Klarinet Archive - Posting 000347.txt from 2003/11

From: ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: Re: [kl] Notation - 'swell' vs accent
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 20:01:59 -0500

Tony Pay wrote:

> [about notation]

I'm trying to be concise, I hope not too concise.... I was reading
folk music in 4/4, somewhere between andante and adagio, with no
markings except slurs. The music sounded most pleasing (to me) if I
started certain notes quietly, allowed them to 'swell' in loudness, and
finally let them decay. But I began to wonder "Is this what the
composer or publisher meant?" Then I began to wonder, "If he wane to e
explicit, how would've he marked this?"

> On the other hand, if you're talking about
> longer notes, then a hairpin up and down is a
> perfectly normal notation.

In this case, 1/8 and 1/4-notes at slow tempo leave enough playing time
for me to rise and fall, but when I pencilled in some hairpins, the page
was almost impossibly cluttered. (the tempo was marked, but I choose
somewhere between adagio and andante because moderato sounded poor to
me)

> Incidentally, I don't know what you mean by a
> 'true' accent. The interpretation of *any*
> accent notation is always highly
> context-dependent.

I understand. I was trying to say "a note that is louder for most of
its duration", as opposed to the swelling-and-decaying that I described
above. A sequence of markings such as:

< > >

looks weird, especially when crowded on the page. Of course, when
you're pencilling in reminders to yourself, anything goes if you
understand it yourself. But the situation made me stop and think about
a marking that would communicate properly to someone else.

Thank you

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