Musical questions and answers thread

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How do I decide how many movements a composition should have? I don't need to decide because the answer as I said is always going to be one. Writing a piece in several movements seems to me to presuppose certain kinds of ideas about form which I don't share. I'm not sure whether that's a contribution to the discussion or not though.

There might be a parallel discussion - how do you decide how many compositions are going to make up a composite work/project like Opening of the Mouth, Dark Matter, Negatives or Construction? (Or, for that matter, Dillon's Nine Rivers - which I presume he knew would have Nine pieces when he started the project - or Carceri d'Invenzione.)

[Beef Oven!]

There might be a parallel discussion - how do you decide how many compositions are going to make up a composite work/project like Opening of the Mouth, Dark Matter, Negatives or Construction? (Or, for that matter, Dillon's Nine Rivers - which I presume he knew would have Nine pieces when he started the project - or Carceri d'Invenzione.)

CONSTRUCTION, please

Edit: That's to make no mention of DARK MATTER

[P. G. Tipps]

Quite the contrary I'm afraid. I was just speaking for myself, on the possibly mistaken assumption that anyone might be interested. How do I decide how many movements a composition should have? I don't need to decide because the answer as I said is always going to be one. Writing a piece in several movements seems to me to presuppose certain kinds of ideas about form which I don't share. I'm not sure whether that's a contribution to the discussion or not though.

Well, it's at least as interesting a contribution as any other, imv, and ends my initial bafflement ...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

CONSTRUCTION, please
Edit: That's to make no mention of DARK MATTER

- it was quarter-past eleven last night: I didn't want to shout and disturb the neighbours.

[Beef Oven!]

- it was quarter-past eleven last night: I didn't want to shout and disturb the neighbours.

Excellent answer!

[Richard Barrett]

how do you decide how many compositions are going to make up a composite work/project

Hoist by my own petard. And how to decide how many subsections the components have, or whether they're going to be structured in that way, and/or in layers, and whether and to what extent they overlap with their neighbours, and... and... and... and... whether the next note is a B or a B flat, indeed how to decide on anything at all?

[LeMartinPecheur]

Dexterity - right hand & left hand

Damn fool question No 987,654...

I was at an excellent recital tonight by Martin Bickington, guitar. Watching his LH flying over the frets of his 7-string guitar I thought, not for the first time, why are stringed instruments played with the left hand doing so much of the difficult stuff? Consider...

On the piano the fastest stuff is usually in the treble, and the right hand plays it. (Some left-handed pianist have mirror-image left-handed pianos.)

But on stringed instruments the left hand flies around doing the, ahem, dextrous stuff. Why?

At one level, you are taught that that's proper when you first pick up your instrument. But still, why?

Some answers come to mind, or have been suggested:

1) The LH doesn't actually make the sound. The RH is in control of the actual sound-production which is more important. (But see below re the French horn...)

2) It's something to do with the LH taking the weight of the instrument while the RH is free(?)

3) On smaller stringed instruments, the fact that a right-handed person's LH generally has finer, smaller finger-ends is important.

4) We mustn't forget that the majority of instrumentalists in previous ages weren't professional musicians and did a lot of other heavy manual things to grow their food and make their living. Their LHs would therefore be less liable to cuts, strains, callouses, bruises that would hamper fine tuning, speed etc. (A bit like the last one but more so...)

5) It's to do with turning the pages of the music. (A relatively recent factor I'd have thought!)

6) it's just something mysterious to do with brain-wiring.

Thinking further, perhaps the most extreme example is the French horn where the RH does very little at all, and really nothing requiring finger-agility except possibly dealing with the mute! Yet trumpet and trombone seem very logical. The trumpeter's RH does the fiddly stuff with the valves and the LH takes the weight as necessary, while on the trombone the RH does the precise positioning with the slide, often at high speed, and the LH takes the weight and does the odd tweak with the valves, if any. ( I think...)

Is there any simple explanation for this muddle?

[Pabmusic]

Damn fool question No 987,654......Is there any simple explanation for this muddle?

No idea either, LMP, but I suspect there are historical reasons for at least the guitar stringing.

I think that the earliest lutes and (possibly?) guitar-like instruments had little or nothing for one of the two hands to do. (Not like today.) If I'm right about this, it would seem logical for the instruments to settle into a pattern that accommodated a right-handed person - simply because right-handedness predominates (there are reasons for this, but I'm in danger of getting seriously side-tracked). That would almost certainly mean that all the work - or most of it - would be done by the right hand. Any subsequent developments have been based on that model, rather than the model being reversed.

I suspect there's a similar answer concerning the horn. When it had no valves, it might have been positioned to allow the stronger (for most) hand to support the bell. Then that hand became useful in varying the pitch and quality of the note. Only later did valves appear, and they were grafted on to an existing structure.

The position of the steering wheel in cars might give us a clue. Before the French Revolution, it seems to have been widespread to ride/walk/drive a cart in such a way that people were positioned with their dominant eye (for most of them the right) nearer the crown of the road. They could better judge their own position compared to others coming towards them. (There's also considerations about drawing swords, which are readily brought up in these discussions.) Driving a car is in theory (and statistically, it seems) safer for right-handed drivers if (1) the wheel is gripped continually by the dominant hand, (2) the dominant eye is nearer the crown of the road, (3) the dominant foot operates the accelerator/brake. (Interesting, isn't it, that even left-hand drive cars don't reverse the logical order of pedals?)

The French revolutionaries changed all that (as part of the "new order" which did away with the old). "We used to drive carts on the left? We'll do it differently in the new world". Napoleon (who was left-handed) imposed the new order on conquered territories, and the Americans (fresh from shaking off their own "old order") followed suit. Hitler completed the task, forcing countries such as Austria and Czechoslovakia to drive on the right.

In short, it all stems (I suspect) from conventions to appease between 87-92% of the world, who are right-handed.

[Daniel]

Without going into it much, I had always thought along the lines of your no.4, LMP, but more than cuts, bruises etc, I thought that the stiffness that develops in the hand/arm doing most of the heavy work, would hamper the swiftness and suppleness often required for playing. Heavy work I think exercises contrary muscles to those needed for an agile technique (apart from drumming?).

Anyway, that's my superficial penny's worth, but very interesting to read Pabmusic's thoughts on the evolution of instruments.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Thanks Pabs And Daniel. On reflection, my point about the French horn doesn't add up to much when valves came so late to it. The RH in the bell had always been doing its bit supporting the weight, as well as the subtle stuff on re-tuning the dodgy natural notes.

[vinteuil]

. Before the French Revolution, it seems to have been widespread to ride/walk/drive a cart in such a way that people were positioned with their dominant eye (for most of them the right) nearer the crown of the road. They could better judge their own position compared to others coming towards them. (There's also considerations about drawing swords, which are readily brought up in these discussions.)
.

... as for driving on the left: in the days when I rode horses it always seemed the 'natural' thing to do to approach the left side of the animal, left foot in the stirrup, and swing / hoist yourself over into the saddle. So from a pavement, you are then facing ready to move off on the left side of the carriageway. Same with bicycles. Odd how awkward it feels to mount a horse or a bike from the 'right-hand' side.

Is this just 'anglosaxon' conditioning?

[MrGongGong]

dodgy natural notes.

[ahinton]

... as for driving on the left: in the days when I rode horses it always seemed the 'natural' thing to do to approach the left side of the animal, left foot in the stirrup, and swing / hoist yourself over into the saddle. So from a pavement, you are then facing ready to move off on the left side of the carriageway. Same with bicycles. Odd how awkward it feels to mount a horse or a bike from the 'right-hand' side.

Is this just 'anglosaxon' conditioning?

Probably, although as one who wouldn't approach a horse from either side, still less be capable of putting my foot in it (the stirrup, that is) and "swinging / hoisting" myself over into the saddle (to say nothing of driving the wretched thing once there, its mane being the oddest looking gear-stick I've ever encountered and its absence of accelerator, brake and clutch being an ever greater challenge - after all, even the averagely decent piano has three pedals), I don't really have anything further to add of this one except that predominant right-handedness would indeed seem to suggest that driving on the right would suit most people better than doing so on the left.

I do think that the continued retention by Britain (principally, but also a handful of other places) of the odd habit of driving on the left is a bizarre nuisance that effectively determines that anyone wishing to attain total proficiency in driving on Britain's and other countries' roads ought to consider getting practice at driving on both the left and the right in both left hand drive and right hand drive vehicles - surely a most onerous imposition?...

[ahinton]

...and nothing's yet been mentioned about water emptying...

[LeMartinPecheur]

MrGG, do you really prefer your natural horn with no attempt to keep the dodgier natural harmonics in tune by judicious hand-stopping?

If so, that really is super-Norringtonian authenticity Just don't invite me to the performance, OK?