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  • ferneyhoughgeliebte
    Gone fishin'
    • Sep 2011
    • 30163

    Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
    vibrato And where - to further complicate matters, I'm afraid - does tremolando come into all this?
    If you're a string player - wobble the Left Hand for Vibrato; wobble the Right for Tremolando.


    (pace the "Left-Handed Instrumentalist" Thread, where, presumably, versa your choice of vice.)
    [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

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    • EdgeleyRob
      Guest
      • Nov 2010
      • 12180

      Blimey,not sure what I've started here.
      Many thanks as always folks for the fascinating replies.,never fails this forum.
      I asked the question because I thought I'd seen,in all the Bach stuff I've been reading lately,that mordents are sometimes played as trills,especailly in Baroque music.
      Not sure if this is improvisation on the part of the musician or HIPP

      Comment

      • ferneyhoughgeliebte
        Gone fishin'
        • Sep 2011
        • 30163

        I wonder (I really don't know this) if this comes from close examination of the composer's manuscripts, Edgey - looking at the symbols for a trill and for a mordent in merc's link (#615) the mordent is just a wiggle longer than the trill (perhaps, too, why composers later added the tr at the beginning). Perhaps somebody has discovered/suggested that Bach's handwriting is ambiguous (just as Schubert's short hairpin diminuendo symbols were actually accent markings).
        [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

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        • EdgeleyRob
          Guest
          • Nov 2010
          • 12180

          Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
          I wonder (I really don't know this) if this comes from close examination of the composer's manuscripts, Edgey - looking at the symbols for a trill and for a mordent in merc's link (#615) the mordent is just a wiggle longer than the trill (perhaps, too, why composers later added the tr at the beginning). Perhaps somebody has discovered/suggested that Bach's handwriting is ambiguous (just as Schubert's short hairpin diminuendo symbols were actually accent markings).
          Fascinating,Ferney thanks again for taking the time and trouble to post,appreciated

          Comment

          • Eine Alpensinfonie
            Host
            • Nov 2010
            • 20570

            Originally posted by mercia View Post
            that particular single-note vocal ornamentation used in Monteverdi (and others?) I wouldn't call vibrato at all - its a bit of a definition minefield isn't it [replying to SA]
            It always reminds me of a woodpecker.

            Comment

            • Dave2002
              Full Member
              • Dec 2010
              • 18009

              Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
              If you're a string player - wobble the Left Hand for Vibrato; wobble the Right for Tremolando.


              (pace the "Left-Handed Instrumentalist" Thread, where, presumably, versa your choice of vice.)
              Clavichord players can throw bebung into the mix - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebung

              Apparently there wasn't a widespread use of a notation for this, but there is a notation sometimes used, as mentioned in the link.

              I don't know whether any other keyboard type instruments have/had any form of vibrato like this.

              Comment

              • MrGongGong
                Full Member
                • Nov 2010
                • 18357

                Originally posted by Dave2002 View Post
                Clavichord players can throw bebung into the mix - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebung

                Apparently there wasn't a widespread use of a notation for this, but there is a notation sometimes used, as mentioned in the link.

                I don't know whether any other keyboard type instruments have/had any form of vibrato like this.
                The Ondes Martenot has a mobile keyboard which produces vibrato by pitch shifting
                and there are other electronic instruments that have similar things

                This had a lit of publicity recently

                Comment

                • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                  Gone fishin'
                  • Sep 2011
                  • 30163

                  Originally posted by Dave2002 View Post
                  Clavichord players can throw bebung into the mix - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebung
                  Apparently there wasn't a widespread use of a notation for this, but there is a notation sometimes used, as mentioned in the link.
                  Blimey! I hadn't heard of this!
                  [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                  Comment

                  • Richard Barrett

                    Originally posted by EdgeleyRob View Post
                    mordents are sometimes played as trills,especailly in Baroque music.
                    Not sure if this is improvisation on the part of the musician or HIPP
                    Back in the mid-20th century it wasn't part of musicians' lives and training to be able to ornament early music spontaneously, but nowadays many conservatoires (like the one I work in) contain entire departments of early music so that such ideas are part of many musicians' lives and training from an early age, and this training is the result of teaching based on a still-growing body of knowledge of documentation, treatises, manuscripts, letters etc. etc. rather than (as in earlier generations) the result of what individual research could garner. Therefore HIPP is often improvisation, since it's assumed that notated ornaments, like the rest of the notated text in earlier music, are a starting point rather than, as later, a goal to aim at.

                    So, it isn't surprising these days to come across a notated mordent becoming a trill in performance, or a mordent appearing where no ornament was notated (Reinhard Goebel used to do this very often), or a trill beginning slowly and getting faster (one of Ton Koopman's mannerisms), or improvised embellishments based on the kind of written-out examples thereof which appeared for example in various versions of Corelli's op.5 sonatas. Here for example is the beginning of his op.5 no.9 in his original version plus three others, to show how very different from Corelli and from one another they could be.
                    Last edited by Guest; 19-04-15, 09:08.

                    Comment

                    • Dave2002
                      Full Member
                      • Dec 2010
                      • 18009

                      Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
                      Blimey! I hadn't heard of this!
                      This was mentioned in the Penguin book which I think I had in the 1960s - hopefully I've not lost my copy, though I'm not sure. It was called something like "History of musical instruments", and I can't remember the author(s). Can anyone - I think it had flashes of orange?

                      The clavichord is such a quiet instrument, apparently often used for practice purposes, and the bebung technique would not really carry over to other larger and louder instruments, so I wonder why they bothered. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavichord

                      However this "problem" was reportedly solved with the invention/production of the clavinet - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavinet in the 20th Century.

                      Comment

                      • EdgeleyRob
                        Guest
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 12180

                        Me again with what is probably a silly question for you music theory experts to sleep on.

                        Rinforzando and Sforzando,I get they both mean a sort of emphasis or accent.

                        What's the difference if any ?

                        Comment

                        • Pabmusic
                          Full Member
                          • May 2011
                          • 5537

                          Originally posted by EdgeleyRob View Post
                          Me again with what is probably a silly question for you music theory experts to sleep on.

                          Rinforzando and Sforzando,I get they both mean a sort of emphasis or accent.

                          What's the difference if any ?
                          In practical terms, none at all. One means 'reinforced', the other means 'forced' (well, sort of). I see no difference.

                          Now, I suppose it's possible that a composer has used both in the same work, in which case it is possible that to that composer they meant different things. So the performer will have to figure out whether the composer really meant different things, and if so what, or whether they were just slapdash about it. The latter is perfectly possible.

                          An obvious example: if there's several sfs and just one rinf., then the composer might want a little more emphasis on the latter. But this is by no means definite and is certainly not implied by the markings per se.

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                          • jean
                            Late member
                            • Nov 2010
                            • 7100

                            Don't think I've ever seen rinf. on any music I've ever sung. Lots of sfs, though.

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                            • Daniel
                              Full Member
                              • Jun 2012
                              • 418

                              Originally posted by EdgeleyRob View Post
                              Me again with what is probably a silly question for you music theory experts to sleep on.

                              Rinforzando and Sforzando,I get they both mean a sort of emphasis or accent.

                              What's the difference if any ?
                              In my experience the meaning of some musical indications can be rather variable, depending on who wrote it/when it was written etc, and I think one sometimes needs to make a judgement based on the musical context.

                              FWIW I've generally understood rinforzando to have a greater duration than sf, so over a passage of music, rather than a single chord or note as in the example of sf. But there are certainly cases where rinf will apply to one chord also and, as I say, I think that context can help elucidate which meaning might be intended by the composer.

                              Comment

                              • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                                Gone fishin'
                                • Sep 2011
                                • 30163

                                Originally posted by Daniel View Post
                                In my experience the meaning of some musical indications can be rather variable, depending on who wrote it/when it was written etc, and I think one sometimes needs to make a judgement based on the musical context.

                                FWIW I've generally understood rinforzando to have a greater duration than sf, so over a passage of music, rather than a single chord or note as in the example of sf. But there are certainly cases where rinf will apply to one chord also and, as I say, I think that context can help elucidate which meaning might be intended by the composer.
                                Yes, this is what I was taught, too - useful, too, for a sort of equivalent of Schönberg's H and N markings in polyphonic writing, to point out the most important line in the texture.

                                But composers being composers, some of them use them as another addition to the fz, sfz and Sffz family - not always making it clear whether it's louder or not quite as loud as fz.
                                [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

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