The Musical B's
I've made it up to the term "cadence" in my dictionary, which means I have conquered the B's! Wahoo! In an attempt to make this task seem more attainable, I've come up with a plan... I'm figuring that if I read 100 pages a month, I can finish in 8 more months. Which means that if I read 10 pages a day at the beginning of the month, I'll make enough of a dent after 10 days that if I feel a need to read something else, I can do it without feeling guilty. And then when the next month comes around, I'm all set to go back to the dictionary. I can do that, 10 pages a day for 10 days is hardly a challenge.
Anyway, here are some of my thoughts as I made my way through the B's.
One of the longest entries in the B's was for bibliography. I was a little surprised to even see it in there, let alone that it was 4 pages long (the entire continent of Africa had 7 pages). It was mostly just lists of important historical musical bibliographies. I'll have to remember that as a reference in case I ever need to study up on 17th Century repertoire. I was happy to see 2 resources that I recognized, and used quite a bit: Maurice Hinson's Guide to Pianist's Repetoire and Vincent Duckles' Music Reference and Research Material. I wish I knew the Duckle's bibliography existed when I was an undergrad because it is a very good resource and would have made my papers immensely better (my undergrad research skills were sad to say the least), but unfortunately I didn't learn about it until grad school.
Barber shop quartets sing acoustically pure intervals rather than tempered ones (since they sing a Capella they can) which is why they ring so nicely.
This dictionary seems to have a habit of pairing two similar words together, even if they aren't alphabetical. Examples so far: real and tonal answers, augmentation and diminution, and binary and ternary form.
From the entry on Byzantine chant:
"When reading the earlier, simple notation, the singer was expected to interpret or realize the stenography by applying certain established rules (generally unknown now, but absolutely familiar to him) in order to provide an accurate and acceptable rendition of the music." It also mentions that the later notation explicitly writes out all these nuances to help the performer. Anyway, I think that's crazy because notated music never captures every nuance about how it's supposed to be played. Two note slurs come to mind (among other things: pedaling, ornaments, swung rhythms in jazz, etc. etc) ... no where in any music does it say to put an stronger accent on the first note and gently play the second... but that's how it's done. The only reason I know that is because someone told me. Lots and lots of the way you realize written music is not included in the notation... still.
My favorite article so far was still in the A's: acoustic. The B's were kind of a let down... I did read up on the history of ballet, a little about blues, and brass instruments, which was kinda interesting. But there was also a lot of dances. I feel like nearly every other entry was about some form of dance (basse danse, bergamasca, bourree, etc.) It makes sense... composers use dance titles for a lot of their works, so I guess a lot of these dances are included because performers want to look up something to get an idea as to what type of dance is being referred to. But man does it make for tedious reading... and most of them sound the same "a lively dance movement in duple meter and binary form." I think that describes like 90% of the dances. Occasionally there's a slow dance, or even more interesting a dance in triple meter. I'm just hoping there aren't as many dance types that start with a C.
Anyway, here are some of my thoughts as I made my way through the B's.
One of the longest entries in the B's was for bibliography. I was a little surprised to even see it in there, let alone that it was 4 pages long (the entire continent of Africa had 7 pages). It was mostly just lists of important historical musical bibliographies. I'll have to remember that as a reference in case I ever need to study up on 17th Century repertoire. I was happy to see 2 resources that I recognized, and used quite a bit: Maurice Hinson's Guide to Pianist's Repetoire and Vincent Duckles' Music Reference and Research Material. I wish I knew the Duckle's bibliography existed when I was an undergrad because it is a very good resource and would have made my papers immensely better (my undergrad research skills were sad to say the least), but unfortunately I didn't learn about it until grad school.
Barber shop quartets sing acoustically pure intervals rather than tempered ones (since they sing a Capella they can) which is why they ring so nicely.
This dictionary seems to have a habit of pairing two similar words together, even if they aren't alphabetical. Examples so far: real and tonal answers, augmentation and diminution, and binary and ternary form.
From the entry on Byzantine chant:
"When reading the earlier, simple notation, the singer was expected to interpret or realize the stenography by applying certain established rules (generally unknown now, but absolutely familiar to him) in order to provide an accurate and acceptable rendition of the music." It also mentions that the later notation explicitly writes out all these nuances to help the performer. Anyway, I think that's crazy because notated music never captures every nuance about how it's supposed to be played. Two note slurs come to mind (among other things: pedaling, ornaments, swung rhythms in jazz, etc. etc) ... no where in any music does it say to put an stronger accent on the first note and gently play the second... but that's how it's done. The only reason I know that is because someone told me. Lots and lots of the way you realize written music is not included in the notation... still.
My favorite article so far was still in the A's: acoustic. The B's were kind of a let down... I did read up on the history of ballet, a little about blues, and brass instruments, which was kinda interesting. But there was also a lot of dances. I feel like nearly every other entry was about some form of dance (basse danse, bergamasca, bourree, etc.) It makes sense... composers use dance titles for a lot of their works, so I guess a lot of these dances are included because performers want to look up something to get an idea as to what type of dance is being referred to. But man does it make for tedious reading... and most of them sound the same "a lively dance movement in duple meter and binary form." I think that describes like 90% of the dances. Occasionally there's a slow dance, or even more interesting a dance in triple meter. I'm just hoping there aren't as many dance types that start with a C.
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