Music In A Foreign Language

[Chris Timson]

If ever this economy recovers and my haunts survive, you and Ann need to give us another chance to right an obviuos wrong!

I hope we can hold you to that one day. I guess I never really recovered from Neffa and the Washington Getaway. Great weekends. both of them, but drier than, well, a very dry place.

 

Chris

[Ishtar]

If ever this economy recovers and my haunts survive, you and Ann need to give us another chance to right an obviuos wrong!

I hope we can hold you to that one day. I guess I never really recovered from Neffa and the Washington Getaway. Great weekends. both of them, but drier than, well, a very dry place.

 

Chris

 

I want to be in that dry place! The rain I mentioned earlier has flooded the garden and is coming through the roof into my living room.

[Mark Evans]

I hope we can hold you to that one day. I guess I never really recovered from Neffa and the Washington Getaway. Great weekends. both of them, but drier than, well, a very dry place.

 

Chris

 

 

Oh yes, NEFFA. Dry indeed. They've moved to another venue...yet another school, and dusty dry.

[Anglo-Irishman]

but what I had to learn was the durations: crotchet = Viertelnote, quaver = Achtelnote, etc.

 

But it's logical: A "whole note" fills a "whole measure", regardless of the measure being C = 4/4 or O = 3/4.

 

Ah, what is the meaning of brieve and semibrieve? In German a "Brevis" is two "whole notes" (which ist historically correct, coming from mensural notation), whereas, of course, in "a la breve" you count "half notes".

 

Sebastian

 

Here goes:

 

Brieve = 2 whole notes

Semibrieve = whole note

Minim = 1/2 note

Crotchet = 1/4 note

Quaver = 1/8

Semiquaver = 1/16

Demisemiquaver = 1/32

 

When I'd grasped the 1/4 note, 1/2 note, etc. a light suddenly went on as I looked at the time signature of an (English) score. We also write it as 4/4 or 3/4, etc. Except that I learned to call them "four-four time" and "three-four time", respectively.

I still see the 1/4 note as more abstract, the crotchet as more concrete. The abstract "four quarters" can in fact be two pairs of a dotted crotchet and a quaver. And some 3/4 pieces have 6 quavers to the bar, which is subtly different from 6/8.

 

By the way, "bar" is the normal English word for "Takt". The Americans say "measure", and thanks to this thread, I now know why: if they have no alcohol at sessions, they probably want to avoid mentioning words that make them think of drink while playing. Or perhaps it dates back to the Prohibition era

 

Cheers,

John

[John Wild]

By the way, "bar" is the normal English word for "Takt". The Americans say "measure", and thanks to this thread, I now know why: if they have no alcohol at sessions, they probably want to avoid mentioning words that make them think of drink while playing. Or perhaps it dates back to the Prohibition era

 

Cheers,

John

 

"would you like a small or large measure of whisky, sir?"

Edited October 20, 2008 by John Wild

[Mark Evans]

By the way, "bar" is the normal English word for "Takt". The Americans say "measure", and thanks to this thread, I now know why: if they have no alcohol at sessions, they probably want to avoid mentioning words that make them think of drink while playing. Or perhaps it dates back to the Prohibition era

 

Cheers,

John

 

John, "bar" and "measure" are interchangeable for we unwashed Amerikaners.

 

Demisemiquaver....now that's a sho' nuff' mouthful.

 

Sessions and booze, shine, suds, grog, whatever go together, poor Chris and Ann's hiddious experience notwithstanding.

 

After our session at Stone's, there's always a Town of Ashland cop parked along the lane just in case we've managed to get plowed .

[PeterT]

By the way, "bar" is the normal English word for "Takt". The Americans say "measure", and thanks to this thread, I now know why: if they have no alcohol at sessions, they probably want to avoid mentioning words that make them think of drink while playing. Or perhaps it dates back to the Prohibition era

"would you like a small or large measure of whisky, sir?"

You should give a measured response to that, otherwise you might be barred!

 

I now know why one of the places in Paderborn, where I was taken to drink, was called The Takt.

[Samantha]

Music is almost universal, but there are still differences to be dealt with. Here are two minor hurdles that I need to get over.

 

1. I know my notes as ABCDEFG. French people know them as Doh Re Mi Fa Sol La Si Doh, with Doh being middle C. So if someone says "it's in the key of Sol", I have to use my fingers to translate. Improving this is a must now that I'm in a serious sea shanty situation.

 

2. Keeping a straight face when a French speaker talks about fifths. It's spelt "quints" and pronounced "keunt". So far, I can't bring myself to say it!

 

 

I know you're a well-travelled, international bunch on here. What musical surprises have you had on your travels?

 

My most confusing experiences were with a French conductor talking French, Sol-Fa and concert pitch and I am an English-speaking French Horn player pitched in F .... wah!

Samantha

[SteveS]

I know you're a well-travelled, international bunch on here. What musical surprises have you had on your travels?

 

Ishtar,

 

I was just reading the "Emphasis on the EC" thread, where someone confessed to not knowing what a crotchet is

 

I've now lived longer in Germany than in my native Northern Ireland, and can converse about anything that interests me equally well in both languages. That includes music and organology.

The slightly irritating difference between German and English note names (H=B, B=Bb) has been mentioned, but what I had to learn was the durations: crotchet = Viertelnote, quaver = Achtelnote, etc. Having learnt this, I was suddenly able to undersand American musicians, because "Viertelnote" translates literally as "quarter note" and "Achtelnote" as "eighth note". Coming from an English-speaking background, I'd have thought the crotchet would be a "whole note", because we usually count time in crotchets, of which brieves and semibrieves are multiples, and quavers and semiquavers are fractions

 

By the way, the German note names H and B made it possible for J.S. Bach to spell his name in musical notation. B-A-C-H would be B flat-A-C-B in English - like most neat ideas, it loses something in translation

 

Cheers,

John

 

When I was setting out with music I went to great pains to learn the names of the durations of notes. When I lived in Sweden it came as a relief to find out that notes, like in German, are named after their durations - this made much more sense to me. I seldom use the English names for notes nowadays, preferring to stick with the names of their durations.

 

Steve

 

 

BTW (oops off topic) anyone else play a Norwegian zither ("harpeleik" in Norwegian or "cittra" in Swedish)?

[Anglo-Irishman]

By the way, "bar" is the normal English word for "Takt". The Americans say "measure", and thanks to this thread, I now know why: if they have no alcohol at sessions, they probably want to avoid mentioning words that make them think of drink while playing. Or perhaps it dates back to the Prohibition era

 

Cheers,

John

 

"would you like a small or large measure of whisky, sir?"

 

Thanks for the reminder, John! Seems I was wrong - music and booze are just inseparable, whatever the cultural setting

 

Make it a large measure - 9/8 will do. That "slips" nicely down the throat

 

Cheers,

John