (and/or silences)? If the latter, does it consist of oscillatory phenomena in the atmosphere and/or the responses these engender in the minds of performers and listeners (and composers)?

Ahem. But an interesting issue here is how one hears the difference between a mordent à la Bach (attrib.) (unless it's played as a trill, as Ton Koopman rather disconcertingly does) or a written-out mordent à la Shostakovich... the former is understood as an "ornament" and the latter as something more "inside" the musical material. I remember a well-known composer with whom I once had a couple of lessons describing the rhythmic subdivisions in Ferneyhough's music as "ornamental" which was certainly a serious misunderstanding of what he was doing. But what does "ornamental" actually mean? (This is my "musical question" by the way!) It seems to imply something peripheral; although in Baroque music, Couperin and the French school in particular, there's no sense that it could be left out. (Although I do leave out some ornaments when I attempt to play Baroque keyboard music because I can't make my left hand do them properly - in Rameau's L'entretien des Muses strangely I can continue the long left-hand trills ad infinitum but I can't make the left-hand mordents sound convincing at all.) What about the opening of Beethoven's "Spring" Sonata? Here the ornaments are of course written out, but somehow they're still ornaments...

[MrGongGong]

You could say the same about "notes" of course. Does music consist of notes, or of sounds (and/or silences)? If the latter, does it consist of oscillatory phenomena in the atmosphere and/or the responses these engender in the minds of performers and listeners (and composers)?

You are Leigh Landy and I claim my £100

[Richard Barrett]

You are Leigh Landy and I claim my £100

Damn, there's no fooling you. Cunning screen name though, huh?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But what does "ornamental" actually mean? (This is my "musical question" by the way!) It seems to imply something peripheral; although in Baroque music, Couperin and the French school in particular, there's no sense that it could be left out.

Yes - I think "ornament" is like "Functional Harmony" with its "essential" and "non-essential" notes: the most interesting sounds (the "most Musical" it might be said) are produced by the "non-essential" notes.

I suppose it all goes back to early Music publishing? The sounds that performers would improvize being represented as a symbol (= "ornament") above the note being "twiddled"? And these sounds becoming incorporated into the way composers thought as they played/imagined and then wrote down their Music? So that the "ornament" became the carrier of the essential expressive content of a phrase, such that the piece becomes weakened in expressive force if the "ornament" is ignored or substituted?

Dunno, really.

[Pulcinella]

Yes - I think "ornament" is like "Functional Harmony" with its "essential" and "non-essential" notes: the most interesting sounds (the "most Musical" it might be said) are produced by the "non-essential" notes.

I suppose it all goes back to early Music publishing? The sounds that performers would improvize being represented as a symbol (= "ornament") above the note being "twiddled"? And these sounds becoming incorporated into the way composers thought as they played/imagined and then wrote down their Music? So that the "ornament" became the carrier of the essential expressive content of a phrase, such that the piece becomes weakened in expressive force if the "ornament" is ignored or substituted?

Dunno, really.

But weren't ornaments also a means of sustaining sound/a sound on perhaps not very resonant instruments?

PS: second thoughts! Probably only the trill falls into that category.

[Dave2002]

Some trills do indeed go on and on and on, but I think they do stop eventually! Mine certainly do when my fingers can't take any more!

This "Trill" has been going on for at least 50 years - perhaps even 60! http://www.pet-supermarket.co.uk/Pro...ll-budgie-seed

[Richard Barrett]

But weren't ornaments also a means of sustaining sound/a sound on perhaps not very resonant instruments?

That only really applies to harpsichords though, and perhaps lutes. More important perhaps is that in the period we're talking about ornaments were used to create different points of focus and emphasis when it wasn't generally the done thing to do this by means of dynamic changes (which harpsichords and lutes also aren't so good at of course). It spreads out a "note" into something more complex, in a more complex perspective with the surrounding sounds. (As in many if not most non-Western musical traditions.)

[Pulcinella]

This "Trill" has been going on for at least 50 years - perhaps even 60! http://www.pet-supermarket.co.uk/Pro...ll-budgie-seed

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This "Trill" has been going on for at least 50 years - perhaps even 60! http://www.pet-supermarket.co.uk/Pro...ll-budgie-seed

I think you found that one in "The Musicians' Joke Book".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Not entirely, Edgey. A mordent is a sort of miniscule trill, (think of the opening notes of the Shostakovich 4th Symphony: dadiYaaaH - the "dadi" bit is the mordent. The opening of the "Bach" D minor Toccata & Fugue is an Inverted Mordent: the second note is lower than the two around it) but a trill is a Mordent that doesn't stop.

To complicate things still further, the inverted mordent (the one that goes down) has been called the mordent in some places, and the one that goes up - the inverted mordent. To sort out this confusion, there is a push to call them "upper" and "lower" mordents.