Following on from Mischa's wonderful playing of a Bach cello bourrée on the English concertina, I have posted another of Bach's cello bourrées, transcribed in the key of G, on the tune-o-tron, for people to have a go at learning and playing. It would be interesting to hear if anyone is 'brave' enough to have a go and post how they got on with the piece, perhaps even posting a recording, at some stage. It's here.

Chris

How come I can't make Convert-a-Matic play a Midi from it?
I'll tackle it too.
I'm always on the lookout for good tune or two.
Thank you very much.
PS.
And I'm not sure I presented something "wonderful". Not bad, agree, but that's about it.

There's problems with the abc code. The blank line before the "K:G" line shouldn't be there and probably messes up the player arm of the sortware (abc files should have no blank lines, because that's the only definition of where the file ends--I'm surprised it was able to display it).

Another problem is that there's a "K:Gminor" missing where the 2nd bourree starts, and in that whole section a lot of accidentals are mismarked (there should be no augmented 2nds, that is, Eb and F# in the same figure).

Thank you for pointing out the possible errors in the coding David. I also wondered why the midi didn't play. I shall see what I can do to correct them.

Chris

I have removed the space between the lines and the midi now plays as it should. The corrections to the wrong notes in the second bourrée will have to wait until I have worked out what they should be!

Chris

Another Basch bourree

Baffled by Bach bouree?

The explanation is quite simple. Conventional scores (Bach's original autograph has never been found) show the Suite III bouree No. I in the key of C major.

No. II commences with a change of key, not the expected C minor, but G minor, two flats.

In the PDF transcript, Bouree I is in G major, thnus No. II becomes D minor (one flat) raised B's and C's, and often w ith the E flat and F often similarly affected, but never in conflict. O the beauty of Bach!

Put simply, for No. II the notes are right, bugt the key is wrong.

PS. When finally repeating No. I, don't frorget to revert to the orignal key.

Not quite. Both bourees are in C. I is in C major and II is in C minor. The only confusing thing is that Bach wrote his C minor key signature with two flats instead of three. When he needs an Ab he writes it in. That doesn't make it G minor. The first 3 notes are C D Eb and it ends with C's in octaves. That's C minor in my book no matter how it was notated 300 years ago, when the rules were not as well codified.

Chris chose to set the whole thing in G/Gmin rather than C/Cmin, presumably because it fits better on his instrument that way.

See the manuscript here (about 2/3 the way down the page). Not Bach's hand, probably Anna Magdalena's. Good enough for me.

Edited to add: Just noticed that in the manuscript of the minor section, it looks like there are 3 flats, but that's because the Bb is marked in both octaves. Remember what I said about the rules...

FOLKS: David is right on the mark. . . .it's C minor with a signature of two flats only. . . . .this was often the case in the early part of the eighteenth century, at which time the earlier "modes" had still not entirely worn off. . . . .in effect, a signature of two flats with a piece that centers ON C is in the Dorian mode TWICE REMOVED. . . .in other words: the dorian mode is primarily on D. . . it would usually have been written with no flats in the signature. . .and the flat on B written in when necessary. . . . .the dorian once removed = transposed down a fifth (up a fourth) places it on G and calls for a single flat in the signature. . . . .now the flat on E would have been written in when required. . . . .and finally, dorian twice removed = transposed down another fifth (up another fourth) lands it on C. . .now the signature is B flat and E flat. . . with the A flat written as an accidental when necessary. . . . . .one finds this until approximately the middle of the century. . . .at which time the modern signatures come into their own on a steadier basis...............allan

Is it because of this that MIDI didn't play?
Other than that why should anybody be buffled?
In the end, if it's written without mistakes and sounds convincing, why not just play as written and forget about trouble?

The MIDI didn't play because of the errant blank line before the K: field. But you knew that.


Because for music to be played convincingly and not merely mechanically, it is important that the performer understand what is being played. If I tried singing a song in Russian by learning the words phonetically (but not their meanings), one might make the same comment you made, but inside, you would know that it sounds ridiculous. If someone played a Bach bouree in C minor who all the time thought he was playing in G minor, it would sound just as ridiculous.

Hmm.If someone played a Bach bouree in C minor who all the time thought he was playing in G minor, it would sound just as ridiculous.
I'm not sure I understand.
What if someone doesn't read at all, but plays well?
Or if someone reads the music, but doesn't get involved in theoretic/historic intricacies, plays from the dots, but by ear. Why this particular Bouree will sound ridiculous?
What's different between knowing what key it is and not knowing? When you sing in Cmin, but think it's Gmin, what does it mean to the listeners?
The language analogy I didn't understand either. I think better analogy would be if someone writes a poem and uses past time, thinking it's present. But to me, if a poem sounds right, I wouldn't care about intentions of the poet too much.
No? Am I missing something?

David doesn't mean (I think) that transposing is ridiculous. Rather that playing the same note-names but with different accidentals would sound silly. For example - take a tune written down that has two sharps in the key signature and change the key signature to two flats, but don't change anything else. This changes the mode of the music.

Actually, one example of this is the original "O'Neill's The Music of Ireland" version, where many of the transcriptions are just weird if played as written, yet become perfectly natural if you modify the key signature. I guess the weird sound could be authentic, but I bet it's a transcription error by someone who (perhaps) doesn't actually play/know the music (well, that's what it sounds like to me, but I'm not in a position to check what O'Neill's background was, and whether he personally transcribed all the tunes).

Having said that, some tunes do just work if you change the mode. However, more complicated music is unlikely to work - and this is probably the case for most of Bach's music.

Thank you, Danny, but that's not quite right, either. What I meant is that playing in C minor while thinking that you're in the context of G minor leads to ridiculous playing.

A story:

A few weeks ago at the NEFFA folk festival, I was approached by Sol "Roundman" Weber, an old friend and avid collector and distributor of rounds. While his tirelessness and enthusiasm are to be admired, he has little concept of how music actually works. His handwritten notations are full of little arrows and numerals to help Sol read the stuff (I have taken to calling his scribblings "Sol fege").

So here I am talking to my friend Jason, a fiddle player, when Sol comes up and hands me a slip of paper. "Here's a great new round." Jason and I look at it and start singing. It appears to be in C major. Starts with two C's but then moves to A. Never seems to take shape or make any harmonic sense, though. Every so often a Bb was written in as an accidental. The 2nd line of the round started on A and moved down to F. It was not until we got to the last line, which was basically a bass line outlining a I - IV - V cadence in F major, that Jason and I looked at each other and said, together, "Oh, it's in F!" All of a sudden it made much more sense. We sang it again from the beginning much more convincingly and mentioned to Sol that he really should put the Bb into the key signature.

The point is, until we realized what key we were really in, despite the fact that we were singing the right notes (even the right accidentals), our singing was meaningless ("ridiculous"). A cellist who undertakes to perform the 2nd bouree from the third Bach suite and, seeing a key signature of two flats, thinks "G minor: no problem" has a problem.

It's important to be able to hear the dominant and the tonic, the tension and release.

I understand that it may be important for transposing.
But I still fail to see how it can be important to a player or esp. to a listener.
Hearing the tension and release and hearing the shape of phrazes doesn't depend on knowing the key. It may be important for the reader, but in my experience I don't see how not knowing the true key of Bach's Bouree will affect my playing. I'm woriing on accentuation regardless of tonic and dominant. I'm experimenting with the beat and offset, creschendo-diminuendo (those italians).
Can anybody provide some example of wrong music resulting from incorrect reading of the key?
Why a celloist, who thinks he is in Gmin, but is in Cmin, is in trouble?
P.S.
What is "round"?
P.P.S.
Why even bother with the key signature, when it is possible to just write the #/b where needed? It will sure clutter the script, so the key signature is simply a convinience tool, not having any theoretical or practical significance.
Even for transposing one can't just change two #s for two bs, regardless of whether Bb's are written in or indicated as a signature of Fmajor. Unless, of course, you are using some software.

Well, what a listener hears or does not hear is up to him/her. But I don't see how a player can phrase meaningfully (or even "correctly"!) if he misinterprets where the phrases are heading. How are you going to place your rits and ralls in the right place and shape the dynamics sensibly if you don't realize when you're about to hit the tonic? Of course the problem is unlikely to occur if there's a chordal accompaniment (or even a drone), but it can in this kind of monophonic music.


I agree. The only point of a key signature is to reduce the amount of notation needed, but unless the music stays in the particular key most of the time it can be a hindrance rather than a help, especially in many of the jazz tunes I play, which are constantly changing the "key of the moment".

I would doubt the above, because of the interesting interview with Glen Gould that I listened to recently. Glen surprized me, when he said that he changed the piece of music to different count. To him it sounded better, and he also changed where the accents fall.
So the key signature didn't seem to hold much importance to him. Often he disagrees with composer's phrazings. It's not up to tonic/subdominant/dominant, it's up to what you want to deliver. I mean, in a ball park.



Well then, do you study the music beforehand to see what key it's changing to, to place correct accents, or just listen to it and go from there?
I'm not into music theory much (no time), and kind of resisted internally when my bayan teacher tried to explain the pieces I was playing. It only clattered my brain. Probably was too much too soon.

I don't work out the key before I start reading music. I note the key signature and play. At the end, if you said 'What key is it in?' I'd hopefully say 'Oh it's C minor isn't it? I'd do it from the tune and doubt I'd notice the odd key signature even then. I suggest that David's right but only because anyone who can play a piece and never get an intuitive grasp of the 'real' tonic is a musical duffer and bound to play badly anyway.

Any one who starts a piece of music hanging desperately onto the ideas the initial key signature has given him is going to be stuffed when it modulates!

The key signature is convenient notational shorthand only, surely?

I thought the modal explanation fascinating; indeed I'm going to go and read it yet again to see if I can really grasp it this time round...

OK having done that and thought a bit more. It isn't in Cminor, is it? It's in C dorian, which uses the Bb scale, so 2 flats. Does that mean everyone who thought they were in C minor has been playing it badly?

I think you might be misinterpreting what Gould was saying. He was still hearing standard harmonic progressions, but was breaking up the bars to a different subdivision. For example, a piece might be written in 4/4, but instead of hearing the count in two groups of 2 half notes or 4 counts of 1 quarter note, he might have heard things in an asymmetric meter - for example, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 in eighth notes. The rhythm still adds to four, but the accents are changed around. I would be very surprised if by those words, he meant that he heard the tonic as the subdominant, which is essentially what would happen if you conceived of a piece in C minor as being in G minor. Gould's interpretations were different, but not THAT different.

If one have no conception of what a key signature means, then yes - you'd just play the music by ear and it will probably sound passable, anyway. If one thinks that a piece in C minor is actually in G minor, then in theory one might mistake half cadences (which end on the dominant V chord) as authentic cadences (which end on the one chord). This seems unlikely to me though, since it would involve mistaking the tonic C as the subdominant in G, which would be very unnatural, and against what our ears tell us. So I would guess that it wouldn't actually make much of a difference to interpret the key signature incorrectly, unless you were slavishly basing your performance on an interpretation that your ears would tell you was incorrect.

Yes. Exactly this. He was breaking bars differently, resulting in different accents.
Thanks.



Makes sense to me. Now I see why some people insist on correct reading. Perhaps they don't have the sense of hearing that others do, and reading correctly is the mean of playing reasonably. Or perhaps at some high level and complexity of music the dynamic picture is so complex, one needs all aid one can get, and seing the structure is essential.

I already did. See my story, above.


A round is a simple vocal canon at the unison. A song in (usually) 3 or 4 parts of equal length that work together contrapuntally. One voice starts, another voice starts at the beginning when the first voice has reached the 2nd part, etc. The most familiar round (to Americans, anyway) is "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." Another, perhaps more internationally known, is "Frere Jacques." I even know a Russian version ("Ya Nye Znayoo...") but I don't know if it is actually sung in Russia that way.

In this case, by the way, my story ends before we actually started singing it as a round. We were singing it in unison to familiarize ourselves with it first.


And why can't we just all learn to read MIDI notation, which is completely unambiguous. Because we don't want to play like computers. We want to play like human beings.


I would argue that it is in C minor, in every sense that the word meant 300 years ago. I doubt Bach ever heard the word "Dorian." Its meaning from hundreds of years before Bach's time has been resurrected in the 20th century and applied to the mode a lot of Irish tunes fall into. But Bach wasn't writing in the Dorian mode. He was writing it in C minor and notating it in a way that was mathematically indistinguishable from what we now call the Dorian mode.


Or put the shoe on the other foot: Maybe all this music theory stuff is passing you by and making it impossible for you to hear what is missing in your playing. I find knowing what key I am playing in to be an indispensable part of crafting a performance. I would feel naked trying to put one over on an audience if I didn't know what key I was in. Even if nobody noticed (like the fabled Emperor), I would feel like I was getting credit for something I didn't deserve.

Learn some music theory. It is immensely satisfying and will show you how much more there can be to performance than just playing the notes that are written.

I meant to have something to listen to. If there are some recorded examples of incorrect playing due to mistaking the key.
I'm struggling with some pieces I learn, there seem to be misterious unwillingness of the music to come together and make sense. In addition I am not totally enamoured with how my concertina handles dynamics, so there I go.
I'd love to learn theory! There's no time.
The comforting thought is existence of many professionals, who do understand the Music, but whose playing is only so-so. It's correct and stuff, but not exciting 'to me".
The idea is to understand why their playing is boring (for me) and learn from their mistakes.
Since they know the theory, it must not be it then. Perhaps they are too ordinary, or tired, or play because they have to... Many things.
Like that Chopin's Prelude in Cmin. Most pianists play it "correctly" and it's very bland.
I don't feel the times, the Revolution, the loneliness, the illness, agony. To me it's a Requiem and a mourning song. Misery and despair. Chopin was ill, denied entrance to Poland, his family was trapped in Poland and Revolt was brutally put down.
The way it's slavishly played lacks all of the above. To someone, who can depict the thunderous emotions of the time, I will forgive incorrect accent here and there.
And I myself would like to learn to play it like that. Not smoothly, not sleek - would be nice, but no time to polish.
P.S.
Thanks for explanation of the rounds. Yes, there is lots of round singing in Russian, but I can't make up the song you menioned. Other words perhaps?

I didn't think a scribbled note handed you by a musical illiterate that you couldn't immediately decipher proves much measured against an editted piece that simply has a flat added instead of in the key signature. I don't believe you are that clueless a musician.



So are you saying you don't need the correct musical info, just how the piece relates to the composer's circumstances at the time of writing?

I do understand what he's saying, though. One of the habits we have to break first year theory students out of is over-reliance on the key signatures, for exactly the reasons that have come to light with this example (as well as modulations, etc.) The most important thing is for a musician to hear the function behind the key signature. Leading tones, dominant-tonic relationships, and so forth.

Plus, in 20th and 21st century classical music, tonal functionality breaks down to the point that a key signature is meaningless, and I would venture to say that now days most composers don't use them at all. I do think they are a shorthand. A very handy, easy shorthand, but they don't have a lot of theoretical weight by themselves.

That being said, I agree that we need to know our key signatures, what they represent, etc. It's just part of being a musician




The church modes were well codified by Bach's time, and these included Dorian and the other Greeky-named modes (actually a misinterpretation by early music theorists at recreating the original Greek modes written about by Boethius). So I'm sure he would have been aware of them. I'm a bit unclear as to the exact way that modality (a term that's really kind of troublesome) changed to tonality, except that it was kind of gradual, and finally codified in a treatise by Rameau in the early 18th century. Alan Atlas would be the one to go to for more specifics, I'm sure.

And naturally, I agree with you that theoretical knowledge will only serve to enrich performance and listening, but then, I'm a bit biased.

Who would've thought that Michael would be a representative of the New Musicology? I had a professor this past term who argued exactly that.

Personally, I think you need a balance. The composer's background and where he was coming from is important, but you can't be too reliant on it. And regardless, you can't say that all of Chopin's music is an expression of the circumstances that Michael mentioned. Maybe it was composed in a happy leisure moment with George Sand (his fiancée), and the troubles at home were forgotten. Maybe it was composed for a specific deadline. More research would be needed regarding the exact time it was composed , anyway, if you were going to base your performance off that.

At any rate, I think that music can take on contemporary meaning as well, and as long as you have a musical interpretation and reasoning for how you phrase and interpret, it's good by me, whether you do what the composer originally intended or not.

Mm..., what is correct musical info? There is no way to know how Chopin played it himself, only how scholars interpret his writings today. My bayan teacher taught me to play it a certain way. Many CD recordings, mp3 files, Youtube clips gave me a glimpse of what my teacher meant. I disagree with even meter of the piece, disagree with the interpretation of solemn sadness. I see a thin man on his bed in a dark room, lost and disoriented. All is futile, but life is still there. So he brings himself up, to finish that piece, to stand up and walk out, but then sits down again, then lays down and turns towards the wall. That's the end of the piece. Other than that I'm not very interested in it, esp. when they play it separating the chords.

Ha! At least I'm happy to know I'm not alone.



It was bumpy enough to have troubles forgotten. But I just hear the calamity in that Prelude, what can I do? I think it makes very good piece for the accordion, rather than for piano.

Fascinating examples here of "little learning being a dangerous thing"!

As a lingist, I see the confusion arising from a somewhat loose usage of the term "key signature". The arrangement of sharps or flats at the beginning of a score does help you to identify the key, but does not do so unambiguously. Even in "nomal" classical music, two sharps doesn't mean G major. It means G major OR E minor. My mother (a trained pianist who - significantly - could also accompany familiar tunes by ear) told be to look at the key signature and then at the last note in the bass line. Signature '##' + last bass note G = G major; signature '##' + last bass note E = E minor. And when you get into traditional Irish songs, with their (nowadays so-called) Dorian and Mixolydian modes, things get even more complex.

What the so-called "key signature" does define unambiguously is the scale the piece uses. With no sharps or flats, the notes A, B, C, D, E, F and G are all we need; with two sharps, we'll need only A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G. If we need any more - like when we modulate to a related key - we write them as accidentals.
So it would be better to call it a "scale signature".

There are practical reasons for putting this up front, especially for players of diatonic instruments, like Celtic harps, keyless flutes or 20-button anglos. It tells the harpist which strings to sharp, and it tells the 20k angloist whether he can manage the piece in this key or not. If there's a C# or a Bb, he has to pass.
But on chromatic instruments, like English and duet concertinas, it tells the player at what points he must take one of the outer buttons, which I'm sure is more comfortable than having no key signature and sharping or flatting the notes when they appear. A signature up front gives more structure.

For computers and purely mechanical musicians, this may suffice. But by-ear players and singers need a tonality to hold on to. It makes a helluva difference to them whether the two sharps mean G major or E minor.

There are two ways of distinguishing modes. One way is to take the major scale, and specify which of the notes are flatted. Flat the 7th, and its Mixolydian; Flat the 3rd and the 7th, and it's Dorian. This is how I as a singer do it.
Or you can take the major scale and change the tonality, i.e. "home in" your tune on a note other than the "doh" of the major scale. Take the 2nd step of the major scale as your tonic, and you're in Dorian; take the 4th step, and you're in Mixolydian. This is how I think of it when playing tin whistle or Anglo.

In short, the scale with one sharp is sufficient to play tunes in G major, A Dorian, D Mixolydian, E minor (or Aeolian) and a couple of other rarely used modes. Each mode, including the classical major and minor, has a completely different feel to it, even from a melodic pooint of view. When harmonisation is added, the feel gets even more different, because the chord sequences are leading to different destinations, and the available intervals are different.
For instance, with one sharp, you can't build an A major triad - so the mode beginning on A has to have a minor triad as its tonic chord. So Dorian is a "minor mode", though distinct from the classical minor scale.

Ironically, the naive, illiterate musician has little trouble with these modalities. If he's grown up with them, he handles them quite naturally, and if he hasn't grown up with them - well, they don't impinge on him.
The people who do have problems with modality are those who are not "native" to it, but have tried to approach it via sheet music. Sight reading is usually taught in the context of mainstream European classical music, so its application to ethnic or ancient musics is not dealt with.
Having learned the use of the alphabet in English, you're not going to be able to read French or German such that a Frenchman or German will understand you (and not laugh), although these languages use the same alphabet. Same with music - many musics use staff notation, but meaningful interpretation of the notation requires knowledge of the "vocabulary" and "grammar" (i.e. theory) of the music involved.

One thing I've noticed when teaching English and German as foreign languages to adults: people who have a good grasp of the grammar of their mother tongue can learn the structure of the foreign language much more easily than those who have not. The ideal pupils (of either language) are the ones who did Latin at school, and are "theoretically overqualified".

Make your musical life easier - don't just learn to "read misic", get a good grounding in musical theory!

Cheers,
John

Or both! Take How Deep Is The Ocean, for instance, which starts out resolutely in C minor (with a cadence to confirm) but ends equally resolutely in Eb major.

I know what you mean about 'no time', but you would probably find that time spent learning at least the basic theory would pay back many times over by reducing the time spent 'struggling' ;-}

The tune is "Frere Jacques." The words are silly Russian words (not a translation of "Frere Jacques"). I don't know how Russian words are correctly spelled in the English alphabet, and I don't know how to type Cyrillic characters, so this is the best I can do. It only uses three words/phrases and they are:

Ya Nye Znayoo (I don't know)
Nychevo (Nothing)
Xorosho (Great, groovy)

I'm sure you've recognized all these words, now.

The round goes:

Ya nye znayoo, ya nye znayoo.
Nychevo. Nychevo.
Nychevo nye znayoo. Nychevo nye znayoo.
Xorosho. Xorosho.


One sharp. Two sharps is Dmaj/Bmin.

Thanks.
I recognized the words, but they don't comprise any meaning.
I just read the annotation for the first of Bach's Inventions and am very impressed by the lack of musical knowlege I posess. It was written for young piano students, but the phrses constructed in such a way, that I literally feel like hacking my way through the jungle.
Sometimes, when I understand the meaning, it is simple, like "the # before C in second half of third measure is ...bla bla bla.... necessary, because the practice ...bla bla bla... shows the students invariably forget about the preceeding # in the first half measure, so it is adviceable to ...bla bla (meaning "to put it down") before third 8th note of second half measure of third measure in the first ...bla bla bla..., ending in double bar....."
More or less!

Sometimes a bit of tautology can help to make things more readily comprehensible. Same with music as with words. "He divided his collection of concertinas equally between his sons" is an unabiguous statement. But "He divided his collection of concertinas equally between his two sons", though tautologous, is usually understood more quickly and with more certainty. (For non-English speakers: "Between", strictly speaking, implies two. If the concertina collector had three or more sons, we would say "among". But unless the reader is aware that the writer is something of a pedant, there is some uneasiness in his interpretation if the number of sons is omitted.)

This example is roughly parallel to the convention on the notation of accidentals, by which an accidental applies for the rest of the bar, and only for the rest of the bar. But not everyone knows this, and not everyone who knows this can be sure that the writer of the score knows it, and when you're writing a score, you don't know how sure the reader is that you know and apply the convention. So you sharp or flat the same accidental twice in one bar, and put a natural sign on it in the next bar, even if it conforms to the key signature.

That's not music, that's the psychology of communication.

Cheers,
John

Correct!

I wanted to simplify my original example, and missed the "two" before "sharps"!

Cheers,
John

Well, this topic seems to have generated quite a lot of interest and replies from some very knowledge folks, for which I thank you all. Now, has anyone (Mischa?, Danny?, Anglo-Irishman?) attempted to play the bourrée? Well, there are two of them linked and the first one is repeated at the end, it seems. I have made a stab at playing the first one, my first proper attempt at playing a piece of classical music and I am making good progress but not yet ready for a public performance! And David B., if there are any corrections needed to the second bourrée, and you know what they are in ABC format, can you possibly send me the appropriate ABC coding and I will make the necessary amendments to the file in the tune-o-tron. Thanks.

Chris

I played them on the Cello 35 years ago.


Yes, that's the standard way to play this kind of movement: Bourrée 1 with repeats, Bourrée 2 with repeats, Bourrée 1 without repeats.


Here is my abc version. I have not based it on yours but gone back to the source and started from scratch (for both Bourrées). Like you, I put it in G so it fits on a treble English Concertina (the original is in C, an octave and a fifth lower, in the Cello range). To minimize confusion, I put the 2nd bourrée in G minor, fixing the accidentals as they come (and marking some unnecessary but otherwise potentially confusing ones as well).

This version was specifically designed to work in the Tune-O-Tron converter, and it took some doing. Note I have put 5 bars per line (four makes more sense, but then there were too many lines to display and the bottom got cut off). Also, I have had to put the first two notes of Bourrée 2 on the same line as the end of Bourrée 1, before the key change (the notes don't change). The GIF, MIDI, and PDF generators all handled it OK in my testing.

X:1
T:Bourrées 1 & 2 from Cello Suite #3, BWV 1009
C:Johann Sebastian Bach
M:C|
K:G % Transposed up an octave and a 5th from C.
P:Bourrée 1
Bc|d2GFG2g2|[D2A2f2]efd2AB|c2FEF2d2|[G,Dc]BABG2gf|efgd ^cfgB|
AfgG FA^ce|a2fdA2^c2|d2A2D2::fg|a2fdc2f2|Bdgab2g^d|
e2ce Agfe|Be^d^cB2fB|ge^de fBgB|afef gBaA|GbfgB2e^d|
e2B2E2ef|g2^cBc2A2|DAgef2dc|BdgB Ac'bg|agfed2fg|
afde fdAB|cAFG AFDc|BGDd BGDg|dBcA BGDB|ABcG FBcE|
DBcC B,DFA|d2BGD2F2|[G6G,6]::ga|
K:GMIN
P:Bourrée 2
b2ag^f2g2|ag^f=e dcBA|BdcB AcBA|G^FGA Bcd=e|f2edc2B2|
ABcd efga|b2ag fedc|B6::Bc|d2dcd2=e2|f=efg fgaf|
df=ef gfed|^c2=BcA2ag|a2BAB2d2|g^fgab2a2|gf=ed fed^c|
d2A2D2de|f2ed c=Bcd|fedca4-|a^fga bagb|ag^f=e dcBA|
BAcB dced|D=E^FG ABcA|cBAG BAG^F|[G6G,6]:|
W:Route: Bourrée 1 with repeats, Bourrée 2 with repeats, Bourrée 1 without repeats.

---------------

Go nuts.

John, when you were speaking about tonalities and modes, it was very interesting and informative, but when you touched on language similarities, I understood what you meant and I can't disagree more.
How many of your pupils speak English and German freely after your courses? How many of them have good grasp on the Grammar in their own languages? And what does it mean?
I recently passed an internet test (for fun), designed for Russian speakers. The test is a grounding of a statement, that most Russian speakers don't know their mother toungue.
I scored 8 from 8, but my Grammar in School was always on the brink of faliure.
Many people I know, who were A students, failed this test. Language runs on musicality, on the feel, not on Grammars, that change over time to accomodate the new speaking "tonality".
I've learned German in School (dormant) and English on my own, I went through many teachers, and I realized that none of them has any clue of how to teach the language.
I have a feeling it's the same with music. I'm yet to meet a single person, who will clearly explain when to use "Had done" vs. "Has done", but I begin to "feel" it myself.
Music is empirical experience, and it's theory is only an approximation of what we hear, and as such can't even be called "Theory", it's more of a guidance. Some need it more than others, but none gets to be better "speaker" purely from learning the "Grammar".
When you mentioned Latin, I think it's the musical feel of familiarity with the words' roots, that helps people to memorize or recognize the meaning in English. Which means it's experience with basic music, folk and traditional, that is the key to understanding the more "modern" forms and is a good basis for Musician's training, not the theory.

It's not "either/or": a well-rounded musician knows his basic theory as well as having a feel for music in general and an understanding of where the particular music he is playing comes from. Of course there are always exceptions who prove the rule, superb performers who know little or nothing of theory, but that doesn't mean we lesser mortals should necessarily follow their example...

Well rounded musician is not a subject of concern. Such musician is unlikely to be thrown off by Bach's showing two sharps, meaning three.
Of course it's not either/or. It helps though to sort things in order of importance.

In other words, get cracking!

Thank you David, for producing your version of the abc notation for the bourrée. I have just copied and pasted it into the converter and it works brilliantly! I have printed off a PDF version of the score and will compare it with mine to see what the differences are. Once again, thank you David and happy playing everyone!

Chris

Micha,
you're quite correct: both music and language are based on experience. The best way to learn a language is to be born into the environment in which it is spoken. However, with a few exceptions, that only gives you one language. For other languages, the second-best way is to learn it systematically, and then immerse yourself in the environment in which it is spoken. The third-best way is to immerse yourself in a foreign language environment, and to try to get your empirical findings sorted out - which usually involves some formal tuition.

Because grammar does no more nor less than describe the system that native speakers use instinctively by imitation of their elders. In your receptive childhood years, you can absorb this. Later, you have neither the time nor the absorbency to do the same with a second language. And you're biased by your mother tongue.

One pitfall in speaking a foreign language is to assume that the structures are identical (because they often seem similar, at least among European languages). As a matter of fact, they usually are - but not on the superficial level. A lot of the similarities become apparent only after analysis of the structure of the two languages in question. Only when an English speaker knows what an indirect object is in English, can he grasp the significance of the German Dative Case. Learning anything requires communication, which requires technical terminlogy. Just growing up with something doesn't require that.

If you're content with the language you grew up with, fine! If you're content with the music you grew up with, fine! But if you want to write sonnets or sonatas -you've got to go beyond what you learned at your mother's knee, or from the fiddler next door. You've got to grasp the structures behind them, analyse the words or notes to see if your novel juxtaposition of them is meaningful. And humans tend to grasp concepts by the words used for them.

Some people eschew grammar and music theory because they don't want to be tied by rules. These people don't realise that grammar and theory are not rules, but descriptions of things that we cannot alter. Just like physics and chemistry. Apples don't fall down because Isaac Newton said they must, but because of physics. And two notes aren't harmonious because some Renaissance scholar said they are, but because of physics.

Grammar and music theory involve the identification of concepts and the putting of names to them, so that we can communicate about them and learn more than we could have if we were left to our own empirical devices.

The proof of the pudding, however, is in the eating ...

Cheers,
John

Hi John,

Speaking as a professional translator and amateur musician, I think the analogy between language and music only works on a very superficial level. Your points about the value of grammar are good, though again I think the analogy with music theory doesn't go very far - except that intuitive individuals can get by (sometimes very well) without grammar/theory! And I say that as someone who learnt to speak German fluently using the traditional grammar+vocab approach.

The question is also whether we are now exiting from a period of grammar-dominated language and reverting to a more anything-goes/read-my-mind state like that in Elizabethan English. In my work I'm seeing this happening not only in English but also in e.g. German and French, which in structure are far less 'free-form' than English.


Agreed. Not a problem, as long as they realize their true motivation. I think there's a widespread misconception that theory gets in the way of feeling, whereas it can in fact be used to enhance feeling.


Only to some extent. In fact grammar is changing all the time, whether we like it or not. How long will it be, for example, before no-one understands the distinction between 'he may have died' and 'he might have died'?


Again, to some extent that is true. But it's also a question of experience and context and personal feeling. A baroque musician friend of mine, for instance, can't stand the sound of a major seventh that doesn't resolve, whereas to anyone who likes modern jazz it's just a pretty sound. So there again the 'rules' are not immutable.

These Bourees are very good at some rhythmic instruments, like guitars, or on instruments sounding lower, so they have powerful tone. Adapting them to Treble English is pretty tough. Stacatto, meant for Cello, is different from what can be acheived at concertina. EC is not particularly good at powerful cressendo or strong attack on the low reeds - they choke. So the whole piece will have very different feel. less powerfull and rowbust. I am thinking to use more stacatto-ish approach, to make the piece up-beat, frolicky.

I would argue that these "superb performers who know little or nothing of theory" may never have been formally taught theory, but they have the innate ability to hear effective music patterns and reproduce (and perhaps surpass) them in their own playing. It may be argued that what music theory is is simply a description of what these guys are doing. By the same token, folks who neither have this innate ability nor have learned music theory by more conventional means are not likely to become successful musicians, and we are not likely to have heard of them.


The modern piano and guitar are as different from anything Bach was familiar with as the concertina is. Even the cello and the violin have undergone significant changes. They may looks the same and even come with documents that proclaim them to be of Bach's era, but they have been internally reinforced to make them strong enough to hold tightly strung steel strings, making them louder than anything Bach ever heard.

But Bach's music is remarkably portable from instrument to instrument. Yes, the demands will be different on each instrument, but what worked on a clavichord or an organ generally works just as well on a piano.

Well, that's my hope. I found I have to rethink the accents for Cello suites, when applied to my treble. That crazy Glenn Gould with his singing had a good point. You sing the music, then try to emulate the phrazing on the instrument. It's very interesting, but mostly frustrating routine. Besides, when I'm into the music, I start making those faces, the outcome doesn't justifies them, and it's just plain stupid.