It's time to clarify units of measurement

[old man emu]

Getting back to the argument of the Metric against all others, I wonder when musicians will metricate?

 

In standard music notation, the duration (time length) of a particular note is defined by how long it lasts compared to a whole note. A note value indicates the relative duration of a note. The duration of notes is based on halving. A full length note is called a "whole note" or "semibreve". The shorter duration notes are half the length of the longer one above it. The American naming system is easier to understand in this context as they are half note; quarter note; eight note, etc. all the way to two hundred fifty-sixth note. 

 

Imagine trying to convert this piece by the composer Bartok  from a system based on 2^-n to a 10^-n system and having the music sound the same.

 

 

[octave]

Having been a musician and music teacher my whole working life I have plenty to say about this.   Musicians are fine with either system. Although in my youth I was taught crotchets, quavers etc  As a teacher I have always taught both naming systems. I agree that whole, half etc is somewhat easier in that unless you have been taught the names of crotchets,quavers etc and rembered them, there is no way to deduce the next shorter note name. There can be a difficulty though.  In the fractional system a whole note takes up the whole of a bar but only in 4/4 time. A half note goes for 2 beats, a quarter note goes for 1 and an 8th note goes for half a beat.  It gets trickier in more complex time signatures such as 6/8

[onetrack]

I don't think I could listen to metric music for too long - rap music does my head in, and country music is just too painful, with their songs of woe.

[pmccarthy]

Would Octave become Decade?

[spacesailor]

There's No halves in the S I system. 

So how do they share an ' Apple  ' for two or four people. 

One fiftieth of a centimetre,  or one fifth of a Decimetre.. 

It doesn't run off the tongue. 

spacesailor

 

[old man emu]

3 hours ago, octave said:

Although in my youth I was taught crotchets, quavers etc  As a teacher I have always taught both naming systems

I have no musical training at all. Couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. I simply noticed that the duration of notes was in that  1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 etc. sequence. Trying to understand the several time signatures has thrown me. I must admit that the American system of naming does away with learning the Renaissance Period terms which really don't indicate the duration of the notes they name. 

 

My idea of learning to read music is to accept that what appears on paper is simply another form of communication shorthand. I fully understand the mathematical shorthand of something like y = mx + b, or the chemical shorthand of 2H2 + O2 = 2 H20. At my age, and with my experience, I would try to learn to read a musical notation in the same way as I learned to read written text. 

 

Octave, does my belief that musical notation is simply another shorthand communication method hold true? Can you equate it to the way letters form form sounds and sounds form words?

[facthunter]

Don't tell me we couldn't cope with something out of ten? You are frequently asked "on a scale of 1 to 10 what would you say your level of Pain is? It's DONE most of the time. I want you to put in a 100% effort this time. etc.  Nev

[octave]

1 hour ago, old man emu said:

 

 

Octave, does my belief that musical notation is simply another shorthand communication method hold true? Can you equate it to the way letters form form sounds and sounds form words?

Yes that is a good description of the process. A beginner tends to read each note like someone learning to read words by spelling out each letter. With more experience you can read a whole phrase   A phrase is sort of like a sentence.

[facthunter]

Bit like most marriages then?. Nev

[old man emu]

16 hours ago, octave said:

A beginner tends to read each note like someone learning to read words by spelling out each letter

 Is that the way to teach it, or is the student thrown the musical equivalent of War and Peace and expected to interpret the notation into meaningful sound?

[octave]

54 minutes ago, old man emu said:

 Is that the way to teach it, or is the student thrown the musical equivalent of War and Peace and expected to interpret the notation into meaningful sound?

At first reading each note is inevitable. Sometimes students get a little stuck reading one note at a time. They tend to play a note and when that note has been played they then look at the next note. This makes for slow stilted playing. I get them to, whilst playing a note to be looking and thinking about the next note. At first this can lead to mistakes but this is better than not learning to read ahead. Gradually they get more comfortable with reading further ahead.

I do teach students depending on how they learn best 

[facthunter]

Music is regulated noise.  Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

I used to be metric till I built a plane with AN hardware. So I like the idea of non-metric music. Mind you, liters is easier for me than gallons....  bugger, I'm completely screwed up.

[facthunter]

When "0" became a number we advanced mightily.Nev

[spacesailor]

But , what is the apple divided for four people .( 2.5 each ) .

So simple in fractions. 

We no longer use ' old English ' .

But I'm still , four ' score ' years old . & can count in ' florins, crowns , half crowns , as well as the newer pounds shillings and pence .   ( guineas= 21 shillings ).

spacesailor

 

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by spacesailor
Missed word