Instrument Players - Come and chat (Part II)

[CoteDAzur]

Previous thread is here.

We filled one thread, so here’s another

Keeping fingers crossed for your exam results, Fluke

Keeping hands warm enough to play is a real problem for early music players, because our concerts and even exams typically take place in freezing churches. I bought a pair of these "wrist warmers" for this purpose. They are fantastic, as they come down no further than the palm and so leave the fingers free to play.

I bought a pair for my harpsichord teacher as Christmas present last year, and this year I have a pair for my choir teacher who accompanies us on the piano

Oooo, good idea, cote. I've had a few pipe organ lessons (totally amazing, attempting a Bach fugue on a fabulous organ) in a church and it was freezing. I think I might treat myself... How generous is the sizing? I'm rather slight so gloves etc are usually a bit loose on me.

My hands are quite narrow (pianist hands ) and they are perfect for me. They shouldn't be tight anyway as you wouldn't be comfortable playing in them otherwise.

DS2 has those wrist warmers. But I'm never cold when I play ...

I do like the lol of the wrist warmers - my music school always holds the concerts in a chilly church!
Spent yesterday doing nothing much apart from piano practice. Feel much better for it - you are all very inspiring!

That should say 'the look of' - my phone has a mind of its own...

I'm done with the last FAST Fugue in Bach's Toccata in E minor (BWV 914) I spent literal HOURS on it last weekend. My teacher was when I played it for her on Monday

Meanwhile on the singing front, yours truly is now singing soprano I was in the Alto group last year but was finding the lower notes difficult. I recently had a go at the Soprano melodies et voilà saw that this range is easier & more pleasant to sing.

Great achievement Cote - nice to get a good reaction too!

Continuing with my music reading frenzy, I've been reading about equal temperament and it's blowing my mind a bit - I think it's something along the lines of modern instruments all being sort of a little out of tune as a compromise?!

Anyway, I wondered about the harpsichords and other instruments you play Cote - are they tuned to equal temperament or other tunings? And if they are tuned differently, do you notice a significant difference? Do harpsichord people have favourite tunings?

I've been trying to find examples of different tunings on YouTube but in many videos the quality isn't good enough to tell much difference...or it might just be my lack of pitch discrimination! Hearing it live must be better.

I vaguely remember learning about this equal temperament thing.

DS told me vaguely about having to play a sharp more sharp on the cello under certain circumstances ...

I think you can press a button to change the tuning on some of the higher-end digital pianos but mine isn't good enough sadly. Anyone got this magic button?? I think some clavinovas have this.

I guess if you're playing a cello or other string, or singing, you can do it quite easily.

I can't say I know much about temperaments, but our harpsichords are usually tuned to equal temperament, like pianos. That allows for music pieces to sound equally good when transposed, or for a piece in one key to sound as good as another in a different key.

Sometimes a harpsichord we play was tuned to a temperament for a concert on Italian Renaissance music. It made the Cm Bach partita I started playing sound absolutely horrible, so I switched to Rameau's Gavotte & 6 Doubles (in A) which sounded perfectly fine. I couldn't tell you why

I don't know if temperament is a thing for violin, cello, etc. I thought it was for fixed-key instruments like the harpsichord. Can you even fix intervals on fretless instruments? Surely you would just play notes where you like.

Can anyone tell me what the does lines signify on this music please?

Dotted lines...

...its here too...

@FlukeSkyeRunner I think it's intended to indicate that those notes are played by the same hand.

But I would play those with different hands. I think it says that's how the melody line goes.

I'm fairly sure it's intended to indicate which hand to use.

Look at the fingering and the change from bass to treble clef in the first one (the notes to be played with the 3rd and 4th finger are adjacent, although it's not obvious because you can't see the whole sheet) and in the other one it's indicated that the left hand crosses over to play the top note while the right hand plays the octave with thumb and 5th finger.

In the second one you won't use the 4th finger of the right hand to play those notes but you would with your left.

Fluke any chance of more view of the music?

Dotted lines usually represent the melody line, which is especially useful in polyphony. You see it in Renaissance music or early Baroque, where music is written in 'voices' as if contrapuntal melodies are being sung by a Soprano and a Tenor for example rather than notes played on a keyboard.

It doesn't seem to be the case in this sheet music, though. It doesn't look like an indication that notes will be played by the same hand, either - The first picture actually says "Left hand over" so presumably wants you to play the 1st note with 5th finger of the left hand, 2nd note with 1st finger of the right hand, then jump left hand over right to play the 3rd note with the 2nd finger of the LEFT hand.

Reading piano music isn't my forte so I don't have anything to contribute I'm afraid!

But...very interesting about the harpsichord with the alternative tuning Cote. That makes total sense to my (basic) understanding of equal temperament and other tunings. In ET all the keys sound equally good (or bad, depending on your opinion). In non-equal tunings some keys are nicely in tune but others aren't. C minor and A major are 'opposite' each other in terms of sharps and flats (and therefore opposite each other on the circle of fifths) so it makes sense that one sounded good in the tuning and one sounded bad. Nice!

What would be interesting to hear is whether the A major piece sounds nicer (ie more in tune) on that harpsichord versus one tuned to equal temperament...(unfortunately I think I probably wouldn't be able to tell!)

I was away this weekend with no access to a piano at all! A bit frightening.

But I took my ukulele so I at least had something to play. Ended up showing my friend (who plays no musical instruments) a few chords and within an hour she was playing dozens of songs by ear and was able to transpose Mary Had a Little Lamb into four different keys!

Feel like I'm on some kind of musical evangelism mission at the moment. (Granted, not all my friends are as enthusiastic about it as that friend was...!)

Here we go, more of the second piece of music. It definitely seems to indicate playing with the same hand in this case, the left hand, but doesn't make a great deal of sense to interpret it like that in the first piece.

Oh I see! Swap to left hand the bar before and continue with left hand as indicated by dotted line.