chris perra wrote:I use the method of changing your counting based on what time signature it is.
If in 4/4 the quarter note gets the number count..... 8ths get the +'s 16th e+a's ect
If in 9/8 the eighth note gets the number count .....16ths get the +'s... ect
If in 5'16 the sixteenth notes get the number count......ect
if 4/2 ect still use quarter note counts...
Chris,
I'm with you up until that last line. Do you mean that if you see a time sig of 4/2 (where the half note would get the pulse) you are still counting the quarter notes as the pulse?
Julian,
Yes the use of the word "phrase" kills me these days. If I see or hear one more person write/say (just because they think it sounds cool, or they are trying to sound "intellectual")
"Dude, his phrasing is sick!" I think I might get homicidal.
One more thing that gets me about the overall musical language, is the MANY formal uses of the word
"beat." So I have started to substitute different words for it, (groove, pattern, pulse, etc..) especially when teaching younger people.
BUT Back on point (sorry.)
Julian you ask this, "I´m trying to see if there´s a way to percieve note values regardless the location in the bar or the relationship to the pulse..."
My initial thinking is this. No. A note value is really determined by what comes next, that determines the note value (ie. space the notes takes up.) And THAT'S really where the pulse is, in the spaces! So if you separate "attacks" (where the note begins) from space, it would seem that you would lose/alter the sense of pulse (or maybe even meter.) Which is possibly what Messiaen was going for? Or am I completely misunderstanding you?
Check this out. Try starting to play your given rhythmic idea on the last eighth note, and notice what that does to how you feel the line/phrase. Same effect as if you (for example) start a paradiddle on & or a (or play sixteenth notes in a five note grouping.) Offsetting "normal" ideas to create across the beat/bar (interesting) phrases. So maybe your question is, "When I have to read this (offset ideas as explained above) how does that affect my perception of the pulse?"
I strongly agree with you when you say this, "I guess you could treat it like 3/8 + 2/4 + 1/8? I feel that thinking that way (in this particular example) make easier thing much complicated..."
I really think of
that as subdividing the bar of 4/4, or
(actual) phrasing. To
read your example, I just conceptualize it as starting a rhythm on the & (which is what cuts the primary pulse in half.)
So aren't we really talking about the perceived difference between phrasing, subdividing, and reading here?
So it seems that your question might be, "When you "phrase" across the beat, does it alter how you think about (perceive) resolving the rhythmic line back to the beat? Which I would just answer, that it just delays the resolution point of the rhythm (ie. creates a longer phrase.) OR is it a question of where the pulse lies within the "across the beat" idea?
Interesting fact about the way that Messiaen notated, I didn't know that.
It must've made rehearsals a bitch though! Any thoughts on how viewed the Messiaen? (Way off base, in the ballpark, in a different solar system?)
Regarding the Gary Chester connection. Was he referring to this when he was having you sing a pulse. Therefore, sometimes you might be playing an idea that felt "against" what you were singing (hence the phrase "reading against the quarter note.") I believe what he was doing here was having you play rhythms (lines) going "against" your verbal pulse to strengthen your internal sense of time.
IE. It was a
excersise,
not a methodology for reading, or deciphering vocabulary. Just a guess, it's been a
loooong time since I dealt with the New Breed.
And yes, I agree, good discussion!
Are we getting closer???
MSG
)
