Klarinet Archive - Posting 000832.txt from 1998/11

From: EbKlarinet@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Re:15ma Italian
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 23:18:38 -0500

Ciao a tutti! (Howdy y'all!) I'm not Italian, but I have been singing opera
for 10 years, and have enough of a working knowledge of Italian to have an
idea why you might see that "15ma" or, more likely,"15mo", to indicate that a
passage should be played 2 octaves higher. The Italian word quindici means
15, and the word quindicesimo means fifteenth. If you count the intervals
from the bottom note to the top of the second octave, you do get a fifteenth,
not a sixteenth. Hence, if the abbreviation for one octave,ottava, is 8va,
then logically the abbreviation for two octaves, quindicesimo, would be 15mo.
Does that help? Ken W., feel free to clarify or correct if necessary. <g>
Elise

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