Que buena explicación, sin usar un lenguaje confuso y aburrido, muchas gracias por este aporte, saludos desde la República Dominicana, la tierra del Merengue.
These videos are such a joy to watch. Looking forward to a video about mensural notation! I suspect there will be some connection back to this one, regarding perfect/imperfect tempus and minor/major prolation (without knowing too much...)
Quite fascinating! I have to chuckle when reminded of a "hemiola" - my friends and I used to joke about a hemiola being a blood disease. It makes me smile to think about that.
Ô combien intéressantes, simples et clairement énoncées sont ces belles capsules historico-musicales ! Merci beaucoup d’offrir à tous de si beaux produits !
Sadly, choral directors generally have only modern editions to go on, and this adds to the difficulty. But thank you for this excellent exposition of the problem. As ever, the scholarship of the presentation is made incredibly easy to follow because of the clarity of the structure and the really polished use of graphics. Oh, and the choice of examples. And the wide-ranging sources. And the clear love of the music that is evident everywhere. In short - I wish that all instructional videos were like this!
Thank you, thank you! for your brilliant exposition of this recondite subject, and for your general open-minded, musicianly stance. I have several times in my career encountered people who have attempted to apply the theory of the tactus and of the proportions to the interpretation of much later music than you discuss, and have done so in a rigid and doctrinaire manner; and your presentation, aside from its historical brilliance, serves to remind us that we might profit from following the old masters' flexibility in our musical thoughts and deeds, particularly when dealing with a theoretical system which was subject to subjective, personal interpretation from the start.
Some years ago I bought Fritz Rotschild's volume "The Lost Tradition in Music", dealing with these problems in XVII- and XVIII-Century Music; althought it's now out of printing (and as such you have to find an older, used copy for sale) I've found it to be a good starting point on the topic.
Please continue producing these extremely insightful videos. It is a wonderful source of knowledge - even for me, a classical saxophonist who focuses on much later composers.
soy estudiante de música en concepción, Chile, y agradezco mucho sus aportes teórico musicales...estoy viendo todos sus vídeos, mientras estén subtitulados jejej..muchas gracias por sus aportes👏👏👏 saludos 😉😉
so fascinating. It amazes me to some extent just how imprecise tempos and notations were at the outset of such a robustly productive and creative century. One can only wonder what the later Baroque titans like Bach, Handel and Scarlatti made of all the ideas that they inherited? How did they make their way through it and arrive at more consistent values, such as temperament and tempos.
I have been binge-ing on these for some days now. Thanks so much for all the hard work and interesting insights. Makes one feel so much easier about taking on and interpreting this music (especially the fact that confusions seems to have reigned for ever.) It also makes being dogmatic about the music much harder. Bravo!
Thank you as always for these fantastic explanations of complex and specialised topics. I wish this one had existed when I was a student trying to understand what on earth Roger Bowers was talking about.
Excellent video, thank you! I research and reconstruct dances of that period and oh how many times did i that facepalm when trying to figure out what exactly these long dead people were trying to tell with their musical texts. Things are further complicated by the fact that most of them were dancers, not musicians, and had shaky understanding of contemporary musical theory and notation.
one of the most controversial topic in HIP. Thank you for well-reasoned video. Lately it seems the conception of tactus is being so intensively promoted by some (group of) musicians as almost a 'must'. But I am not convinced yet really. Thank you
You mention the Renaissance association of the human heart pulse with the tactus. In the mid-18th century, Johann Joachim Quantz recommended using the heart beat rate as a basis for tempo, defining it as 80 beats per minute. I mentioned this to my physician, who was surprised, and said that the modern medical standard human pulse rate is 72 neats per minute.
Excellent, as usual! I am being tought this topic right now and it's a real pin in the eye! Thank you! Your videos are most helpful! By the way, I loved the last music sheet in Hebrew! I always wondered how would they underlay the text since the music is written right in the opposite direction. I'd like to see more examples of it.
Regarding the discussion at 6:32, about de confusion between Sesquialtera and Tripla, Dr. Julia Dokter summarize Praetorius' teachings in the page 28 of her Doctoral Dissertation "Tactus and Tempo in Organ Music from the German Barroque". According to this, Tripla include three semibreves proportional to two semibreves in duplum meter, and it must be associated with Alla breve (cut C) and then with the Motet style. In the other hand, Sesquialtera include three minims proportional to two minims in duplum meter, and must be associated to Alla semibreve (C) and then with Madrigal style. According to the explanation that she previously made regarding the tempo relationship between Motete and Madrigal, it could not be the same Tripla and Sesquialtera. The confusion could be explained by following the italian tradition, Tripla was originally signed as cut C 3/2 (with three semibreves in a time of two semibreves); however, due to of the misuse of this time signature, Praetorius settled the notation convention: 3/1 or only 3 (with three semibreves), in order to distinguish from Sesquialtera, and not because it represents 3 notes in a time of one note.
So clear... and confusing at the same time :D Thank you for these truly helpful videos, and congrats for the graphic work that helps to have a bit fun with these hard subjects 👍 Subscribed!
This was both instructive and illuminating, in terms of how to count a bar line. I also know that in the realm of the 19'th century performance practices there are all kinds of discussions and fights going on about how to count music that was laid down with metronome markings. I know of a guy in Belgium, I won't give his name because it will only get me into trouble, who I initially was very supportive of until I saw, in my judgement, that he took the metronome markings and made them first into a fetish and secondly imposed a whole beat counting which lead to rather slow or very slow performance interpretations. It got so bad that I no longer comment on his channel and I find some of the interpretations, especially of Beethoven, to be unacceptable; they make me squirm with discomfort. I look forward to learning more from you about the historical patterns of counting. I love your material. It could not have come to me at a more opportune time in my life. HatsLacha.
There's a recent article by two Spanish researchers arguing that Beethoven's metronome marks make perfect sense (I.e. the usual performance tradition is completely correct) if you suppose that, as an early adopter of the metronome, he read the marking from the point of the little downward arrow thingie instead of the flat top - which is what about 50% of people do if they've never used a mechanical metronome before. It's a beautiful lesson in product design.
Thank you for these wonderful resources Elam! Any chance of a video about 17th-century aesthetics in vocal production/sound and technique at some point? It seems to be a widely debated topic and I'd love to hear what the sources really say about it.
@@hojowarf6488 No, because of the necessities of musical notation Salomone Rossi eventually decided to "sacrifice" the right-to-left order of Hebrew Script for the left-to-right typical of Latin alphabet and Western Notation; if you can read Hebrew, you should on the contrary be aware of the fact the text is written "inverted" in respect to the order you would expect.
Thank you again for this excellent video of which I will feature a little bit in my video of today, of course referring to the link and asking my viewers to subscribe to your channel. It's a pity that in the pendulum and metronome discussions so few scholars want to make the obvious bridge to the obvious meaning of Tact when talking on a Metronome or Taktmesser. It's essential in understanding the use of the metronome as well (at least as I believe it is).
Frankly, if conducting in three, typically, indicating the second beat is more important than indicating the third. It's too late to get the group playing together by waiting until the third beat. They need to know where the second beat's tempo is, be it drawn out or moved ahead. I learned this decades ago thanks to a program about Seiji Ozawa that was on PBS, and, in one segment, he was explaining this very thing to someone, and I found, in my own conducting, that it really, really works.
Congratulation, great channel, which I visit very often. Your explanations are very clear and useful. But what's about pure instrumental music. Sometime I feel rather insecure in changing time...
If you've already discussed this, I apologize, but - I couldn't help but think as I watched the video, how does Tactus relate to modern practices in regards to conducting? Most of my own musical experience revolves around choral performance, of course, including one course on the basics of conducting. (Which I almost failed!) So now I wonder a bit, how did we come to our modern way of directing a musical group? I recall in other videos of yours that some choirs functioned without ANY direction as such, because the standard of practice was much more demanding of those performers: they had to really, really know their stuff and knew they'd be expected to work together in performance in that way. So were directors in the "modern choir" sense even a thing?
Hi Elam, how are you? I find your videos very satisfying to watch, interesting and fresh. Thank you very much. I have a question regarding the last part of your video where you have a text in Hebrew over a score. how this is matched, since hebrew is red from right to left and music from left to right? Thank you and Shana Tova!
In this case, the complete words are placed under the last note where the word should end, and the singer should distribute the syllables. In most cases, it is one note per syllable so it's quite straightforward. You can see the sources here: imslp.org/wiki/Hashirim_asher_leSholomo_(Rossi%2C_Salamone)
Thank you for that excellent video! Only last week I wondered about the proportion signs in Alonso Mudarra's "Tres libros de musica en cifras para vihuela" (1546). The preface explains that a alla-breve-like sign signifies a slower(!) tempo ("ha de ir despacio") . But some recordings use definitely a faster tempo instead of a slower one. An interesting and baffling topic...
Never ever trust recordings!!! We can like one recording, and inspired, but nothing beats going to see the actual sources and work them directly regardless of what other did!!!
Well done, as usual! One query: I would have expected (ca. 1600, and for quite a while afterwards) the penultimate note (G, imperfect breve) in the example of sesquialtera at around 7:15 to be black -- a consequence of the "similis ante similem perfecta" rule, which was still observed at least to the extent of causing coloration in contexts such as this. (And similarly, a black semibreve in the alla semibreve example.)
You are completely right. In this context I tried to avoid extra things to explain. Perhaps in an episode about older mensural notation this will be mentioned.
I thought something like that might be the case. It certainly would complicate things to have to explain in this video about coloration and its persistence into the 17th century! Thanks for the quick reply.
Dank je voor deze uitleg. We zingen met het koor "Allons, Gay Bergeres" van Guillaume Costeley (?1531-1606) in moderne notatie. Het werk was genoteerd in 4/4 van begin tot het einde. Het was echter onmogelijk om het refrein vrolijk te laten klinken (volgens de tekst) en op het einde de zestiende noten nog betekenis te geven. Ik heb het refrein in "alla breve" gezet en de strofen in "common time". De harmonisatie, de woordexpressie en de stemvoeringen komen nu tot hun recht. Bedankt. Of is het Preatorius die ik moet bedanken ? ;-)
Thank you very much! Note that since your website update, the Footnotes link leads to an error page. The working link is www.earlymusicsources.com/youtube/tactus1600
Very interesting. I wonder if any of this is relevant to Wim Winter's theory on metronome marks, according to which the back and forth movement of the metronome's pendulum marks the two parts of the tactus. (See his UA-cam channel AuthenticSound for more.)
since i don`t have thorough study in this business (though I understand and can, though not easily, execute these subdivisions) i I `m bound to sort of guess about the lengths of the notes in modern editions…. mostly a sound understanding of the text gives some idea about how to sing going from 2 to 3 or 4 to 6 or so…..
Is it "fastidiosus in anes", or "fastidiosus inanes"? "In anes" mean nothing in latin, "inanes" mean "empty" or "empty-handed": "And sends the rich away with nothing". Just like in the Magnificat: "Esurientes implevit bonis, et divites dimisit inanes." "He has filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he has sent away empty."
Thank you very much! Very pecific topic for me. I understand the idea of proportion. But still the part about tactus conception as of stable ruthm (often measured by pendulum) stays a bit controversal for me. To me European musical tradition does not really operate with rythm as independent semantical element of music.... it is almost always a result of pitch realtions in time. I cannot understand implication of 'outside' timing that keeps beating irrespectively of what is going in music. What would you think about it?
A Big part of European music is dance music from quite early in history. And although you can always find exceptions, the number one rule when doing music to accompany the dancers (yesterday and now) is "keep the tempo and pulsation to not confuse the dancers" rythm and pulsation is not valid only in other cultures. And European musicians had these parameters while writing music.
@@mauricioamf Of course there were dances. But it is a different topic imho... what I see now is that players often mix notions of tactus and metronome and I really feel that it is wrong. As it is often happens in HIP they take something for granted without really understanding it. Tactus seems to me more like breath and regularity and consistence of it in music is much connected with character, affection, passion... because it is liveing creature that breathes. But still I do not get it practically from the sources... I think Furtwangler had the greatest tactus ever probably... you see what I mean?
@@MrJonahWhaler you do ancient music? If you want rythm, go see ars Nova, those crazy rythms, or really nice things from Agricola. But I don't really get what you say, furtwangler knows nothing about ancient music (he is a great musician, but really nothing interesting for ancient music) And there are lots of treatises taking about tempus perfectum, that in theory is the same for all ancient music (60-80bpm) but what musicians do with the same temps makes lots of different music.
@@mauricioamf I do play and study early music, Furtwangler's records of Bach are the greatest I ever heard, someone saying 'nothing interesting' about it puts me out of communicational context actually. There are much more things you have to do making music than following those written in treatisies. I do not deny the necessacity of study of course but I also strongly disagree with many things in HIP movement that often seem to be taken for granted now and that often makes it a last refugee of mediocracy. It is a long dicussion though and deffinitely not for this format. Initially what I wanted to say: whever I study something in early music sources I cannot use it in performance untill I artistically feel and hear how it works as a meaningful element of the musical piece. And I sad that the tactus is still the most controversal notion for me probably. I read a lot and heard from many competent players the explanation of it and still I am not convinced with musical result they offer. THis is what I meant.
@@MrJonahWhaler well, you must be doing HIP wrong or with the wrong people, I urge you to hear what people in Lyon, Geneva, bale, or Versailles are doing, cause it's really far far from what American people do... many good musicologists tho, but really not a lot of interesting things in ancient music, and Bach it's really beautiful in modern interpretation, I like some of them, but you cannot just think that HIP is not beautiful if you've never heard truly good musicians doing it.
Have you seen Wim Winters' channel? His focus is a bit later than yours (Beethoven, Czerny, and Chopin) but he's doing some fascinating research into the way the concept of the two-part Tactus was incorporated into early metronome markings.
2:20 what a absolute unit this Tactus is
A GREAT lesson and what an incredible video editing skills you have... thank you for sharing this!
Thank you. nice to have you here!
Ew authentic sounds. Mr cult leader using early music sources as an attempt to justify his ridiculous beliefs.
Etam. You literally have some of the best videos on UA-cam dude. Seriously. Bravo.
🤘
Que buena explicación, sin usar un lenguaje confuso y aburrido, muchas gracias por este aporte, saludos desde la República Dominicana, la tierra del Merengue.
everytime i hear the theme 🎶 i know i'm about to be enlightened or has just been... thanks Elam & team 👊 🙂
I love your work. It's just exceptional.
These videos are such a joy to watch. Looking forward to a video about mensural notation! I suspect there will be some connection back to this one, regarding perfect/imperfect tempus and minor/major prolation (without knowing too much...)
How many videos will he have to do if goes trough mensural notation!? And Ars Nova !!!!! Yay!!!
Quite fascinating! I have to chuckle when reminded of a "hemiola" - my friends and I used to joke about a hemiola being a blood disease. It makes me smile to think about that.
I am very grateful that such wonder youtube channel like this exists!
Grazie infinite. Siete eccezionali! Con le vostre spiegazioni la musica antica risorge. Bravissimi!!!❤
I love this channel! Thank you
Ô combien intéressantes, simples et clairement énoncées sont ces belles capsules historico-musicales ! Merci beaucoup d’offrir à tous de si beaux produits !
Sadly, choral directors generally have only modern editions to go on, and this adds to the difficulty. But thank you for this excellent exposition of the problem. As ever, the scholarship of the presentation is made incredibly easy to follow because of the clarity of the structure and the really polished use of graphics. Oh, and the choice of examples. And the wide-ranging sources. And the clear love of the music that is evident everywhere. In short - I wish that all instructional videos were like this!
Thank you, thank you! for your brilliant exposition of this recondite subject, and for your general open-minded, musicianly stance. I have several times in my career encountered people who have attempted to apply the theory of the tactus and of the proportions to the interpretation of much later music than you discuss, and have done so in a rigid and doctrinaire manner; and your presentation, aside from its historical brilliance, serves to remind us that we might profit from following the old masters' flexibility in our musical thoughts and deeds, particularly when dealing with a theoretical system which was subject to subjective, personal interpretation from the start.
This is an awesome series with great production.
Very great again! I'm beginning to understand and get a feeling for such notation.
Very helpful in understanding a difficult topic. Thank you for all of your good work!
Nice work! I dont understand how somoeone can dislike your videos...so many good research!
Some years ago I bought Fritz Rotschild's volume "The Lost Tradition in Music", dealing with these problems in XVII- and XVIII-Century Music; althought it's now out of printing (and as such you have to find an older, used copy for sale) I've found it to be a good starting point on the topic.
This channel is pure gold! Thank you so much!!!!
Yes! I look forward to the video. Everything you upload is great!
What an incredible video, thanks!!!!
Well, that explains it! LOL. This was a great program about a complex subject. I love the tortoise and the hare.
Wonderful Video, Thank You!
Fascinating and thank you!
Please continue producing these extremely insightful videos. It is a wonderful source of knowledge - even for me, a classical saxophonist who focuses on much later composers.
You've just become one of my favortie channels. Subscribed.
soy estudiante de música en concepción, Chile, y agradezco mucho sus aportes teórico musicales...estoy viendo todos sus vídeos, mientras estén subtitulados jejej..muchas gracias por sus aportes👏👏👏 saludos 😉😉
so fascinating. It amazes me to some extent just how imprecise tempos and notations were at the outset of such a robustly productive and creative century. One can only wonder what the later Baroque titans like Bach, Handel and Scarlatti made of all the ideas that they inherited? How did they make their way through it and arrive at more consistent values, such as temperament and tempos.
I have been binge-ing on these for some days now. Thanks so much for all the hard work and interesting insights. Makes one feel so much easier about taking on and interpreting this music (especially the fact that confusions seems to have reigned for ever.) It also makes being dogmatic about the music much harder. Bravo!
Really enjoyed your documentary.
Insomma, per dirla alla breve, sono cut-c!
Thank yo so much!
Thank you very much! Great lesson!
Thank you Elam... Again ☺️
This is just amazing!!! I am sending it to everyone
Thank you as always for these fantastic explanations of complex and specialised topics. I wish this one had existed when I was a student trying to understand what on earth Roger Bowers was talking about.
You guys are amazing! Cheers
Excellent video, thank you! I research and reconstruct dances of that period and oh how many times did i that facepalm when trying to figure out what exactly these long dead people were trying to tell with their musical texts. Things are further complicated by the fact that most of them were dancers, not musicians, and had shaky understanding of contemporary musical theory and notation.
one of the most controversial topic in HIP. Thank you for well-reasoned video. Lately it seems the conception of tactus is being so intensively promoted by some (group of) musicians as almost a 'must'. But I am not convinced yet really. Thank you
Interesting and educational video. Quite useful. Ta!
Greetings from Chile.
You mention the Renaissance association of the human heart pulse with the tactus. In the mid-18th century, Johann Joachim Quantz recommended using the heart beat rate as a basis for tempo, defining it as 80 beats per minute. I mentioned this to my physician, who was surprised, and said that the modern medical standard human pulse rate is 72 neats per minute.
Grazie, come sempre.
Excellent, as usual! I am being tought this topic right now and it's a real pin in the eye! Thank you! Your videos are most helpful! By the way, I loved the last music sheet in Hebrew! I always wondered how would they underlay the text since the music is written right in the opposite direction. I'd like to see more examples of it.
imslp.org/wiki/Hashirim_asher_leSholomo_(Rossi%2C_Salamone)
How interesting! Thanks again!
Regarding the discussion at 6:32, about de confusion between Sesquialtera and Tripla, Dr. Julia Dokter summarize Praetorius' teachings in the page 28 of her Doctoral Dissertation "Tactus and Tempo in Organ Music from the German Barroque". According to this, Tripla include three semibreves proportional to two semibreves in duplum meter, and it must be associated with Alla breve (cut C) and then with the Motet style. In the other hand, Sesquialtera include three minims proportional to two minims in duplum meter, and must be associated to Alla semibreve (C) and then with Madrigal style. According to the explanation that she previously made regarding the tempo relationship between Motete and Madrigal, it could not be the same Tripla and Sesquialtera.
The confusion could be explained by following the italian tradition, Tripla was originally signed as cut C 3/2 (with three semibreves in a time of two semibreves); however, due to of the misuse of this time signature, Praetorius settled the notation convention: 3/1 or only 3 (with three semibreves), in order to distinguish from Sesquialtera, and not because it represents 3 notes in a time of one note.
So clear... and confusing at the same time :D Thank you for these truly helpful videos, and congrats for the graphic work that helps to have a bit fun with these hard subjects 👍 Subscribed!
This was both instructive and illuminating, in terms of how to count a bar line. I also know that in the realm of the 19'th century performance practices there are all kinds of discussions and fights going on about how to count music that was laid down with metronome markings. I know of a guy in Belgium, I won't give his name because it will only get me into trouble, who I initially was very supportive of until I saw, in my judgement, that he took the metronome markings and made them first into a fetish and secondly imposed a whole beat counting which lead to rather slow or very slow performance interpretations. It got so bad that I no longer comment on his channel and I find some of the interpretations, especially of Beethoven, to be unacceptable; they make me squirm with discomfort. I look forward to learning more from you about the historical patterns of counting. I love your material. It could not have come to me at a more opportune time in my life. HatsLacha.
There's a recent article by two Spanish researchers arguing that Beethoven's metronome marks make perfect sense (I.e. the usual performance tradition is completely correct) if you suppose that, as an early adopter of the metronome, he read the marking from the point of the little downward arrow thingie instead of the flat top - which is what about 50% of people do if they've never used a mechanical metronome before. It's a beautiful lesson in product design.
By the way, these video`s are extremely helpful and awsomely interesting :) thanks so much for taking the time and effort to upload them!!
Really helpful and beautifully produced. Thank you! (I've emailed you with a question - hope that's OK)
At 16:16, do you not take into account tempus perfectum vs. tempus imperfectum?
This video cast light in places full of doubts, but, more important, they cast shadows of doubt in places of certainty.
What is the goal of notating it differently if it is exactly the same in 16:58?
Thank you for these wonderful resources Elam! Any chance of a video about 17th-century aesthetics in vocal production/sound and technique at some point? It seems to be a widely debated topic and I'd love to hear what the sources really say about it.
The original in the end with a text in Hebrew? Is that historical, or one of Rotem's newly composed pieces?
imslp.org/wiki/Hashirim_asher_leSholomo_(Rossi%2C_Salamone)
Would one have to play that music from right to left?
@@hojowarf6488 No, because of the necessities of musical notation Salomone Rossi eventually decided to "sacrifice" the right-to-left order of Hebrew Script for the left-to-right typical of Latin alphabet and Western Notation; if you can read Hebrew, you should on the contrary be aware of the fact the text is written "inverted" in respect to the order you would expect.
Thank you again for this excellent video of which I will feature a little bit in my video of today, of course referring to the link and asking my viewers to subscribe to your channel. It's a pity that in the pendulum and metronome discussions so few scholars want to make the obvious bridge to the obvious meaning of Tact when talking on a Metronome or Taktmesser. It's essential in understanding the use of the metronome as well (at least as I believe it is).
Frankly, if conducting in three, typically, indicating the second beat is more important than indicating the third. It's too late to get the group playing together by waiting until the third beat. They need to know where the second beat's tempo is, be it drawn out or moved ahead.
I learned this decades ago thanks to a program about Seiji Ozawa that was on PBS, and, in one segment, he was explaining this very thing to someone, and I found, in my own conducting, that it really, really works.
Congratulation, great channel, which I visit very often. Your explanations are very clear and useful. But what's about pure instrumental music. Sometime I feel rather insecure in changing time...
If you've already discussed this, I apologize, but - I couldn't help but think as I watched the video, how does Tactus relate to modern practices in regards to conducting? Most of my own musical experience revolves around choral performance, of course, including one course on the basics of conducting. (Which I almost failed!) So now I wonder a bit, how did we come to our modern way of directing a musical group? I recall in other videos of yours that some choirs functioned without ANY direction as such, because the standard of practice was much more demanding of those performers: they had to really, really know their stuff and knew they'd be expected to work together in performance in that way. So were directors in the "modern choir" sense even a thing?
Hi Elam, how are you? I find your videos very satisfying to watch, interesting and fresh. Thank you very much.
I have a question regarding the last part of your video where you have a text in Hebrew over a score. how this is matched, since hebrew is red from right to left and music from left to right? Thank you and Shana Tova!
In this case, the complete words are placed under the last note where the word should end, and the singer should distribute the syllables. In most cases, it is one note per syllable so it's quite straightforward. You can see the sources here: imslp.org/wiki/Hashirim_asher_leSholomo_(Rossi%2C_Salamone)
Thank you for that excellent video! Only last week I wondered about the proportion signs in Alonso Mudarra's "Tres libros de musica en cifras para vihuela" (1546). The preface explains that a alla-breve-like sign signifies a slower(!) tempo ("ha de ir despacio") . But some recordings use definitely a faster tempo instead of a slower one. An interesting and baffling topic...
Never ever trust recordings!!! We can like one recording, and inspired, but nothing beats going to see the actual sources and work them directly regardless of what other did!!!
Wow, such beautiful videos! Just out of curiosity, can I ask you what kind of software do you use to make them? Thanks again!
Vicentinos remark is just great. Exactly how i think. Do you know how influential it was, and how long?
Well done, as usual!
One query: I would have expected (ca. 1600, and for quite a while afterwards) the penultimate note (G, imperfect breve) in the example of sesquialtera at around 7:15 to be black -- a consequence of the "similis ante similem perfecta" rule, which was still observed at least to the extent of causing coloration in contexts such as this. (And similarly, a black semibreve in the alla semibreve example.)
You are completely right. In this context I tried to avoid extra things to explain. Perhaps in an episode about older mensural notation this will be mentioned.
I thought something like that might be the case. It certainly would complicate things to have to explain in this video about coloration and its persistence into the 17th century! Thanks for the quick reply.
What editing software do you use? Thank you!
Adobe After Effects
So is moving the hand to the tactus the renaissance version of the conductor waving his baton?
ok, little notice: "inanes" (empty-handed) must not be pronounced with an aspiration, as in "inhanes", but without. All the rest, perfect, as usual.
Dank je voor deze uitleg. We zingen met het koor "Allons, Gay Bergeres" van Guillaume Costeley (?1531-1606) in moderne notatie. Het werk was genoteerd in 4/4 van begin tot het einde. Het was echter onmogelijk om het refrein vrolijk te laten klinken (volgens de tekst) en op het einde de zestiende noten nog betekenis te geven. Ik heb het refrein in "alla breve" gezet en de strofen in "common time". De harmonisatie, de woordexpressie en de stemvoeringen komen nu tot hun recht. Bedankt. Of is het Preatorius die ik moet bedanken ? ;-)
What about tactus and proportions in 1720 French court recitativi? 😅
Thank you very much!
Note that since your website update, the Footnotes link leads to an error page. The working link is www.earlymusicsources.com/youtube/tactus1600
Thanks for noticing! I'll fix that
Very interesting. I wonder if any of this is relevant to Wim Winter's theory on metronome marks, according to which the back and forth movement of the metronome's pendulum marks the two parts of the tactus. (See his UA-cam channel AuthenticSound for more.)
I hit like on your videos before I watch
2:20 lol
since i don`t have thorough study in this business (though I understand and can, though not easily, execute these subdivisions) i I `m bound to sort of guess about the lengths of the notes in modern editions…. mostly a sound understanding of the text gives some idea about how to sing going from 2 to 3 or 4 to 6 or so…..
did you say "cazzi meter" ?
he did, many times. he'll be banned by italian youtube! I was giggling to myself as in 5th grade :-D
Is it "fastidiosus in anes", or "fastidiosus inanes"?
"In anes" mean nothing in latin, "inanes" mean "empty" or "empty-handed": "And sends the rich away with nothing".
Just like in the Magnificat:
"Esurientes implevit bonis, et divites dimisit inanes."
"He has filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he has sent away empty."
Thank you very much! Very pecific topic for me. I understand the idea of proportion. But still the part about tactus conception as of stable ruthm (often measured by pendulum) stays a bit controversal for me. To me European musical tradition does not really operate with rythm as independent semantical element of music.... it is almost always a result of pitch realtions in time. I cannot understand implication of 'outside' timing that keeps beating irrespectively of what is going in music. What would you think about it?
A Big part of European music is dance music from quite early in history. And although you can always find exceptions, the number one rule when doing music to accompany the dancers (yesterday and now) is "keep the tempo and pulsation to not confuse the dancers" rythm and pulsation is not valid only in other cultures. And European musicians had these parameters while writing music.
@@mauricioamf Of course there were dances. But it is a different topic imho... what I see now is that players often mix notions of tactus and metronome and I really feel that it is wrong. As it is often happens in HIP they take something for granted without really understanding it. Tactus seems to me more like breath and regularity and consistence of it in music is much connected with character, affection, passion... because it is liveing creature that breathes. But still I do not get it practically from the sources... I think Furtwangler had the greatest tactus ever probably... you see what I mean?
@@MrJonahWhaler you do ancient music? If you want rythm, go see ars Nova, those crazy rythms, or really nice things from Agricola.
But I don't really get what you say, furtwangler knows nothing about ancient music (he is a great musician, but really nothing interesting for ancient music)
And there are lots of treatises taking about tempus perfectum, that in theory is the same for all ancient music (60-80bpm) but what musicians do with the same temps makes lots of different music.
@@mauricioamf I do play and study early music, Furtwangler's records of Bach are the greatest I ever heard, someone saying 'nothing interesting' about it puts me out of communicational context actually. There are much more things you have to do making music than following those written in treatisies. I do not deny the necessacity of study of course but I also strongly disagree with many things in HIP movement that often seem to be taken for granted now and that often makes it a last refugee of mediocracy. It is a long dicussion though and deffinitely not for this format. Initially what I wanted to say: whever I study something in early music sources I cannot use it in performance untill I artistically feel and hear how it works as a meaningful element of the musical piece. And I sad that the tactus is still the most controversal notion for me probably. I read a lot and heard from many competent players the explanation of it and still I am not convinced with musical result they offer. THis is what I meant.
@@MrJonahWhaler well, you must be doing HIP wrong or with the wrong people, I urge you to hear what people in Lyon, Geneva, bale, or Versailles are doing, cause it's really far far from what American people do... many good musicologists tho, but really not a lot of interesting things in ancient music, and Bach it's really beautiful in modern interpretation, I like some of them, but you cannot just think that HIP is not beautiful if you've never heard truly good musicians doing it.
Have you seen Wim Winters' channel? His focus is a bit later than yours (Beethoven, Czerny, and Chopin) but he's doing some fascinating research into the way the concept of the two-part Tactus was incorporated into early metronome markings.
Wim's videos it is about tempo not Rythmical structure
I am a standard deviation smarter.
Amazing! Just noticed that at ua-cam.com/video/otgXoa8QEWg/v-deo.html alla breve is called 𝇋 [C] instead of 𝇍 [slashed C]...
"Alla breve" = "cut time"
I think I've always been playing a mistake.....
It might have been correct :)
This is a very ackward subject. The task of recreation of early music in general is very laborious.
Now I realise that I understand nothing 🤯
Hi , you cold leave this discussion by focussing on "breath". The span of a gulp of breath must lead you the way!