Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[karlhenning]

No hurry, Luke.

[lukeottevanger]

I didn't say that they were wrong. I said there are many, sometimes confusing ways to notate that. I have no absolute idea how things should be done. But I know there are many different ways which often cause things to be less than clear.

You said it was odd and strange, implying that I'd done something other composers don't do. Except that they do.

Just forget it, OK? I just meant to help. Just be ivory tower man. You are too much of a genius to accept tips from idiots like me who never got beyond scratching around in professional orchestras but never composed timeless musical materpieces. Who am I to tell a genius like you how you could be more easy to understand in your notation?

You really are very touchy, aren't you? Note here your advanced-level attempts at button-pushing:

1) the second use of the phrase 'ivory tower'. You used it last time and I responded, so you figure you'll try it again.

2) the third reference to yourself as a professional and the implied (though hidden below a layer of sarcasm) one-up-manship. I've never been a professional bassist, M, no. But I'm a well-trained, well-listened, and as far as I know well-thought-of, experienced musician nevertheless. To tell the truth I'm usually only too ready to doubt myself, but with this question of harmonic notation I'm perfectly satisfied with the way I've done things. (And let's face it, we're talking about a tiny number of very easy-to-play notes here)

3) a couple of jibes with 'genius', trying to make it appear/convince yourself that I have an inflatedly high opinion of myself. Which, if you've read any of this thread, you'll know is very far from the case.

Man, I have had to deal with people like you way too often when I still played professionally.

'People like me'? The exchange we've just had reveals nothing about me. It would do, perhaps, if you'd presented me with some alternative notations which I'd never seen before and I rejected them out of hand simply because I felt like rejecting them. And maybe that's what you think happened. But of course it wasn't - I may never have played bass professionally, but I've played string instruments enough, studied scores enough etc. etc. to know all the various alternatives. And I picked the one I thought best for my music, and am happy with it, and am willing to take the (IMO very small) risk that it will confuse the poor players far too much. I do apologise for the sins of knowing my own mind and being informed on the subject.

I have also dealt with some - very occasionally - who were actually open to practical tips and questions. Usually they were the better ones. Like Philip Glass with who I had the pleasure to work last year and who was open to questions and who wanted things to be as clear and unmistakeable for the players as possible. Reminds me of the old French bass player I once met whose father was a bass player, too, and he told me that he had told him how Ravel sometimes came to the podium in rehearsal or even concert breaks to show manuscripts to the bass and other string players and ask them if everything he wrote was clear and playable.

...Yes, Ravel was concerned to keep his scores clear and playable, you are correct. And he used this notation every time. So I guess that means he and the players he consulted with thought it was clear and playable after all....

But that is below your dignity, apparently. So you shouldn't use Ravel as an example. You are so much better than he was.

I actually had a few comments about some of the music you posted, but since you aren't even interested in a discussion of notation, I will refrain from saying what I thought. You aren't interested in real criticism anyway, just in ass kissing from other posters. Good luck with your incredible and infallible genius.

You know absolutely nothing about me and my own view of myself (which is about as far from 'I'm a genius' as can possibly be imagined - I compose because I love it, not because I think I have immortal messages for mankind) so all of this is just spouting off from someone who - let's face it - had clearly simply forgotten that Ravel (and others) wrote/write in the way he disapproved of and is now trying to find a way around this inconvenient fact. By viciousness, it seems, in the time-honoured M way.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

This great thread is being sullied!

Indeed.

[karlhenning]

Although, Luke's gracious and measured response is an inspiration.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Although, Luke's gracious and measured response is an inspiration.

He may be no genius, but he certainly is a saint (I'll get in touch with Benedict).

[Homo Aestheticus]

He may be no genius, but he certainly is a saint.

Undoubtedly.

And doesn't this thread show once and for all what a creep M Forever can often be ?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Undoubtedly.

And doesn't this thread show once and for all what a creep M Forever can often be ?

Let's stick to Luke's works, just to avoid a further derailment, my dear Debussyan.

[Homo Aestheticus]

Let's stick to Luke's works, just to avoid a further derailment, my dear Debussyan.

Agreed my friend.

[karlhenning]

Well said, Johan.

I am delighted with the finished state of Elegy & Ascent, and I don't care who knows it  

[lukeottevanger]

Have been doing a little proof-reading on E+A today, and I also heard back from the conductor, who has been through the score with a fine-tooth comb and found a couple of things to query and a couple of easy-to-rectify mistakes. (No problem with understanding the harmonics though  ). He seems very pleased with it all, so things look positive.

In a spare couple of half-hours today I also wrote a little Christmas anthem for S A and piano, in the vein of the one I wrote for the girls at my school last year. It was just on a whim - if it turns out OK maybe we'll try it out on them, but I'm easy either way.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Have been doing a little proof-reading on E+A today, and I also heard back from the conductor, who has been through the score with a fine-tooth comb and found a couple of things to query and a couple of easy-to-rectify mistakes. (No problem with understanding the harmonics though  ). He seems very pleased with it all, so things look positive.

Watson, the game is afoot!

[karlhenning]

Have been doing a little proof-reading on E+A today, and I also heard back from the conductor, who has been through the score with a fine-tooth comb and found a couple of things to query and a couple of easy-to-rectify mistakes. (No problem with understanding the harmonics though  ).

Excellent!  And especially, no surprise here:

He seems very pleased with it all, so things look positive.

Onward & upward!

[karlhenning]

So what's the word on manning the piano?  Are you under the impress?

[lukeottevanger]

So what's the word on manning the piano?  Are you under the impress?

He asked about that, actually. There's a piano concerto on the programme (Beethoven 4, yum yum) and the soloist could be asked to do it, he said, but he also implied that I'd welcome to do so to, and I think I'll take him up on that. He remembered the Carnus performance, in which the pianist drafted in - a fairly old man who I'm told died this summer, I'm sorry to say - hadn't looked things through and made a few very serious and prominent counting howlers.

By coincidence I played through the whole piano part today, for the first time as an orchestral part rather than as part of the composing process - it's very do-able.

[karlhenning]

. . . hadn't looked things through and made a few very serious and prominent counting howlers.

Hmm . . . sounds like a certain organist of recent acquaintance, in a piece by someone you know 

[Guido]

You might be playing Beethoven 4?!

EDIT: oops! Didn't see that the right way round at all.

[M forever]

Although, Luke's gracious and measured response is an inspiration.

Indeed it is. Very gracious and measured to make such a big, several-pages-long fuss out of what was simply a well-meant side remark. But then of course everything M says is evil. Good thing I didn't say anything about the music. All these threads are just for you and Karl to tell each other what geniuses you all are, and for others to confirm that. If mentioning that the harmonics notation could be clarified a little by just adding a letter or number (and how much work is that?) triggers such a response, who knows what would have happened if I had said something critical about the music? Good thing I didn't.

[karlhenning]

In a spare couple of half-hours today I also wrote a little Christmas anthem for S A and piano, in the vein of the one I wrote for the girls at my school last year. It was just on a whim - if it turns out OK maybe we'll try it out on them, but I'm easy either way.

What text?

[greg]

So Ravel, Enescu, Walton, Ades, Schnittke etc. are wrong, then?

They are all wrong! So are the books on orchestration that point out their score examples and explain this form of notation. It's just a big conspiracy, I knew it! 

[karlhenning]

They weren't all wrong.

But Adès, all right, he was wrong