Musical questions and answers thread

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But only an elite person would be able to understand such music, not your average person in the street. And, as this is a questions and answer thread, I am just asking if your average musician would be able to understand and perform it without great effort.

But how many "average persons in the street" can read any Music at all? (Depends which street, I suppose.) Many children learning an instrument have great difficulty learning how to read/play triplets - then it "twigs". It's no more of an effort to progress to quintuplets (although in the early '80s, some members of the BBCSSO regarded such "effort" as an affront to their "professionalism") - and thence to 7:5 and 5:7 ... and thence to the joys of Nesting!

The "effort" to learn the thing from first acquaintance is not so "great" - a couple of afternoons should do it - the more advanced ones a little more time; but once that time has been done, it's there permanently. It's considerably less difficult than (for example) a violinist learning how to play in tune in the highest positions on the instrument - but that didn't stop every composer from 1870 onwards from writing such elite Music - the average violinist of 1880 would have had to take great effort to understand and perform Tristan or the Brahms symphonies. If composers kept to what was accessible to "average" performers, we'd be left with "average" works of Music.

As for the "average person in the street" - s/he "just" listens to the Music and likes it (or otherwise) in no different ways from those in which s/he likes/dislikes any other Music. The professional difficulties of the performers are of subsidiary interest to being transported to the heights of ecstasy/boredom, I would have thought. I don't think the first reaction of anybody listening to the Denisov would be to exclaim "My God! He's expecting the performer to play seven quavers in the time of eleven!!!"

[french frank]

Almost by definition composers are an elite group.

In a nutshell!

[Flay]

Thanks for that persuasive argument, ferney. When I see scores like that of Denissow I do often say to myself "My God! He's expecting the performer to play that?"

But you are right. Playing music takes an effort to achieve, at whatever level.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks for that persuasive argument, ferney. When I see scores like that of Denissow I often say to myself "My God! He's expecting the performer to play that?"

I have the same reaction to the Hammerklavier! I think the main thing is to hear the Music before looking at the scores - find out what attracts you, then seek out what it looks like - something Edgey regularly does that I think is marvellous.

But you are right. Playing music takes an effort to achieve, at whatever level.

[jean]

Elite: A select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.

That's different from elitist: Demonstrating a superior attitude or behaviour associated with an elite, which I didn't say

No - but you did say

...Or is this new notation a way of making the music appear even more complex (and elite)?

Which does suggest the desire to demonstrate something - to show off what one hopes will be taken as evidence of a superior attitude or behaviour.

[cloughie]

Now I get it,thank you.

edge, I was wondering whether you had decided on whether to take up the piano yet. Since I started getting to grips with time signatures, rhythms and counting whilst trying to play the correct notes - but I persevere!

[Richard Barrett]

I don't have much to add to fg's disquisition above. Any notation, including the writing of words, could be thought of as "elite" to people who haven't learned to read it. Coincidentally, as it happens here I am posting during an afternoon coffeebreak, in a day of analysing some of my cello/electronics stuff to students at IRCAM along with cellist Arne Deforce, and we've just been talking about how "natural" this kind of notation eventually feels if one brings an open-minded and imaginative attitude to it, how the results of a committed performance couldn't be achieved any other way, and how once one has learned and internalised and "felt" the musical material, no rhythmical notation is intrinsically more "difficult" than any other.

[EdgeleyRob]

edge, I was wondering whether you had decided on whether to take up the piano yet. Since I started getting to grips with time signatures, rhythms and counting whilst trying to play the correct notes - but I persevere!

It's something I want to do cloughie,just not got round to it yet.
I was under the impression I would have lots of time on my hands when I retired but........well I was warned.

[EdgeleyRob]

Thanks for all the comments folks.
FWIW that Denisov Sonata sounds as good as it looks.

[Pulcinella]

Thanks for all the comments folks.
FWIW that Denisov Sonata sounds as good as it looks.

It looks frighful to me!
But then I don't play the clarinet!

[Flay]

It looks frighful to me!

It's mournful, like a cat stuck up a tree perhaps...

https://youtu.be/NolAwgNaYA4

[Pulcinella]

Yes, I can imagine someone dialling 999 and asking for the police or fire brigade!

Showing even more ignorance:

What does the Fr stand for?
And what's the symbol like a sharp sign but with only one vertical line?

Great to have the score to follow, but I can't count that quickly; how on earth can a player cope with all the time changes
and such odd amounts of rest at the speed it goes?

[EdgeleyRob]

Yes, I can imagine someone dialling 999 and asking for the police or fire brigade!

Showing even more ignorance:

What does the Fr stand for?
And what's the symbol like a sharp sign but with only one vertical line?

Great to have the score to follow, but I can't count that quickly; how on earth can a player cope with all the time changes
and such odd amounts of rest at the speed it goes?

I think the sharp with one vertical line is in effect half a sharp,or a quarter tone,and three vertical lines is a sharp and a half etc.
Similar to the flat with a line through the stem.
Don't know what Fr is.

Oooh get me,answering music theory questions (assuming I'm correct)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think the sharp with one vertical line is in effect half a sharp,or a quarter tone,and three vertical lines is a sharp and a half etc.
Similar to the flat with a line through the stem.

Don't know what Fr is.

Now, the thing is - I can't see where this is (nor the quarter-tone sharp signs, for that matter): the video link doesn't play on my computer, and I thought that it was just a screen shot, photo-type thingy. It probably means "fluttertongue" (a very quick, one-note "trill", making a buzzing noise) - or "frullato", in Italian.

Oooh get me,answering music theory questions (assuming I'm correct)

- and this is how it works; you start off accumulating skills and knowledge, and before you know it, you're able to work things out for yourself and pass on this to others. (Just like learning how to play 7:5 or whatever, he says, emphasising the point. . )

[Pulcinella]

Now, the thing is - I can't see where this is (nor the quarter-tone sharp signs, for that matter): the video link doesn't play on my computer, and I thought that it was just a screen shot, photo-type thingy. It probably means "fluttertongue" (a very quick, one-note "trill", making a buzzing noise) - or "frullato", in Italian.

That'll be the one: only heard (to my knowledge/memory) on a flute before, but that's the sort of sound produced.
Hadn't thought of an Italian expression for it.
Ciao!


(A frullato is really an Italian milkshake-type/smoothie thing in my experience, though!)

Edit: I must have heard it used with instruments other than the flute more often that I had realised:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flutter-tonguing