Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[lukeottevanger]

That's an odd way to notate harmonics. Normally, the circle shows which note is to be executed as a harmonic and at which pitch it sounds.

...as in the PDF score I attached ...

The diamond is usually written over a solid note which is either the open string or a stopeed note, for artificial harmonics over stopped notes, to show where on the string the player is supposed to play the harmonic - which often results in a completely different note in a different octave. It is strange to see the two symbols mixed like this.

Trust me, M, I know about harmonic notation. There are three reasons that I notated the harmonics like this of which the first two are least important

1) this was a quick illustration for Guido, who understands cello harmonics perfectly well, as to how I obtain the desired effect here. There was no need to put in the open string over which the harmonic is played as he knows what's going on....

2) (not really a reason, but a contributory factor)for MIDI playback reasons writing out the open string (or stopped note) under the harmonic is a bit of a pain. I have a strict resolution never to let software limitations affect my notation choices, but in this case the fact is to be taken in conjunction with the fact that

3) despite what you say very often the single, unattached diamond notehead is shown like this. When this is done the implication is that the harmonic is to be played over an open string. Writing this way makes the score less cluttered and easier to read. One of the finest orchestrators and most accomplished writers for harmonics, Ravel does this all the time - e.g the closing chord of the first movement of the Rhapsodie Espagnole, in which only one of the many harmonics has the lower note written in, this being the only artificial harmonic in the chord. All the other, single diamond headed notes are to be played over open strings. (He usually notates the intended sounding note too, as here, and as I do in the original score of this piece of mine - but this was unnecessary in the above image because Guido already knew which notes were intended to sound.) This is Ravel's established practice, in fact - you'll find it all over the place in his scores. Here it is as a PDF attachment - forgive the sloppiness of the presentation, I'm at work and the staffroom PC is pretty badly equipped with image-making software!

That last reason is the most important - this way of notating natural harmonics is fairly common practice. There are many options in harmonic notation, of course, but this way (which is offered as an established method in orchestration primers) seems to me the cleanest and least cumbersome.

[Guido]

Absolutely Luke - I'm surprised that M has not seen that before - it's in countless scores (and it's also surprising that he would think that you still don't 'get it' after owning literally thousands of scores!). One could list many more examples. When one writes a diamond headed note on that E above middle C, it would be truly perverse to play it on the D string (though a harmonic does exist there).

[Guido]

It should be noted in Luke's example that the two lower staves are Double Bass, and the next two lowest are cellos (a harmonic at the augmented fourth certainly wouldn't sound as indicated if that second to bottom line were a cello part!)

[lukeottevanger]

Yes, correct. So the notation is used for double bass too. As I said before, Ravel's scores are littered with this sort of harmonic notation - his complex and frequent use of harmonics is one of the secrets of his orchestration. A book could be written about it (perhaps that's what I should have done my MPhil on....  )

[lukeottevanger]

Here's a great example from the opening of his exquisite Mallarme songs - this gorgeous texture goes on for pages and pages. Note that here he doesn't notate the sounding pitches, only the diamond-headed finger-placements - this is the sort of notation that M said was 'odd' and 'strange' earlier, but as I said, it's the standard thing with some composers.

[lukeottevanger]

(sorry, I just find all this notation stuff fascinating! I could go on about it all day...)

[lukeottevanger]

...for instance, here's a great example from Daphnis (which is absolutely chockful of this sort of notation - the very first violin notes, for instance). Here are the birds at the beginning ot the 'dawn' music. Ravel uses the single diamond notehead for natural harmonics (produced over an open string) and the diamond+normal notehead for artificial harmonics (produced over a stopped note):

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Without being an expert, I must say I knew I had encountered this kind of notation, too, but less consciously (as I was just reading along, not playing the music myself).

[karlhenning]

(sorry, I just find all this notation stuff fascinating! I could go on about it all day...)

Don't apologize; I'm the same.

[Guido]

Haven't heard those Mallarme Songs, but they certainly look beautiful!

[lukeottevanger]

They are - absolutely stunning, some of Ravel's very best. Pair them up with the Madegascan songs (another ensemble+voice number - flute, piano, cello, you will adore them!) and you have some of the greatest vocal music I know.

I'm an enormous Ravel fanatic - among the 'greats' he's the only one who is alomost alongside Janacek in my personal pantheon. (Brahms too, but he's too ubiquitous to mention.) That's why I mentioned my prospective MPhil - when I was considering doing it, Ravel was to have been the subject. To me, though, however wonderful his orchestral music, and however much it is his best-known, it's the chamber music and the songs which are absolutley essential. I'll send you links to the Mallarme and Madagascan songs later tonight....

[lukeottevanger]

With that in mind (and indulge my little diversion!)

Whether M intended it to or not, this little trip into the land of harmonic notation has prompted me towards some conclusions which I sensed but never articulated before, and for that I'm grateful. I'm always very interested in unearthing the subtle ways in which the notation (as opposed to the sound it signifies) illuminates the character of the music and its composer's preoccupations, and Ravel's use of solitary diamond-headed notes is one such.

Ravel's music, as I've said, is full of some of the most extraordinary use of harmonics I know of - but perhaps the majority, it seems to me, are the diamond-head-only natural harmonics I've been talking about above. Artificial harmonics, with the diamond+lower note notation, whilst hardly a rarity in Ravel, are certainly not as prominent. It seems to me that Ravel consciously distinguishes between the natural and the artificial harmonic - as I've shown, this distinction is made in the notation itself - and his musical conception is so fully integrated with his instrumental conception that at all points where he wishes for the 'natural harmonic' sound, the harmony is constructed so as to allow this to occur. Perhaps that's why sharp keys, and especially G major, are such favourites for Ravel's orchestral works.

Looking at Debussy - because he's so obviously comparable in other ways to Ravel - one notices a different approach. Debussy doesn't distinguish between natural and artificial harmonics as Ravel does. Where one appears, the other usually does too, both mixed up together. This equality of emphasis is reinforced by his use of the same notation for both - diamond+lower notes, the more common notation, as M described. Debussy's lack of distinction between types of harmonic - and it's common to most composers, Ravel really being an exception - is both more idealistic than Ravel (in that it makes the assumption that artificial harmonics are interchangeable with natural ones in terms of key, difficulty, sonority and technique, which they aren't) and less idealistic (in that it lacks Ravel's ultra-refined differentiation between the two.)

This inquest into harmonic notation, then, tells me something which I knew but had never put into words - that Ravel's sensitivity to string tone was so profound that it affected the actual substance of his music, not just its orchestral garb. Put another way, in Ravel, orchestration and substance are the same thing.

And then there's the appearance of the score, seen in purely aesthetic terms.  Ravel's single hollow diamonds are less cluttered, more ethereal looking, simple and suspended than the fully-written out version (or, worse, the fully-written-out-version-with-indication-of-sounding-pitch-often-including-octave-sign-or-alternative-clef which often clutters up other composers' scores - Schoenberg is a pain in this respect!). Where the latter carries with it technical advice, the single diamond is more poetic, as befits the peculiar and magical sound of the natural harmonic. So, when Ravel writes a bass line like this one, from Ma Mere l'Oye (the second bass part is entirely made up of these floating harmonics in this magical movement) the aesthetic effect is truer to the floating refinement of the music itself than a fuller, more fussy notation would have been.

I'd note in passing that another composer who uses Ravel's diamonds-only for natural harmonics is Enescu - which fact ought to reinforce my supposition that this sort of notation is used by composers who understand string technique particularly well. Enescu, however, from the scores I've seen, doesn't seem to distinguish between natural harmonics and artificial ones in terms of their sound; he doesn't shape his compositions and choose his keys so as to maximise the use of natural harmonics as Ravel seems to.

Enough on harmonics..... 

[Guido]

For a while I was fascinated by the possibilities of natural harmonics (see the Sibelius fragments... I'm sure there were many more things at one point...) - And even experimented with trying to find the most beautiful schordatura tuning that would produce more interesting combined overtone series than plain parallel fifths (a lot of notes repeat, for instance). I wish I could still find the place that wrote them down.

[Guido]

Fascinating insights too! 

[karlhenning]

Enough on harmonics.....

. . . now, impressions of celebrities . . . .

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Enough on harmonics….. 

Fascinating read, Luke. You have illuminated a difference between Ravel and Debussy (and in passing, Enescu) and - these last posts give me a strong idea of what you admire in other composers and what you are attempting yourself.

[lukeottevanger]

Brief addendum - Walton also writes harmonics this way - e.g. Mystery Score 125, from his Violin Concerto.

Also, to see some superb Ravelian natural harmonics with this diamond-head-only notation, look at his Piano Trio and his Duo Sonata, two late, great works. Tzigane, of course, with its concern for virtuosity and tone colour, is absolutely full of them too - whole lines with nothing but diamonds, melodies conceived to be played on natural-harmonics only, arpeggios in natural harmonics flying all over the place (two images attached for fun below)...

As a related issue, Ravel is fascinated by the use of harmonic glissando but, unusually for a composer of his time, he occasionally slows it down to highlight the 'out-of-tune' natural harmonics. There's a great example for trombone in Daphnis; the cello at the end of the first movement of the Piano Trio also does this, slowly climbing up the C string in a manner reminiscent of the way it climbs the G string in Ligeti's Second Quartet! Another one descends slowly from very high up on the G string (B in alt  ) in the last of the Madagascan Songs (followed by pizz. natural harmonics like distant drum beats). Speeded up, we find the same use of 'out-of-tune' partials in the harmonic glissandi of the left hand Concerto. All of these, however, been fingered at the same pitch position as the resultant sound, are written with normal noteheads+harmonic circles. I just thought it was interesting to see Ravel indulging in this exploitation of natural microtones. I wonder if RVW, who uses the same technique to the most potent effect in his 3rd symphony, learnt it from Ravel, his erstwhile teacher.... Whatever, after these two unlikely trailblazers I don't see it picked up again properly for quite a while (Ligeti being the obvious example).

And now that really is enough! (Do you think notation gets me a little too excited?      )

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

And now that really is enough! (Do you think notation gets me a little too excited?      )

No.

[lukeottevanger]

Just to show it isn't just Ravel....the first two scores I pulled out as likely suspects:

[Guido]

Ah, Arcadiana. This along with Tevot is my favourite work by Ades. That moment at the end of the second movement is just fantastic.

Very wise to include those samples or M might have claimed that this was a quirk of Ravel's writing. Who knew belabouring a point could be so much fun?!