Klarinet Archive - Posting 000289.txt from 2000/10

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: RE: [kl] how long does a note last?
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 08:18:43 -0400

I'm no expert on this, but medieval choral music was subject to elaborate
improvised ornamentation, varying in extent and style from time to time
and place to place. I suspect that composers came to have
individual status principally to keep this sort of stuff within
disciplined bounds. This tendency to ornamentation was one of the
"abuses" condemned by the Council of Trent.
Roger S.

On Fri, 6 Oct 2000, Karl Krelove wrote:

> Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 07:58:07 -0400
> From: Karl Krelove <kkrelove@-----.net>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: RE: [kl] how long does a note last?
>
> >
> > I wonder to what extent this "speeding up" was the result of
> > improved instruments that could articulate faster? Or did tempo
> > markings slow down over the centuries?
> >
> My impression has been that most of the music that was written down in this
> notation was choral music - mostly sacred for liturgical use. Intrumental
> technique or construction shouldn't have had a major influence.
>
> > My dictionary defines the original notes this way:
> >
> > Imperfect longa = 2 breves
> > Perfect longa = 3 breves
> > Imperfect larga = 2 longas
> > (perfect or imperfect? it doesn't say)
> > Perfect larga = 3 longas
> > (the longest note, called a 'maxima')
> >
>
> Threes, as I remember from my music history classes a long time ago, were
> considered perfect because they represented the Holy Trinity. In fact, our
> modern "C" that we use for "Common Time" was actually a broken circle
> signifying an imperfect meter (whose subdivisions also were imperfect). A
> circle (which modern notation has dropped) was used to signify a triple
> meter.
>
> Karl Krelove
>
>
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