 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: FDF
Date: 2011-09-06 19:20
How do you play measures that contain a symbol that resembles a check-mark with a flare? For instance: a dotted quarter followed by the symbol, then an eighth note. The symbol appears to represent either a break or an accent.
Thanks in advance.
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Author: johng ★2017
Date: 2011-09-06 19:43
This probably means to have a brief separation between notes. I have used this type of symbol when I did not want an actual breath mark, or to add rests. I was just looking for a little space between notes.
John Gibson, Founder of JB Linear Music, www.music4woodwinds.com
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2011-09-06 22:49
Yes, it sounds like a recommended breath make. Not a space as far as time goes but a suggested breath. You have to come out in time at the end of the measure. ESP eddiesclainret.com
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2011-09-07 18:13
I use that mark the way Ed describes, when I want to suggest where I'd prefer for a wind player to take a breath. In a lot of published music, the breathing marks have been added by editors. Musicians can regard them as suggestions, not as commands. In my music, it's perfectly okay *not* to take a breath at the mark, if the player doesn't need one, but it's easier (and imho sounds better) to breathe inconspicuously there, in a place where a phrase naturally dies off a bit.
If I'm sight-reading and I see that mark, I take it as a warning that I'd better take advantage of the invitation to catch some air, because it'll be awhile before I get another chance! Better to breathe on the mark than to break up the phrase awkwardly somewhere else or to turn blue and then let out a big audible gasp for air on the next rest.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
Post Edited (2011-09-07 18:14)
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Author: FDF
Date: 2011-09-07 20:09
Thanks for the thoughtful replies. The mark I usually make for a breath is similar to a comma (,), although above and after the musical phrase. The mark I'm referring to comes twice in a measure. Sorry, I should have made that clear. So, I think it might be what johng suggests, a "brief seperation." I have never seen this symbol before, and it is difficult to describe and I don't know the name.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-09-07 21:12
If you can, please scan the page and let us see it.
Thanks.
Ken Shaw
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Author: johng ★2017
Date: 2011-09-08 13:39
Thanks for the example, FDF. Well, now you can get your information from a completely authoritative source. That is my arrangement of selections from The Messiah - I am the John Gibson noted as the arranger. And yes, what I had in mind was an ever-so-brief separation between notes as I suggested previously. I use Finale and there was no real check mark I could find to use, so I used part of a note stem!
Later, when I looked at this, I decided it would have been better to just put in a little performance suggestion note and leave all the little check marks out!
John Gibson, Founder of JB Linear Music, www.music4woodwinds.com
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Author: FDF
Date: 2011-09-08 14:14
Thanks, John, for the authoritative definition. We, The Erie County Clarinet Choir, are enjoying playing your arrangement.
Forest
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2011-09-08 18:23
The interesting thing for me about this conversation is that it throws into relief the difference between two sorts of notation. They are sometimes called 'descriptive' and 'prescriptive' notation; or, sometimes, 'thin' and 'thick' notation.
Taking the second option: Handel's notation is 'thin'. He doesn't tell you exactly what to do. Each note may 'come away' to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the interpretation and the circumstances of performance -- which includes the acoustic you happen to be playing in. Notes may even be slightly shortened, as John suggests here.
We are mistaken if we try to make a one-to-one mapping from notation to performance in this sort of music.
But, that means that John's idea is in one sense mistaken, too. His edition makes an attempt to 'thicken' Handel's score. He shows us that you CAN shorten notes; but thereby rules out the possibility that under certain circumstances, you may not want to do so (in a very dry acoustic, say). Moreover, the DEGREE to which you shorten notes can vary in a passage, to expressive effect.
Specific notation tends to rule that out.
How does that help? Well, it means that when you play Handel (or Mozart) you may well be wary of 'thickeners'. Looking at what the composer wrote, you may begin to understand that there was a REASON why they wrote 'thinly'. Their expressive world cannot be captured by thick notation.
I'd like this list to begin to be wary in that way.
Much of my work here is to do with expanding what our possibilities are. In a different direction: told by Ken Shaw that isolated notes MUST be driven by constant air pressure, I want to say, NO THEY NEEDN'T. Under certain circumstances, like fast staccato, they well may. But a young -- or even old -- musician needs to have the other expressive possibilities available even at the very beginning of his or her work, when the notes are more significantly separated. It's not that complicated to do -- particularly since the crucial move is to allow unconscious processes to take over.
Ken thinks that I post 'narcissistically': I pretend to be superior to y'all. No, I want you to understand what the truth is about what we do, at whatever level you currently are.
'Thick' editions of the Mozart clarinet concerto are a particular bugbear, I have to say.
Tony
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Author: Buster
Date: 2011-09-09 05:34
I cannot speak with authority on Messiah, nor performance practices/notations associated with Baroque compositions. Admittedly, with sparse clarinet usage in the Baroque period, my knowledge is limited to my readings and available recordings (many of which "contradict" each other.) ....I will have to leave those matters to much better educated musicologists than I admittedly am.
As a long aside, I have found the discussion of tuning systems/intonation in Baroque writings informative. Mainly in the way fixed pitch instruments and flexible ones come to an "agreement". .....and most importantly that IT IS entirely possible in Equal Temperament to play with Just intonation, even through modulations, without jarring the listener. The human ear is somehow "wired" to hear in this manner; and if you don't do it in most cases you will sound out of tune- even if your machine shows you are dead on. For instance, take a unprepared median modulation: a non-inverted C major chord to E major where you are sustaining an E. (Prokofiev is good one for these.) If you don't change the pitch of your E, it/you will sound a fool and the audience will simultaneously have a short seizure (or at least they should!) Basically, the point is that these "dated" writings can be very applicable in our modern world, even outside the realm of their Baroque context. *deep breath*
A broader topic, as suggested by those before me: it's best to make your interpretive decisions based on style/ period of music, texture, instrumentation (remember, a flute can't clip the end of a note as crisply as we can in most cases), dynamics, acoustic setting etc... In other words, your decisions should be thought out intellectually and not based on your egotistical emotive whims. It isn't a simple question of right or wrong, I can always change the channel, but where the choices come from. Basically, you can't be "wrong" if you make your decisions based on ("justified") rationale, but you may find no one listening.
(or at least that is the path I follow; perhaps some may disagree with this. I have had more than one heated discussion on the existence of emotion in music; a notable one conducted with a Russian pianist, both of us speaking in Spanish, that ended in more than a few profanities I won't repeat and several fingers of Scotch. It's not that I deny the existence of emotion in music, I just take issue with many on where it resides. ...but I'm going off topic and stepping upon my soapbox again.)
Tony, thanks for the reminder of all the bastardized Mozart editions I have come across.... you're driving me to drink again.
I have not seen all of the incarnations, but 2 immediately jump to mind: Buddy Wright's version (I think Southern published, and I apologize to any I have offended with that statement. I'm not knocking his abilities, just his choices.) And the worst, the Giamperi/Ricordi version. I'm sure there are others, and I won't even go into the basset adaptations, but the Ricordi is a vile beast.
I know I have wandered off on a few diatribes here, but sometimes the original question can lead into other arenas of discussion. I will now throw myself to the lions. Feel free to ignore me, or at least throw me a sword so I can go to Valhalla following my bloody death.
-JH
Post Edited (2011-09-10 02:16)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-09-09 13:47
fdf -
Thanks for posting the scan. I've never seen the markings anywhere else, but I read them as having two meanings.
The first is that they indicate distinct pauses, with even a breath between. Baroque music often has very short phrases, and I think this is a typical example. It would certainly be mistaken to play connected legatos through the passage. I would probably not maintain breath pressure through each pause, but I certainly *would* re-establish it for the next entrance, to avoid a violent accent.
The second is this is the typical slow beginning of a French overture, in which the usual (though not invariable) performance practice is to double-dot the long note and play the following pickup note as a 16th. The French overture, in every example I know, begins dramatically. Double dotting gives a "snap" to the rhythm, and playing a legato eighth pickup saps the rhythmic energy.
Tony:
Floccinaucinihilipilification (the habit or propensity for estimating the work or thought of another person as worthless) is one of the most unattractive character flaws anyone can have. Please stop.
Ken Shaw
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2011-09-09 18:20
Excuse me Mr. Shaw, but are you not guilty of *exactly* the same thing?
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-09-09 23:42
rmk54 -
Please show me where in this string I even mentioned Tony. His mention of me was, I think, completely gratuitous and deserved the response it got.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Buster
Date: 2011-09-10 02:29
Ken,
Just to clarify for my own conscience: on my part I was in no way attempting to degrade anybody, nor throw gasoline on smoldering embers of any "feuds."
I admit my posting is a bit off topic and the tone could be misinterpreted; if I have offended, angered or confused any, I apologize.
-Jason
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-09-10 12:34
Jason -
Insofar as my opinion counts, nothing you write offends me. You're a serious and thoughtful person, and I learn something from each of your postings. I would suggest only that you need not apologize for anything.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2011-09-10 14:57
This musical example is a great starting point to examine how music is interpreted. Listen to a few measures of the London Philharmonic on youtube and then compare this to many others. The first thing that strikes me is the meter. Do you feel this is in 4 or 2? Should it be separated as Johng has indicated or not? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxUfAbSiWLU
Freelance woodwind performer
Post Edited (2011-09-10 15:01)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2011-09-10 20:56
Ken Shaw wrote:
>> Tony: Floccinaucinihilipilification (the habit or propensity for estimating the work or thought of another person as worthless) is one of the most unattractive character flaws anyone can have. Please stop.>>
This is just another lawyer's smokescreen.
Notice, everyone, Ken's failure YET AGAIN to interact with the substance of my criticism of his view of clarinet-related subjects. Instead, he turns it into something to do with my attitude to HIM.
That was true firstly when I asked him, unsuccessfully, to either justify or retract his dismissal of the Newark website; and it was true most recently when I reiterated earlier in this post the reason why HIS idea of what you may most usefully do when you are confronted with a sequence of isolated staccato notes at a slowish tempo is counterproductive.
Actually, it's an important issue. It troubled me for some years, as a professional clarinettist playing real music in real orchestral and chamber music situations. Resolving it was a great relief, and I'm not going to be deterred from underlining the solution here by his silly presumption.
The fact is that what you write, Ken, is worthless when it actually IS worthless.
Confine yourself to posts that are both true and helpful, and you'll have less trouble from me.
Tony
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2011-09-11 08:44
Out of curiosity Tony, do you 'thicken' written music with your own marks for say a chamber music concert where you are reading off the page?
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2011-09-11 11:35
>> Out of curiosity Tony, do you 'thicken' written music with your own marks for say a chamber music concert where you are reading off the page?>>
Hardly at all. In 'classical' music, it's more useful to see a written slur on the page -- or even a written note -- as indicating a possible variety of shapes. The shapes are of one particular sort, of course: roughly, the sort that a spoken syllable exemplifies.
So, since there's no notation that can capture just one example of the possible variety, the realisation of it -- the choice of 'how much to speak it', or the 'setting of the bounce knob' -- has to be left to performance. And that's an advantage, because it allows a player to begin afresh each time, responding to context.
If I find an articulation or an embellishment that is especially pleasing, I suppose I might lightly pencil it in so as not to forget it; but I could easily change my mind when it came to it.
On the whole, my music remains unmarked, and I encourage students and colleagues to follow my example:-)
Tony
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2011-09-12 03:30
That is very interesting. I usually end up with the page full of my personal notations. It is probably habit and also a fear that I'll forget something earth shattering during performance. I will try some erasing and see what happens. (hopefully I won't get fired)
Freelance woodwind performer
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