Excuse me butting in, but... not sequitur. One thing is notation, another is how this notation is turned into sound, the same as talking. You will agree that 20 people in the world might read the same word differently, even if the notation of that word does not change. The way you say "rhythm" is different from the way I say "rhythm" and that is again different from the way Joe does and that is different from how Andrew and Chris do, yet the word has not changed in any way nor could it be spelled differently without creating a new word. You probably roll the r and so will Andrew (if he is a Scot), but your r will be different from his, and yet the word remains as it is and not amount of spelling will reproduce your pronunciation or mine, unless, of course, you use phonetic spelling, which no one, apart from Prof. Higgins, can understand.

I would say it is impossible to write any piece of music as it actually is played by anyone. What you are talking about is not rhythm, but its notation. Rubato changes the rhythm so slighly that it would be impossible to notate, yet, when we hear a a piece played with rubato, we are normally able to write it down using the same symbols the composer uses, the same way I can hear you say that word and write "rhythm" and not rheethm" or rhuthm" or rheythum".

You tak of the orchestra. Have you forgotten that the orchestra is no longer a series of individuals, but a gigantic, unitary, instrument in the hands of a master (in the sense of principal) musician? And do you not consider that rehersals exist and that all the orchestra know how the master musician wants them to play? You also do not consider that there is another way to keep ensemble, and that is not to follow a rhythm, but to follow the music. That is, the timanist know when to come in not because he is going upt-da-da, but because he knows he comes in just after the violins have stated the second theme. This does not change, no matter how much rubato the violins have used, because the clue is not the rhytm, but the theme.

Richard I think your arguments fail on several accouonts.
A. The analogy from language pronounciation actaually proves my point in that whether you say "shed-jule" or "sked-jule" the spelling (i.e. the notated rhythm) is nonetheless "schedule." More importantly, always and for ever, the rhythm of an 8th followed by two 16ths followed by a 1/4 note is the same, whether played by different players or even different instruments. This is why some have so many comments regarding their performances here on the subject of rhythm (or as some call it "timing" -- an unmusical term). Further there is no distinction between rhythm and notation. One is the visual expression of the abstract other. In music, notation has primarily two domains, pitch and rhythm. For the advanced musician, to see the rhythm is to hear it, and to hear the rhythm is to see it.

B. In many traditional conservatories, part of the musical training of the students is the ability to take increasingly difficult levels of dictation (melodic, harmonic and contrapuntal). There is only one correct answer to such exercises, even to the use of the proper enharmonic spelling of notes. Therefore, music is documentable as the literature amply supports. To make the claim that a score is a representation of an actual execution is spurious; to attempt to do so is to reduce a score to nothing more than a series of input directions for a machine (like the rolls used for pianos). Nobody is arguing this.

C. Have you ever directed an orchestra? I have. Believe me when I say that an orchestra is an assembly of distinct individuals joined in effort to make ensemble. (If you prefer to use a chamber group (who has no conductor) then do so.) The conductor does not "play" a "unitary instrument" anymore than a general fights a war. They both simply lead the affair. The success of an orchestral performance is entirely dependent upon the musical understanding of rhythm (and meter) of every individual musician.

Ultimately my difference with Joe is nothing more than one of perspective: scientific/physical vs psychological/artistic. Both are part of the phenomenon of music making.

Good, although I would point out that I also (briefly) explored it above in differentiating between (1) scientific principles behind what constitutes a performance of music and (2) a listener's perception of those principles (perception I take to be similar to your use of "psychology"). Mathematical and scientific principles are, in fact, behind every quantitative and qualitative perception that one has. For a second example, consider another artistic medium, such as painting. Painting also has two basic elements that are behind every brush stroke: shape and color. The shape is the summation of the geometric elements that comprise it -- lines, points, etc.; color exists according to a spectrum, affected by light properties as interpreted by the eye. Both of these can be explained through argument. This brings me to your next point:



I'm not entirely clear on what you mean by this, but if it's what I think, then I believe it is a mistake, a conflation of two ideas. It isn't possible to make a deductive argument in defense of either psychology (for a discussion of why psychology is not evidence-based and thus has no valid arguments behind it, I would recommend reading Paul Lutus's excellent blog) or a listener's musical perception. This is simply an emotional reaction to what one hears, affects one's appreciation (i.e., liking or disliking) of the music (as you say, "artistic understanding"), and is neither right nor wrong. This is not to say that one cannot examine one's perceptions and use them as the point of departure for developing an argument. But an argument's purpose is, in the end, to discover truth (i.e., distinguish truth from falsehood) and such an exercise is always rooted in the scientific method of investigation, as (largely) developed by Aristotle.



No, this is a nonsequitur. Notation simply refers to the system a composer uses to mark his score. It exists independent of anything the performer does. The performer, in manipulating tempo and rhythm (i.e. duration), does so on a continuum. Just as musical pitches exist on a continuum (Bartok I believe even wrote a piece in quarter tones), so too does rhythm, and to apply rubato is of necessity to change rhythm within that continuum (e.g., something in between an 8th and a 16th in the example of the Chopin prelude above). This is what can make performances infinitely interesting: since numbers and their variations and divisions can go on infinitely, so too is a performer's ability to manipulate them infinite. I think the best adn most original performers are aware of more degrees of the variations within that continuum.



I think the conception of Occam's Razor is a philosophical copout. We shouldn't be self-consciously simplifying our assumptions, because in doing so, we might make a mistake or ignore an important piece of evidence. We only want to use just as many assumptions as we need to make our points. I would quote Wikipedia: "The simplest available theory need not be most accurate" and also "However, on many occasions Occam's razor has stifled or delayed scientific progress.[13] For example, appeals to simplicity were used to deny the phenomena of meteorites, ball lightning, continental drift, and reverse transcriptase. It originally rejected DNA as the carrier of genetic information in favor of proteins, since proteins provided the simpler explanation." This is clearly a very harmful way of thinking since it can ignore elements of the evidence solely to try to twist the "available evidence" to one's own ends.

In your example, an orchestra's maintaining of ensemble is a different issue altogether: synchronization. This wouldn't mean that the entire orchestra, playing as one (just as the pianist plays as one), is attempting to follow the instructions of the conductor and in doing so, is attempting to achieve rubato, very difficult to bring off, but possible (within a reasonable margin of error again, since again, perfect synchronization, especially if a mathematical approach to rhythm is deviated from, is never possible for human beings).

Joe,
Rather than accept my gesture of convergence (we treating opposite sides of the same coin) you would rather belabor your point more than I wish to do so mine. I feel that I have made a reasonable (and musical) explanation and distinction, and have welcomed your stimulus to go one level deeper than at first. I'm happy to leave my arguments where they are for others to evaluate. Thanks for the stimulating conversation.

Respectfully,
Eddy

I don't believe I have belabored my point, only pointed out an obvious logical error with the term "musical argument," which is a contradiction in terms. Richard also did similarly on certain points, but you didn't want to listen to him either. I can't tell you how many times I've been disabused of a faulty line of reasoning in my life and accepted it rather than having to beat it down to protect my own ego, but you never seem able to do this and raise all kinds of irrelevancies and straw men that don't respond to people you argue with (just my observation). Oh well, I won't beat a dead horse any longer. Thank you as well for the conversation.

Wow, Gentlemen, what an interesting discussion that was.

I'm with Eddy on this one. For any particular extract of notated music, its rhythm is independent of tempo and of rubato (rubato being nothing but a tempo fluctuation). If you don't agree with that, then your understanding of what "rhythm" means must differ from Eddy's (and mine).

This can all be explained in simple mathematical terms without resorting to the psychology of perception.

Let's take as example an extract which is notated as a sequence of note pairs, in which the first note of each pair is a dotted 8th and the other is a 16th. This is generally called a dotted rhythm, so we can already see how inextricably notation and rhythm are linked. But basically rhythm is how the durations of neighbouring notes (or rests) relate to each other. If played at a constant speed, then the duration ratio of successive notes will be 3:1:3:1:... If played at 60 quarter note beats to the minute, then each 16th will last 250ms, and each dotted 8th 750ms. Play it at any other (but still constant) speed, and the durations will change by some factor, but by the same factor for all notes. The duration ratio will be unchanged, it remains 3:1 at any speed. Different constant speed, same rhythm.

Where confusion creeps in is when the tempo changes. Sudden instantaneous changes aren't a problem, but smooth gradual changes will cause duration ratios to become distorted. Suppose we are to accelerate from 60bpm at the start of our extract to 120bpm at the end. The acceleration may or may not be linear (and if it is, it might be with respect to time (if it takes you 30 seconds to accelerate from 60 to 120 then after 15s your instantaneous tempo would be 90bpm) or it might be with respect to "distance", i.e. your tempo would be 90bps after you've played half the notes in the extract). But irrespective of whether the acceleration is linear, logarithmic, or something else, partway through the extract a particular 16th note might last 200ms, and while the two dotted 8ths either side of it will then last 600ms approximately, they won't exactly. This is because tempo (and therefore the duration multiplier factor) is changing gradually all the time, and will be a little bit faster (tempo) or smaller (duration multiplier factor) during the 16th note than it was during the preceding dotted 8th, and a little slower/bigger than during the following dotted 8th. One will be a little longer than 600ms, the other a little shorter.

This distortion leads to a different perceived rhythm (that is, the duration ratios are no longer 3:1:3:1), but Eddy's point is, I think, that the underlying rhythm is still unchanged, and it's only the tempo that's changing underneath it. His definition of rhythm isn't what's perceived by the listener at the duration level, it is what the performer "knows" the rhythm to be, and a listener who is parsing the performance properly will intuitively latch onto that "proper" rhythm, and will subconsciously "undo" the distortion and thereby become aware of the nature of the tempo change. Different varying speed, same rhythm.

Gentle gradual tempo changes will cause only minimal rhythmic distortion, but tempo changes associated with rubato can at times be quite severe, to the extent that the "real" rhythm can become unrecognisable except by those who are familiar with the piece.

Eddy's example of several players in an orchestra or chamber group staying in sync during rubato is a good one. They succeed because they are still basically playing the same rhythm while independently getting faster or slower at a rate which is easy to agree on, with or without the aid of a conductor.

Notation is irrelevant to this discussion. Yes, of course notation is independent of tempo and rubato. That's in fact the salient point. This discussion is about performance, not about notation.



Again, this is specifically about performance, not the rhythm groupings that the composer wrote in the score or what the performer knows about the score. The only concern is what actually happens in a performance. What is actually happening in the actual performance is that the rhythm is changing by fractions on a numerical continuum. To claim otherwise would be tantamount to saying that there aren't numerous gradations in between fractions like 1/3 and 3/8, which reduced to its most elementary principles, is all rhythm is.

I thought the discussion was about rhythm. It seems to me that you and he are simply attaching different meanings to the word "rhythm", and that is why the discussion is doomed to fail to end in agreement.
Well there you go, the two of you are at least agreed that rubato is about tempo. We now just need to understand what we all mean by "rhythm".

There are essentially two kinds of rhythm; there is that which is basically identical with notation, we might call this "raw rhythm", and there is that which comes out in performance, what the listener hears, we can call this "perceived rhythm". The latter is in general a distorted version of the former, except in the absence of rubato - at constant speed the two are the same. The latter is the product of applying the tempo changes/fluctuations to the former. It is obvious that in the presence of rubato, the perceived rhythm changes as the nature of the rubato changes, but the raw rhythm stays the same.

Is it not simply the case that when you talk about rhythm you mean "perceived rhythm" whereas Eddy means "raw rhythm"?
Ah well, you see, that statement is true only with one of the above definitions of rhythm, and not the other. Eddy cannot fail to agree that in a performance involving rubato the durations of the affected notes, and hence their ratios, change by nuances (or sometimes rather more), but to him that's not what rhythm is. For him the rhythm is fixed, and only its image under the transformation function which applies the rubato, is what changes.

Yes, exactly, I think you've pinpointed it there. I actually have since come to realize myself that it seems he was defining rhythm specifically as the notation of durations written by the composer. But if that is indeed the case, I think that is obviously too restrictive. In terms of the way the term is used, rhythm is clearly both the notation aspect and the performance aspect. For otherwise, why talk about a performer's "interesting rhythm" or "use of rhythm" at all?



Actually, I edited my above response to take out that portion because I quickly misread "rubato" as "rhythm" in your response, which made what I had originally said incorrect



Yes, your explanation of his argument now makes sense to me. That does seem to be what he's claiming and as I previously stated, I don't think it's right. Of course, there is notated rhythm but in performance that is not the relevant consideration: rather, it is "applied rhythm." Both are essential parts of the definition, but notation doesn't strictly relate to the performance aspect, and thus is not relevant to the particular topic under discussion here, which is performance.

It seems you have departed, or so you say further on. How can you say that rhythm (writhm, rithm, rhithm, rythm, wrythm...) and its notation are the same? You mention the advanced musician. But he is like the advanced reader, for whom the notation of a word will bring to mind the word itself, but not because the spelling and the word are a unit, but because he knows the conventions that suround the notation. Of course at a conservatory one can take musical dictation (I have taken it, even if I never went to one), but only because the notation has been taught beforehand. Music, different from language, only has one notation (until such time as someone will invent another). Now, if you were to place in a room an Englishman and a Russian and were to dictate to them the English word for the American "elevator" without telling them which notation to use, you would get... lift in latin and lift in Cyrillic characters. Same word, same meaning, same pronunciation even, but different notations.

As you say, an orchestra is "assembly of distinct individuals joined in effort to make ensemble" but you forget to add, "under the direction" of someone , who is ultimately responsible for the success or not of the performance. This, as noted bellow, is called syncronisation.

Hi Chris,

I liked your interpretation of the first movement. It has a wide range of expression. I like your pedaling and the playing was very clear.

I prefer to hear the second movement played in a more relaxed tempo. You create nice long lines and bring out some very moving small motifs. Your chords in the choral part are nicely contrasted with the left and right hand scale like passages which are played in a very forthright and engaging fashion.

The third movement is amazing from a technical point of view. It is so difficult to play. You put some really elegant spirit into the expression. Perhaps it needs a bit more dynamic shading,

Thank you for an enjoyable listening experience.

Kaila

In order to clarify this interesting terminological question and relate it to some present practical examples: in Für Alina a few items down the list the long notes are not equally long. In your opinion, is this an expression of different rhythm or is it a rubato?

(Sorry Chris, your thread was already hijacked!)

Replied to in new thread at viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5284&p=53874#p53874

Thank you Kaila ! Nice to see someone staying on-topic for a change

Excellent effort and result, Chris! It's very difficult to record an entire sonata, or at least psychologically you have to learn three pieces for the sake of playing one. If I had to nit pick anything it would be dynamic contrast on the crescendos and decrescendos. Otherwise the rhythmic drive is sustained throughout the piece in true Beethovenesque style.

It seems the piano is very close to nearby walls because I am hearing a definite slap back into the mics and the reverb is only enhancing this. I have the same problem in my room too - a large room, but the piano is close to nearby walls. Try increasing the pre-delay on the reverb setting if there is one. This will delay the onset of the reverb so that the early harsh reflections are not carried into the reverb tail...
Regardless, this is a great achievement - an excellent recording!

George