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Topic: Rhythm tensions with choral parts (Read 12209 times) previous topic - next topic

Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Guys I am sorry to bore you with this....

Here's the score (so to speak)

Tenor 1 = dotted crotchet, quaver, crotchet crotchet
tenor 2 = quaver, quaver, quaver, quaver, quaver, quaver

I have written the top line in first, sticks up, and come back for t2s, sticks down. chord member does not allow all the quavers to align....am i doing it wrong?

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #1 –
Yes... you have to put the shortest note in first. (I don't know from quavers and crotchets, but if you do the shortest note first, the longer ones can be added.)

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #2 –
Alan, your notes don't add up - T1 is effectively 8 quavers against T2 6. Where is T2 resting?

Peter

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #3 –
Hi Alan, Fred, and Peter,

I've been away from music a very long time, and only just returned, so forgive me a question: What is a crochet, and what is a quaver? These are terms I'm not familiar with... is a "crochet" a half-note? A quaver a quarter-note? or what????

I've learned a bunch from reading the posts on the forum, memories come flooding back, but not this time! Please explain, thanks!

Sue

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #4 –
Sure, I remember, Jimminy Crotchet!

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #5 –
I'm starting to feeling crotchety, quavering with confusion...

Good question, Sue. You inspired me to look it up in my handy dandy musical dictionary. So, for the rest of us who learned notes in powers of two, here's the scoop:

Breve = double whole note (looks like a glorified = sign)

Semi-breve = whole note

Minim = half note

Crotchet = quarter note

Quaver = 1/8 note

Semiquaver = 1/16 note

Demisemiquaver = 1/32 note (not Ms. Moore's maiden name as commonly believed ;-)

Hemidemisemiquaver = 1/64 note

Got it? Got it!

F

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #6 –
P.S. I find it funny that "breve" is a whole note.

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #7 –
Oh boy, it seems really complicated in English!

Alan, Fred gave the rite answer. Enter the shortest notes which SHARE longer notes first (mixing T1 & T2 parts if needed), then complete the work with others.
So if T2 start at same time as T1 (though 2 quavers are missing), then enter first the 3 quavers of T2 then dotted crotchet of T1, and so on.

And now, after American|Australian To English, the French version :
Breve = ronde carrée (looks like this : |O| (withut space in it)

Semi-breve = ronde = 1 (in NWC) = 1 (in high part of time signature)
Minim = blanche = 2 = 2 (means "white")
Crotchet = noire = 3 = 4 (means "black")
Quaver = croche = 4 = 8
Semiquaver = double croche = 5 = 16
Demisemiquaver = triple croche = 6 = 32
Hemidemisemiquaver = quadruple croche = ? = 64
half of h.d.s.quaver = quintuple croche = ? = 128

Next time, rests ;-)

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #8 –
So the word for an English crotchet sounds like a French quaver. What a minefield. Who said music was an international language?? Perhaps we should all stick to fractions! But this thread certainly emphasises the worldwide scope of the NWC Forum - if I ever go to Australia/France/California etc. etc., I know I've got contacts there.

Best wishes to all, Peter.

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #9 –
So what happens when you start adding dots to the notes?

Is a dotted 16th == Sesquisemiquaver?
What if it is double-dotted?

Just curious.

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #10 –
Wow, what a flurry of conversation I inspired... BTW Peter, I *am* in California, and here we stick to "whole- note", "half-note", "quarter-note", "eighth-note", "sixteenth-note", "thirtysecond-note", "sixtyfourth-note"... that's about as complicated as we get! : >

Thanks to all for the confusion, er, clarification, er...

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #11 –
OK now listen up....

a crotchet is one beat in a 4/4 bar or even a 3/4 or a 2/4...

let's not talk about 6/8 where the quaver is the beat!

when it's dotted, it's called a .... wait for it ... dotted crotchet! it adds half the note's value.

There are two crotchet beats in a minim, two minims in a semi-breve, and two quavers in a crotchet.

All this from the country that put 12 inches in a foot, three feet in a yard and 1,760 yards in a mile - to say nothing of furlongs, rods, poles and perches - and further confused us by having 12 pence in a shilling, 20 shillings in a pound, and expected you to be able to keep accurate account books.

Thanks to everyone for the help - I am now well on my way getting music sorted out for the male choir i am involved with.........

Thanks to the international help from Melbourne Australia

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #12 –
Wow !
Sorry, but in 3/8, quaver is beat, okay.
But NOT in 6/8, where dotted crotchet is 1 beat --thus quaver being a third of beat.
  That's what's called "compound time" in English ("ternaire" in French), thus 6/8 is a 2 beats measure, 6/8 is 3 b.measure, 12/8 a 4b.m. ... but I guess 7/8 is a seven beats measure, (3/8 + 4/8 in fact, or 4/8+3/8)...
Maybe that's why we got to learn music theory for 12 years before having rights to teach it ?..

Hope this helps,
                          MAD

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #13 –
Related to measure units (thx Alan) : the best thing in the 1789 revolution is definitely the metric system. Though arbitrary, it's sooo simple now... a Kg is 1000 grams, but a pound could vary from 250 to 640 with many variances... depending on the place you were. As U.S. gallons and U.K. gallons... Now I know why french students are so bad in mental calculations ;-)

So when will a day be divided into 10ths, which'd be divided in 100ths, ... ?? *<8-)

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #14 –
I bare buttocks for caning in punishment for poor music theory - yep crochetty dot is the 6/8 beat.

measurements:

when metric was introduced in Oz in 1976, local paper ran april fools day article on metric time....10 days a week, 10 months a year, etc etc...caught a lot out, it did.

especially kiloseconds, that was a ripper

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #15 –
Watch out, Alan - in Europe caning is verboten - the human rights mob will be after us! And in this case would we use a cane or a baton?? And what does baton mean in French? Here we go again . . . .

Peter.

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #16 –
Marsu (reply 12),

I guess 7/8 is rarely a seven beats measure. Most probably it is a two or three beats measure, with beats of unequal lengths, e.g. 3/8 + 4/8 or 2/8 + 2/8 + 3/8.

I already sung a piece of music at 13/16, which was a five beats measure (3 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 2).

And Dave Brubeck's "blue rondo a la turk" is, in my humble opinion, a four beats measure (2 + 2 + 2 + 3), thus 9/8 is not always 3 b. measure.

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #17 –
"Beats of unequal length" is a self-contradiction, to my understanding a beat is a constant unit of time.

How the notes are grouped within a beat can, of course, vary i.e. duplets, triplets, ets. So you could have, say, three groupings in 7/8 (2 + 2 + 3) but each beat has the same time duration.

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #18 –
Just to add something on time signatures:
marsu was talking about 'compound' and 'simple' meters a few messages back and mentioned 7/8. The meters in 5 and 7 are called 'asymmetrical' meters, referring to the unequal note groupings as mentioned before. (2+2+3=7, etc...)
Isn't theory great??? ;)
-JE

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #19 –
Bruce Sagan, a maths prof from the States and brilliant gedulka (Bulgarian upright fiddle played on the cuticle) player and Hardangviolist played us a Sweish piece that was in "3". It counted like about 1.5 : 1 : 0.75 in "beats", giving it a fantastically lazy feel.

A

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #20 –
Hey, what about a new wish list for that kinda special tempi...
Though it's already achievable (?) I guess :
in the tempo track, create a measure containing an MPC (tempo item) before each beat, which changes the tempo. For example, for a 80 "regular" tempo, 1st MPC contains (in absolute value) 64, the 2nd MPC (2nd beat) contains 80, and last MPC contains 107. Now repeat that measure (using repeat bars), and this should give 1.25 / 1 / 0.75 feeling... Is that okay, Andrew ? (Am I lazy enough ??)

HTH,
        MAD

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #21 –
Fred, I won't try to convince you that a beat is not necessarily a constant unit of time, because soooo much
music uses regular beats.

Sometimes I tried to convince people that a beat is not necessarily a quarter note (e.g. a whole note), and that there exist other modes than major and minor (e.g. D or E modes), but I usually failed to convince them, even in french !

Er... maybe if I speak about heart beats, which are all but regular ?

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #22 –
Certainly there are tempo variances... fermata, accel., ritard. etc. as well as forms (the Swedish waltz was mentioned, but it's also true of the Austrian waltz and other forms) where beats are stretched or compressed in a regular manner.

But IMHO calling 7/8 the same as 3/4 is... well, stretching it a bit. ;---D

It's like saying the modes are all just variations of the same major scale, so why have modes at all.
 

Re: Rhythm tensions with choral parts

Reply #23 –
You needn't worry, I will never call 7/8 the same as 3/4 ! Sometimes I can write it 2/8+2/8+3/8, I can also say there are three unequal beats, but I will never mix up this with 3/4 or any other "three equal beats" measure.

Anyway, when I say "three beats", if I don't specify "unequal", I usually mean 3/4 or 3/1 or 3/something, the same as you do.

But it would be incorrect, in my opinion, to say that 7/8 is seven beats.