Klarinet Archive - Posting 000623.txt from 2003/03

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl]Key signatures
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 08:50:02 -0500

Bill Wright wrote,
>Obviously you can create any scale you wish with accidentals,
>but I'm wondering if any 'well known' compositions are printed
>with a weird key signature, such as (say) two flats but the flatted
>notes aren't Bb and Eb?

There's some value in experimenting with languages (musical or verbal) just
for the sake of trying things out and seeing what happens, because
sometimes what happens leads to genuine advances. Still, violating the
well-established circle of fifths would make the music harder to read.
Maybe that could be a rational *point* of such an exercise, as a teaching
tool, but if I ever saw anything published that way, I'd assume it was a
printer's error unless a note said otherwise. If a note did say otherwise,
without identifying the piece as an academic exercise, then I'd strongly
suspect that the composer was one of those self-absorbed, show-offy
contrarians who's just got to be different, always, even in situations
where non-conforming doesn't make any sense. Call me a Luddite, but I
probably wouldn't think the oddball key signature was cool; I'd just think
it was *wrong*.

It's rather popular right now to CaPitalIZe leTteRS aT RANdoM oR reZPel
wurDZ CreYEyTuvlee, tu. Sentences such as the first sentence of this
paragraph do catch the eye, and would do so even more in large lettering,
with bright colors-- a useful tactic in advertising or in a blog, for
instance, as a way of boasting, "I'm young, hip and rebellious," although
that message more often comes through as, "I'm trying too hard." Besides,
if an old fart my age (54) wrote like that, people who really are young and
hip would quite rightly laugh at me, the same way my generation used to
laugh at older people who tried to fool the Grim Reaper by growing their
hair extremely long and trying to speak Hippie.

But there's no need to get laughed at in order to write unusual music,
since, as you say, it's easy enough to create any scale, including a
uniquely creative one, with accidentals, the way modal composers did
centuries ago. I think a composer interested in *communicating* that
creativity with musicians (instead of showing off how avante-garde s/he is)
would use the accidentals, to keep the music readable and encourage people
to *play it* instead of admiring it (or not) from down among the masses.

Planning to stick with BEADGCF....
Lelia Loban
lelialoban@-----.net
New address!

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