Tempo

November 19, 2004 at 08:12 AM · i dunno, i'd just mess around and see what tempo fits the character most.

November 19, 2004 at 09:46 AM · Use a metronome and subdivide...

November 19, 2004 at 11:14 AM · Greetings,

take a good look at the acocmpaniament. Teh rate of harmocic change or complexity is a good guide,

Cheers,

Buri

November 19, 2004 at 02:51 PM · I had an interesting experience with tempo this week. The choir was introduced to a song with no context sung exceedingly slowly and it was so terribly draggy. I despaired when I found out that would be the ultimate tempo and asked more about it (while the others rolled their eyes, I'm sure). The accompanist who has also soloed on radio more than once then played it in its character and a baroque phrasing and attack of the notes became apparent, that nyip nyip thing - sure enough it was written in the 1600's. I got all excited. It was singable, beautiful, suddenly the tempo was perfect. The choir members told me to shut up - they wanted to sing the notes on the page and get on with it. I made a mental note that there is more to tempo than just tempo.

November 19, 2004 at 03:52 PM · I believe that Owen Sutter's way (above) is the only way a tempo should be determined. Even if the composer wrote a metronome marking, I would play the tempo that convinces me, in preference to the composer's marking. To do otherwise would be to tell a musical lie. I would take the composer's metronome marking very seriously, trying my best to feel the music at that tempo. But ultimately a performance that has integrity will be one in which every choice of pitch, tempo, timbre etc. is the choice that is the *most beautiful* to the performer.

November 19, 2004 at 09:35 PM · Greetings,

Inge, it seems your choir confuses tempo and temper at times...

But i think the question of tempo is a very wide issue that should mention pulse and stuff like that as well. To illustrate what I mean, I wa s listening to Oistrakhplaying Mozart 4 the other day and I posed the question 'what tempo'? Tofind an 'objective' answer I got outthe metronme and was quite shocked to find it virtually impossible to pin down. It sounds like a consistent beat but actually swings through a -very- wide range of mm marks. Those fluctautions are so absolutely in response to a) the character at a given moment b) so in proportion to an overall pulse which clealry governs the whole intepretation , that one is not aware of what is happening. This is perhaps one of the najor differences between an artist and medoicrity. The latter will work religiously with metronome , try toplay 'in time' and the end result sounds ,well, not in time,

Cheers,

Buri

November 20, 2004 at 03:30 AM · (If anyone read the first part and wonders why I erased it: 5 minutes out in the car and I realized what a complete idiot I was to recognize a late baroque piece as being played in baroque style - even if I've never heard it played so baroquishly. Thanks for not correcting me.)

Thank you for giving a word for the experience: TEMPERAMENT. That is precisely what made the duet of my other thread so unplayable for me. We changed the note values of Violin II. Then my teacher as Violin I went into the character of the piece and we have utterly transformed it and are still transforming it without changing a note. Is temperament the soul of the music, then?

November 20, 2004 at 02:13 AM · Thanks guys. Someone said something to me today that made this issue a lot clearer: she reminded me that early music had no barlines, time signature or tempo marking, and that these elements have become increasingly specific from then until now. So part of how meticulously you adhere to a composer's stated tempo should perhaps depend on the period the music was written in; I've seen contemporary scores with very strict M.M. markings. The piece is question, by the way, is Haydn's G major concerto (yes, I'm still harping on about that) - so early classical, when Allegro Moderato had more to do with the character of a piece than a bpm marking. I'd kind of like to believe that this reasoning (Oliver's, of course) is still legitimate today and always will be, but I dunno. What do you think?

November 20, 2004 at 05:43 AM · Alberto Bachmann in his book

An Encyclopedia of the Violin on page 307 gives the recommended tempos for the Haydn and Beethoven quartets:

Haydn Allegros MM=84 to MM=138

Beethoven Allegros MM=84 to MM=152.

(Hope this helps in the search for 'correct' tempos!)

Bill Swackhamer

November 22, 2004 at 04:58 AM · Brilliant, good one Bill!

November 22, 2004 at 11:29 PM · Beethoven Allegros MM=84 to MM=152.

now there's a huge variation, thats like saying temperatures today will be between 10 and 90.

November 23, 2004 at 01:53 AM · Yes, true... I found that even 84 is very fast to play the Haydn. Further allowances for Allegro Moderato??

November 23, 2004 at 02:26 PM · The problem with metronome is the assimilation,advocation I should say,of a tempo to a character.For example Andante= 60 with my old mechanic metronome 80-104 with my quartz one.

Allegro means "cheerful ",not slow or fast.However ,we can hardly play cheerfully a minor melody with metronome 40 of course .

In my opinion the choice is rather in time division than speed

November 23, 2004 at 05:30 PM · Alain Lefebure wrote:

"Allegro means "cheerful ",not slow or fast."

Thank you, thank you for bringing up this important issue!

I'm grateful that the tradition amongst composers is generally to ask for a feeling, as Alain indicates, rather than for a sound...the composer is, in effect saying: "I trust you to come up with all the characteristics of sound that will put across this feeling." Therefore: Forte means "strong", not "loud". Conveying this strong feeling draws upon all of our resources of performing experience and imagination. A forte in the Brahms Horn Trio had better not be the same forte as one in a Mozart Sonata. The violin has a very limited loudness range. So when Heifetz produces a hair raising forte in the Sibelius Concerto, it is not because he's playing tremendously loudly...in fact any eight year old child taking his first trumpet lesson might well produce more loudness than Heifetz in his Sibelius performance....but Heifetz is tremendously forte (strong), when he wants to be, owing to his use of timbre, accent, rhythm, articulation and vibrato, as well as loudness alone. The same applies to the interpretation of tempo markings. They are better understood as expressive markings, rather than metronome speeds.

November 23, 2004 at 05:53 PM · I just provided a link to an article on rubato which is in fact an article on the emotion of music, in the Mutter thread. It would seem to fit here as well. Oliver, you've just helped me rethink musical notation.

November 23, 2004 at 09:57 PM · Thanks, Oliver and Alain, for the enlightenment. Makes me realise how much musical direction I take for granted based on what I was told when I was six. Oliver, your dynamic description reminds me of one of Festival Hall's 'patron rules':

Audience Participation: During tests in the Royal Festival Hall, a note played mezzo-forte (medium loud) on the horn measured at 65 decibels of sound. A single uncovered cough measured at about the same level. A handkerchief placed over the mouth while coughing assists in maintaining pianissimo (very quiet).

November 23, 2004 at 11:36 PM · Greetings,

I had to laugh over what Oliver et al mentioned. I attended a class by Vivien Mackie in which the participants were primarily professioanl musicians. She brought up precisely this point. Alas, Only about two people in thirty knew that the tempo indicator words (Andante etc)are expresisons of feeling/mood not speed. Does this mean that the music world is ready for a quantum upheaval?

Cheers,

Buri

November 24, 2004 at 07:54 AM · Iknow I am deviating from the topic but Sue's remark upon former music with no time signature needs a comment.

By that time music was ecclesiastical songs with an implicit ternary rythm in reference to 3...the Trinity Mystery and God Perfection

Later on ,when binary rythm occurs (XIV th century) trinity is marked with a cercle symbolizing the Divine Eternity with no begining and no end while binary rythm,which is imperfect, is noted with an open cercle (our actual C)

O C only indicated how to divide values, the time unit beeing whole note.

Rythm was given by the verses under the term of "Prosody"