chai@utflis.UUCP (Henry Chai) (07/11/85)
I don't have anything to contribute to this argument, but I'd like to point out a few (erroneous) things people have posted to the net under this topic: From: joel@decwrl.UUCP (Joel McCormack) > (I do suspect, though, that true genius produce quality AND > quantity...can you imagine Bach writing 40 minutes of music every 3 > years?) Haydn wrote over a hundred symphonies; Beethoven wrote only nine. Does that mean that Beethoven is less of a "true genius" then Haydn???? (if you say "yes", say it very quietly, for if the guys over at net.music.classical hear you, they will tie you inside a grand piano and play Beethoven's fifth on it till you beg for mercy ! :-) What Beethoven did was to turn the symphony from a pretty little thing like the ones Haydn wrote to a grandiose work that is easily the hardest thing to write. Since you can't even compare classical composers using quatity, it makes little sense to compare a classical and a contemporary musician using the same token. In article <373@mhuxr.UUCP> mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON) writes: >..... Bach invented the Western system of musical notation ....... >Marcel Simon NO HE DID NOT!!!!!!!!!!! The "Western system of music notation" evolved from the notation of Gregorian chants in the middle ages. At that time they used four horizontal lines, and the notes were represented by little squares, and the duration of the notes were indicated by the length of the squares, i.e. a note twice as long as the previous one would be a 2 x 1 rectangle if the previous is a 1 x 1 square. e.g. --------------##--------------- ---##----#-###--##------------- the #'s are called neumes if anyone --#--##-#-#-------###---------- cares ---------------------##-------- By the Renaissance era they used five lines and there are stems on the notes, with solid notes having 1/2 the value of "hollow' ones, but the notes were diamond-shaped. By the early Barqoue era (i.e. Bach's time) the system is more or less similar to the one used today. Bach's most significant contribution to western music is his work 'The Well-tempered Claviar'. At that time the prevalent system of tuning the keyboard instruments is the 'natural' scale, which is theorectically correct. However, 'theorectically' D# and Eb are not one and the same note, but they share the same key on a keyboard. So when playing in certain keys (e.g. F# major) the instrument will sound horribly out of tune. Somebody discovered the well-tempered scale, which is obtained by 'mistuning' some of the notes, so that the notes are (in theory) slightly out of tune in every scale, but will sound in tune in every scale because the discrepancy is very small. Bach was to first to write a work using this kind of scale. In fact, the above mentioned work used all 48 keys, (24 major and 24 minor keys), something which have never been done before. In article <3028@decwrl.UUCP> blickstein@eludom.DEC (Dave Blickstein) writes: >But I thought for the benefit of the handful of Bush fans who've been >deluging net.music recently that I'd mention that Kate Bush has a concert >film available on videotape. ... > Why thank you Dave, how nice of a non-Bush fan to contribute info on her videos! However, *REAL* Kate Bush fans knew of the existence of the "Live at the Hammersmith-Odeon" concert videotape long before the topic of KB was brought up on the net. In fact, real *Canadian* Kate Bush fans must have seen it quite a number of times since it's being shown on pay-TV channels. (they're playing it again this month; does that indicate anything about the taste of the pay TV people??? :-). -- Henry Chai Faculty of Library and Information Science, U of Toronto {watmath,ihnp4,allegra}!utzoo!utflis!chai
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (07/15/85)
> > Bach's most significant contribution to western music is his work > 'The Well-tempered Claviar'. Sounds fishy to me. Sorry, I couldn't resist, Jeff Winslow