Eccentric Flower talk:200906/Marking Time

Mrissa:

So what you're saying is that you want note length and tempo to be united? That's really inconvenient, to have to play the New World Symphony in Eighty Bazillion Tied Whole Notes and/or Colas Breugnon in 1/256th notes. The notation gets much harder to read that way than by simply marking a quarter note with = 60 or = 40 at the top.

My parents' best friends have great difficulty dancing, because they can't hear the downbeat of a waltz, so they can count one, two, three to just about anything and as a result have no idea *when* they should be waltzing vs. polkaing vs. etc.

-- 23:08, 18 June 2009 (BST)

Peebles:

The ALL actually falls straight on a beat. Think of 5/4 time as being either (2+3)/4 time or (in the case of the JCS song) (3+2)/4. It's kind of like a measure of 3 followed by a measure of two.

(EVrything's all) (RIGHT yes)

-- 23:16, 18 June 2009 (BST)

Columbina:

Mrissa: No no no. I don't ask for a connection between tempo and note length at all. The latter is how long the notes are relative to one another, the former is absolute scale. Two separate pieces of information.

I'm just saying that I felt, when learning music, that knowing the time signature only gave me half the information I needed, and it frustrated me.

I probably can't hear the downbeat of a waltz either. (Actually I don't know what a downbeat is. If waltz time is dactylic, doesn't it have two downbeats?) As I note in the Pink Floyd comment, one big problem is that for me melody almost totally obscures rhythm - rhythm is hard for me to hear unless it's a drum solo.

Nonelvis thinks it would be easier if I could read music, to which I reminded her that I can read music - I just can't read music quickly. But, yes, in these cases, being able to see the written music would help my understanding greatly. (Anybody got any sheet music for "Take Five"?)

-- 23:37, 18 June 2009 (BST)

Columbina:

Peebles: I got that. The problem I'm having is that try as I might, I'm having trouble cramming all that first part into three beats. Melody (in this case vocal line) is obscuring rhythm for me again.

(You know, this is why I could never play piano to accompany singers. Because when I do, my right hand stops wanting to play whatever treble line is written for it and wants immediately to do whatever the vocalist is doing. I had this problem singing along with Tom Lehrer tunes, so eventually I just ignored his music altogether and sang along with the basic chord pattern. Eventually I learned you could get whole "fake books" built along this idea. I love fake books. They are not the end-all-be-all of piano music by any means, but my god, if you want to sing along with piano, they're handy.)

-- 23:43, 18 June 2009 (BST)

Bunny42:

When I count Take Five, I hear ONE,two,three,ONE,two,ONE,two,three,ONE,two... That's just how it sounds. Still working on Money. I can't hear seven at all, yet.

As long as you know that four quarter notes equal one whole note, it seems to me it shouldn't matter about tempo. It should feel good to you. I personally don't care for Leonard Bernstein's interpretation of Rhapsody in Blue, because I always felt he took parts of his piano interludes much too slow. It's how he felt it,though, and that was what mattered.

If you're striving for an exact interpretation of how the composer heard the music, then yeah. Otherwise, tempo is pretty much up to you.

-- 00:51, 19 June 2009 (BST)

Peebles:

Huh. Would it help if I told you that beat two comes in between every and thing?

This would be easier with a fixed-width font, but you can hear the 3 part of the measure easier later in that phrase.

1 Ev
  ry
2 
  thing's
3 all

4 right

5 yes

1 ev
  ry
2
  thing's
3 fine

4

5 and 
  we
1 want
  you
2 to
 
3 sleep
 
4 well
 
5 to
  night

Peebles 18:15, 23 June 2009 (EST) -- fixed formatting

-- 01:35, 19 June 2009 (BST)

Columbina:

Oh. Yes. That makes sense. But I don't think I'd have heard that in a million years.

-- 03:21, 19 June 2009 (BST)

Mel:

Hmm. I might actually have the sheet music to that, if it'd help you to see it. I learned to play it (a million years ago) from the sheet music, so it must not be too terribly hard.

-- 04:56, 19 June 2009 (BST)