Klarinet Archive - Posting 000829.txt from 1998/11

From: "Mark Charette" <charette@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] 8va vs. 8basso
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 21:07:53 -0500

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Date: Saturday, November 21, 1998 21:04
Subject: Re: [kl] 8va vs. 8basso

>At 06:59 PM 11/21/98 -0600, Ed Lacy wrote:
>>I teach theory and orchestration classes, and I have been teaching
15ma
>>for two octaves for nearly 40 years. The reason I use that
terminology is
>>that that is exactly the interval which describes two octaves. That's
>>what all the textbooks I have ever seen say to call it. I have seen
it
>>that way in published scores. I'm having difficult understanding why
this
>>seems to many people on the list to be a revolutionary concept.
>>
>I guess it is because we have never taken a class from you. :-) I do
not
>dispute the absolute correctness of the "15ma" terminology, only its
>relative clarity. Like I said before, anyone who knows what "8va"
means
>should instinctively deduce what "16va" means, but will probably
require
>instruction to decipher "15ma" on a score. That's why "16va" seems to
me
>to be a more reasonable term to use, even if not *technically* correct.
Or
>is clarity not the point here? I guess you just have to know both.

I have seen 15ma often on piano scores. The meaning of "15ma" is (at
least in the cases I've seen) pretty obvious, since it was used in
ascending or descending runs, with "8va" writeen before or after ... and
the number "15" made sense as soon as I thought about it for a second.

----
Mark Charette@-----.org
Webmaster, http://www.sneezy.org/clarinet
All-around good guy and devil-may-care flying fool.
"There can be no freedom without discipline." - Nadia Boulanger

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