Klarinet Archive - Posting 000353.txt from 2003/11

From: ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: Re: [kl] Notation - 'swell' vs accent
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 21:12:40 -0500

Not that it matters very much, but I messed up my typing. Here's what
I intended to post:

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D

Tony Pay wrote:

> [Tony replied about notation]

I was reading folk music in 4/4, somewhere between andante and adagio,
with no markings except slurs. =A0 The music sounded most pleasing (to
me) if I started certain notes quietly, allowed them to 'swell' in
loudness, and finally let them decay. =A0 But I began to wonder "Is this
what the composer or publisher meant?" =A0 Then I began to wonder, "If
he had wanted to be 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 my 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 the hairpins, the page
was impossibly cluttered. (the tempo wasn't specified, but I liked a
slow tempo best with this song)

> 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. =A0 I was trying to distinguish between a note that starts
loud and stays there vs. the swelling-and-decaying that I described
above. =A0 A sequence of markings such as:

=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0<=A0>=A0>

looks weird, especially when crowded on the page. =A0 Of course, when
you're pencilling in reminders to yourself, anything works if you
understand it yourself. =A0 But the situation made me stop and think
about a marking that would communicate properly to someone else.

Thank you

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