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Commentary

Whenever I buy a music book the analysis at the beginning
is very helpful but it usually misses out the exact bars that I need help on.

Does anyone know a website where I can find full bar by bar
commentary?

Re: Commentary

Reply #1 –
What do you mean by "bar by bar"?
`Step by Step'
or "measure by measure"?

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Reply #2 –
Assuming Simon is from the UK, then he would mean 'measure by measure'. Here we do not use the term 'measure' but use 'bar' instead. It seems a lot more logical than the USA usage of 'measure', as the lines that delimit the bars/measures are called barlines are they not?!

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Reply #3 –
By the way, where does the term "bar" come from ? Isn't it from the "line" which separates two measures ?

In french, a "barre" is something which can be assimilated to a line. A "measure" is called "mesure", and a "barline" is called "barre de mesure" (i.e. barre = line and mesure = bar).

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Reply #4 –
Our language is imprecise. We have the expression, "hum a few bars," when we mean, "hum a few measures."

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Reply #5 –
yes, by bars I meant measures.

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Reply #6 –
The English expression is indeed 'Bars' and they are separated by barlines.

So don't be cowed. When others say 'hum a few measures' they actually mean 'hum a few bars' ;-)

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Reply #7 –
The Oxford English Dictionary (a British publication, let me point out), says this about bar:

!italic(16. Mus. ‘A vertical line drawn across the stave to divide a musical composition into portions of equal duration, and to indicate the periodical recurrence of the accent’ (F. Taylor in Grove Dict. Mus.)); also, the portion contained between two such lines, technically called the ‘measure.’ double bar: two parallel vertical lines, marking the close of a strain or section.

It's fairly clear, from the non-musical meanings of the word bar, that the original musical meaning was the line separating measures.  The use of the word to indicate the space between successive lines is secondary.

So when a Briton says "a few bars", he really does mean "a few measures", whether he knows it or not ;-)

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Reply #8 –
I still can't figure out what Brits mean when they have a pint of beer. It's not the meaning of "pint" that concerns me. It's what the Brits mean by "beer."

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Reply #9 –
And especially since in this context, they use "pubs" to mean "bars". ;-)

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Reply #10 –
"Pardon me boy", but what did Mack Gordon mean when he wrote "When you hear that whistle blowing eight to the bar, Then you know that Tennessee is not very far"?

Ah well, Shovel all the coal in - gotta keep a rollin!

Woo Woo.

Stephen

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Reply #11 –
I was just thinking about this last night, having (apparently) nothing of importance to occupy my brain.  Give or take the odd partial pickup measure, there's a one-to-one correspondence between measures and barlines.  This means that if the music has 8 beats per measure, it also has 8 beats per bar(line).  It's then possible to interpret the "bar" of "8 to the bar" as meaning either the line or the measure.

I think it's significant that the expression seems usually to be "<number> to the bar" rather than something like "<number> in every bar" that would explicitly identify "bar" with "measure".

Re: Commentary

Reply #12 –
To reply to the first question: as I don't where to find such as web site, I suggest you to ask the same in a newsgroup dedicated to music analysis, such as rec.music.compose, rec.music.theory or alt.music

Hope this helps!

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Reply #13 –
btw, in France if you ask for a (pint of) beer at the bar in a pub, you won't have a full measure of beer but a half. Especially if you ask for a "blanche" :)

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Reply #14 –
marsu: I still haven't recovered from that French "Demon" brand beer that I had in Rennes.

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Reply #15 –
The "bière du Démon" is a french one ? I thought it was from Belgium.

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Reply #16 –
I would have thought that if you asked for a "pint" of beer anywhere in Europe (outside the UK), you'd get either a blank look, or a "mon dieu - les Anglais!"-type look (or the local equivalent).
Anyway, nowhere outside the UK does proper beer - only lager!

Robin

Re: Commentary

Reply #17 –
Anyway, having just landed myself with all sorts of abuse about warm British beer, back to the original subject, and in particular, reply 10.

If the whistle was blowing eight to the measure, it would have been a nightmare to find anything that rhymed - quite apart from the fact that it wouldn't scan ;-)

Robin

Oh, and PS - the Czechs do a beer that's close to the proper stuff, and I had a pretty decent dark beer in Mexico.

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Reply #18 –
10 BARS 100 METERS
1BAR 10 METERS
DIVING MEASURE

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Reply #19 –
Only Belgian people should be allowed to talk about beer !

Glad though that nobody mentioned Heineken, because that's not beer, it's just 'kattepis'.

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Reply #20 –
Speak for yourself. Ever tried Miller's Light? I mean, Heineken is a textbook example of beer for the many (sorry if you feel left out) but Miller's Light is really like making love in a rowboat: ****ing close to water.
- well, anyway, when I go out, I rather have a Chouffe.

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Reply #21 –
Rob, ik had al grote vermoedens dat je een hollander waart.
Ik wou je uit je tent lokken, en het is gelukt!

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Reply #22 –
Ah well, that's no big secret. If you are a legal owner of Noteworthy Composer (and who would not want to be?!) you can have access to the newsgroup. There, it is blatantly obvious where one comes from, or at least what language they have installed in their newsreader. These little interjections, like 'schreef in bericht' and 'a écrit' are a dead giveaway.
Dus waar wacht je op? Koop Noteworthy, en als je dat al gedaan hebt, kom bij het forum! Is lachen. Ik bedoel: namen als Tina Billett, Stuart Moffatt e.v.v.a. zullen je verbazen.
Surprise toi-même!

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Reply #23 –
Some of us from "the States" agree with you.  On my (too few) visits to Belgiam I am hard pressed to try all the beers I want to.  Some of the Corolas (sp?) brews, in Mechlan, are wonderful, but I really love the Geuze at La Bécasse, behind the Bourse.

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Reply #24 –
Belgiam?
Belgium!

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Reply #25 –
Sure, sure... in Mechelen. Or is Mechlan its international name?

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Reply #26 –
Nay, I'm just the world's champion bad-speller.  It verges on orthographobia!  And I'm not home where I have a free-floating spelling corrector, I'm visiting my son's family in California and working on a lousy laptop.  Hate the keyboard!  All my apologies for the garbled names -- the beer is still good, though.

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Reply #27 –
And I'm not home where I have a free-floating spelling corrector...
Click the Preview button instead of the Submit button.
 

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Reply #28 –
As I recall (which may be wrong, but is why I didn't use it) it only shows you words it doesn't recognize, but doesn't give you possible alternatives.  Besides, I doubt it would have helped with Mechelen!