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jk
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Date Joined Feb 2009
Total Posts : 575

Posted 11/3/2009 1:49 AM (GMT -6)

Why were you so mad? Why did you get so upset? You posted a piece, I listened to it, I listened to it twice or thrice, and I said what I found.

Ok. I must have been mistaking. Apologies. But I'm hearing things that sound ugly (to my ears). And I don't see a ball-room with ladies with hoop-skirts dancing this Allemande - but it's 21st century after all.
A baroque suite for Ariel, dedicated to Ali? Doesn't that sound a bit funny? On how many legs are you halting?
Again: the Ouverture deserves a better Allemande, that's my opinion. I didn't get the feel of a quiet, aristocratic piece. My advice: take somewhat more time, as well in making as in performing an allemande.

Yes Jeff, this is a horrible place for showing new pieces, esp. for an icon of academia.

^{Instruments: flute, piano, harpsichord}

^{Deliberately change your mind decisively from time to time!}

jk
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2009
Total Posts : 575

Posted 11/3/2009 2:36 AM (GMT -6)

Jeff, do me a favour, try to listen to Davitt Moroney's interpretation, or if need be, Glenn Gould's, of Bach's Allemande in Partita # IV (D major). It's a quaver at 84.

And where do I hear the quaver pickup, followed by a half note? Allemande? Maybe, at best a "Fantasia alla Allemande".

^{Instruments: flute, piano, harpsichord}

^{Deliberately change your mind decisively from time to time!}

Post Edited (jk) : 11/3/2009 1:42:09 AM (GMT-6)

01101
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Date Joined Jul 2009
Total Posts : 318

Posted 11/3/2009 3:34 AM (GMT -6)

Jan, no biggie. Jeff gets like this with everyone at some time or another.

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jk
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2009
Total Posts : 575

Posted 11/3/2009 6:44 AM (GMT -6)

Cattie said...
3:25/3:26 - If that's wrong, I'm gonna go dig up Handel and Bach and tell them 'Jan said he hears bad things in your music'.

No need for, I already did. I circled all the occurrences of the tritonus in Bach's Partita's.

Funny that a 20th century composer as Peter Schat used this tritonus in his serial work.

^{Instruments: flute, piano, harpsichord}

^{Deliberately change your mind decisively from time to time!}

jk
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2009
Total Posts : 575

Posted 11/3/2009 12:27 PM (GMT -6)

Here's another example (for connoisseurs only):
Bach's Partita IV, Courante, measure 6 thru 8 - there's no parallel fifth (lol)

and the sound:

http://www.ganuenta.com/comp/PartIVCrt.mp3

The first x-marked sequence sounds ugly, the second sounds fine.
It's because of the whole- resp. semitone in the bass line.
It's exactly the same sequence, diatonicly transposed a second down.
Try it on your piano.

^{Instruments: flute, piano, harpsichord}

^{Deliberately change your mind decisively from time to time!}

Post Edited (jk) : 11/3/2009 11:30:13 AM (GMT-6)

Devin Chaloux
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Date Joined Feb 2008
Total Posts : 930

Posted 11/3/2009 1:12 PM (GMT -6)

Probably sounds bad because it's nearly parallel octaves!

jk
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2009
Total Posts : 575

Posted 11/3/2009 1:18 PM (GMT -6)

I don't know Devin, I played it twenty times: what's going on here? and only found a difference in the whole tone and semitone.

^{Instruments: flute, piano, harpsichord}

^{Deliberately change your mind decisively from time to time!}

Cattie
Temple University

Date Joined Mar 2007
Total Posts : 1630

Posted 11/3/2009 7:29 PM (GMT -6)

Haha... Jan you're funny. OOOOH, the horrible TRITONE! I doubt Bach would have cared as much, considering he was Bach.

Devin, you may be on to something, but I think the thirds on the strong beats more than make up for all those unaccented octaves. Jan, maybe you're not quite hearing the harmony Bach was implying by those two voices. Either way, he was a genius and you are not.

Jeff Cattie (ASCAP)
Theodore Presser Co. (www.presser.com)
Bachelor of Music, Mus. Ed. - Temple University

Current projects: Piano Sonata No. 4 mvts III and IV; 'Bird Song' Quartet mvts I, II, and VI; 'The Neshaminy' Suite
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jk
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2009
Total Posts : 575

Posted 11/4/2009 2:38 AM (GMT -6)

Cattie said...

Either way, he was a genius and you are not.

Tip of the day - put it in my calendar, just to remind me.
How do you know? You should have seen the countless sheets of squared paper with numbers on my fifth ...

Cattie said...

Devin, you may be on to something, but I think the thirds on the strong beats more than make up for all those unaccented octaves. Jan, maybe you're not quite hearing the harmony Bach was implying by those two voices.

No Cattie, the bad sound is being caused by the fourth step in the discant and the major second in the bass in the first instance, while the fourth step in the discant and the minor second (the semitone, a leading note) in the bass, sounds perfect.

^{Instruments: flute, piano, harpsichord}

^{Deliberately change your mind decisively from time to time!}

Post Edited (jk) : 11/4/2009 1:51:29 AM (GMT-6)

Cattie
Temple University

Date Joined Mar 2007
Total Posts : 1630

Posted 11/4/2009 1:12 PM (GMT -6)

jk said...
No Cattie, the bad sound is being caused by the fourth step in the discant and the major second in the bass in the first instance, while the fourth step in the discant and the minor second (the semitone, a leading note) in the bass, sounds perfect.

To you, you mean? I've not found any problem with fourths and major seconds in combination as melodic intervals. Discant? That's an outdated term even by Bach's standards.

jk
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2009
Total Posts : 575

Posted 11/4/2009 1:27 PM (GMT -6)

Yeah! Getting old ...

^{Instruments: flute, piano, harpsichord}

^{Deliberately change your mind decisively from time to time!}

Devin Chaloux
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2008
Total Posts : 930

Posted 11/4/2009 3:50 PM (GMT -6)

Well, Bach's theory isn't always perfect. Let's face it, theory was still forming from the counterpoint of Lassus. I see parallel 8ves just before the two x's that would technically (in 16th century counterpoint) be parallel octaves...but Cattie is right in that the fact it happens on the weak beat, it comes across as "acceptable." Granted, it's definitely not the greatest counterpoint, not even close.

The reason I'm tempted to hear that as parallel octaves is because the bottom is outlining a B minor chord and then moves up thirds...but the third is doubled in the right hand as well. Ideally, you would want to double the root if anything, but in this case, it's not even a good idea because they move in parallel motion.

I feel you see stuff like that in Handel's music all of the time as well. I wouldn't really say this example is anywhere near textbook counterpoint and I'm not even sure why we're really looking at this.

As far as the fourth...I don't hear that as the problem. It has to be the similar motion.

jk
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2009
Total Posts : 575

Posted 11/5/2009 4:07 AM (GMT -6)

Thanks for these meaningful considerations!

^{Instruments: flute, piano, harpsichord}

^{Deliberately change your mind decisively from time to time!}

jk
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2009
Total Posts : 575

Posted 11/7/2009 6:00 AM (GMT -6)

I only now noticed your signature.
What do you think he'd have said instead:
"Don't waste your time listening to my music, better read Kant & Hegel"?

... LOL

(took me a long time to make this up ...)

^{Instruments: flute, piano, harpsichord}

^{Deliberately change your mind decisively from time to time!}

Cattie
Temple University

Date Joined Mar 2007
Total Posts : 1630

Posted 11/7/2009 4:01 PM (GMT -6)

Well, I ask you this... what's the reason he stayed with music, even after going deaf?? He could have started being a philosopher if he wanted, he was a free man... do you suppose music WASN'T a revelation to Beethoven?

I think your comment of 'what ELSE would Beethoven have said' is utterly pointless. He said it - he meant it, and his music didn't need the support of his words. In fact, people hated what Beethoven had to say most of the time, and they STILL listened to his music and were spellbound by it. That said, and my respect for his music notwithstanding, I think I agree with him anyway.

If it took you a long time to make that up, you wasted a lot of time.

Cattie
Temple University

Date Joined Mar 2007
Total Posts : 1630

Posted 11/7/2009 4:07 PM (GMT -6)

By the way, I'm glad you noticed my signature... made it myself.

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