Klarinet Archive - Posting 000843.txt from 1998/10

From: Note Staff Unlimited <notestaff@-----.ch>
Subj: Re: [kl] I've started, so I'll finish
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 19:32:56 -0400

klarinet@-----.org schrieb:

> On Wed, 14 Oct 1998 00:02:28 +0200, notestaff@-----.ch said:
>
> > Tony Pay wrote:
>
> > > So, even if we are doing a diminuendo, and giving therefore less
> > > energy to the note or phrase we are playing, we are more clearly
> > > perceived than if we stayed at the same dynamic.
> >
> > Then why is it sooooo annoying when someone holds on to a long, too
> > loud note drowning out, say an eighth note/quaver passage of more
> > importance? According to this theory, it wouldn't be noticed as much
> > as a gradual diminuendo would be...This must be the exception which
> > proves the rule?...
>
> Well, of course, this does occur, you're right. Louder sounds tend to
> dominate quieter ones in our perception. And good conductors do
> organise this sort of balance to make more audible the important bits.
> But sounds that don't change, loud or soft, aren't attended to, after a
> bit. So paradoxically, you're not *paying attention* to the long, too
> loud note, even though it's obscuring the eighth notes you want to hear.
>
> The more you go into it, the more complicated it gets, actually.
> Because, when you have two speech-like things going on at the same time,
> you listen to bits of them in turn, like the two conversations at a
> party. In music, you don't want to reduce polyphony to figure/ground,
> or tune/accompaniment; you want the *possibility* to hear all of it,
> even though (I suspect) you actually switch very fast between the
> separate lines. But I might be wrong about that -- I'll try to find out
> what experiments have been done.
>
> In other music, where there is a figure/ground relationship, it's
> actually wrong to make the accompaniments too interesting, sometimes. I
> recently heard a performance of Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 1, where there
> was much too much audible detail. And of course, if you're playing a
> solo, 'speaking' it more may affect its 'register' in a way that you
> don't want. In these cases, the only solution may be to stick your hand
> up and ask the conductor to get the others to play quieter.
>
> Anyway, it all comes down to the idea that it's modulation *as well as
> dynamic* that gets things heard. Classical music doesn't use changes of
> dynamics between parts to ensure audibility (see the scores) so it seems
> likely that modulation was the more important device (see the careful
> non-synchronous slurs that *do* appear in individual parts in the
> scores).
>
> Tony
> --
> _________ Tony Pay
> |ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
> | |ay Oxford OX2 6RE
> tel/fax 01865 553339
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's it, Tony: modulation. It reminds me of the story of the light house
guard who lived in the light house for 20 years. During this entire time,
there was a loud explosive noise emitted from the light house every 20
minutes. One night, the man was sleeping soundly when one of the explosions
failed to occur. Of course, he jumped out of bed exclaiming, "My God, what
was that?!"
We can only hope that orchestral situations run more subtly and
differentiating than that....
David
David Glenn
notestaff@-----.ch

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