Time and Notation

[Botch]

There's prolly only two others on this forum who will enjoy this, so feel free to skip.

Following complicated tablature, in the early days, was my downfall as a musician, but playing jazz, by feel, I could settle in and Just Do It (even though I had a minor in Math). This video said a lot to me, but as I warned it's wonky as hell, so only a couple of you may enjoy this.

 

[PaulyT]

Very interesting! This touches on something I've thought a LOT about as a classical pianist: the relationship between the score and the music. What makes a classical pianist (or other performer/group) great is the ability to take the score and make it unique to them, to "make it their own." A score is not a mathematical formula (which is why I dislike when people start saying "Bach is math" and stuff like that), otherwise we could just put the score into a computer to play it "perfectly" ... and everyone would sound exactly the same. I think rather the written music is a template, that gives the performer the notes and general rhythm to play - this is more specific to classical music, where no performer would change notes or add chords (unless they're explicitly doing a transcription), very different from rock/pop or especially jazz. Anyway, when Chopin writes a sequence of 22 eighth notes in a three-beat measure, are we supposed to play those evenly with mathematical precision such that the notes fit? No, not at all; I believe Chopin (and he does this more than any other classical piano composer, in my experience) is saying "play these notes but make them *musical*" meaning add shadings of volume and tempo and tone/touch to make it interesting. And this is where the intellect and personality of the individual performer comes out, in just how they do that, and why Rubinstein's performance sounds different from Brendel's, even if they're playing the same notes/piece. Chopin writes it like that in the score because there's simply no way to notate EXACTLY how he would have played it himself, nor is that even the goal. I like the word the video above uses - the score as a "template" for the work.


Sorry for the long ramble. As I said, something I've spent a lot of time thinking about. Usually when playing scales or technical exercises where my mind has time to wander.

 

[Randy]

There's prolly only two others on this forum who will enjoy this, so feel free to skip.

Following complicated tablature, in the early days, was my downfall as a musician, but playing jazz, by feel, I could settle in and Just Do It (even though I had a minor in Math). This video said a lot to me, but as I warned it's wonky as hell, so only a couple of you may enjoy this.

I have always had impeccably good timing.


Except with women!!!