Composers' ideas about how their music should sound. (philosophy)

[Madiel]

Note that it would be perfectly possible to devise a different notation convention, where a semibreve = 1 bar and a crotchet = 1 beat.

It still wouldn't tell you how many seconds long either a beat or a bar was.

[jochanaan]

What does it matter if the note values are merely "conventional" and meaningless in absolute terms, as long as musicians understand them in common?  And we do--well enough that (sometimes after I pass an audition), I could sit down with most orchestras at the community or semi-professional level (I don't claim for myself New York Philharmonic-level ability ) and play with them a piece I haven't seen before and still do a pretty good job of it.

BTW, some have said that music is a "universal language."  I do not say so much, for many do not in fact understand, say, a Beethoven symphony without some exposure and explanation.  But it is very much a common language, especially among musicians.

[Jayson]

orfeo,

I think I see where the confusion is now.

There are three different meanings of 'relative' here. Three different kinds of relations. One is the relation of a note to the clock, one is the value of one note relative to another, and one is the value of one note relative to a bar. And you're mixing all of these up as if they're one and the same thing. They're simply not. You've actually made a lot of statements that are correct, but then you try to suggest that one statement is caused by another, and frequently it isn't.

What I was intending to convey was that the duration of notes is defined by neither (A) the value of one note relative to a bar [a fixed percent] or (B) a note to the clock [a fixed millisecond or second], but instead only defined by (C) the value of one note relative to another.
I used 3/4 to show how (A) is not the case, and Tempo to show how (B) is not the case; thereby leaving us with (A) as the only means by which the duration of notes are defined.

From there, along with other considerations, I was then arguing that if the relative nature of the language is found at the fundamental levels such as this, then it cannot be expected that the language would become more exact with additional layers upon it; such as dynamics.
I then attempted to convey that I did not see this relative nature as problematic in any critical manner, as music appears to be articulated well enough for the purpose it serves.

Jochanaan,
That was my intention in all of this: to show that the entire language is relative in nature, and that even with this being so it does not appear to be a gross issue for the field.

[jochanaan]

...Jochanaan,
That was my intention in all of this: to show that the entire language is relative in nature, and that even with this being so it does not appear to be a gross issue for the field.

No worries, then.