Re: Notation convention: dotted notes, duplet or else?

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi David,

> Which is exactly the opposite approach in that it banishes all but one
> aspect of the music.

Yes — I was only comparing the extremity of your approach with the extremity of 
his.

> It would appear to me that if one wants to have a flow of accents
> unrelated to some no longer underlying meter, one should better revert
> to basically meterless notation, like those used for Gregorian chant.

That's essentially what he was trying to accomplish, while still satisfying the 
modern performers' (and conductors') "need" to see bar lines. It was definitely 
the one thing about his instruction that I didn't like at the time, and quickly 
stopped doing after my time studying with him.

> Like with poetry, if you have to use means of forcing the meter to the 
> performer, and if the
> performer has to take explicit means to force the meter to the
> listeners, one might suspect that the content to be conveyed might have
> benefitted from a better fit of the message/medium.

Again, your "binary" approach misses the point: Every poet uses "means of 
forcing the meter to the performer", including end-stopping, punctuation, 
changing metrical feet, etc. And the great poets use more force. 

> Printing a meter change for hemioles is like indicating the exact placement 
> for canned laughter in a
> comedy script, perhaps by marking out sentence parts as "funny" and "not 
> funny".

We are in total agreement on that.
What you seem to be incapable of appreciating is that not every duple and/or 
dotted rhythm is a hemiola in disguise.

> a composer is hoping to elicit precise effects, he should not make
> his music available except to ensembles he is conducting himself.  I
> know someone who did it like that and his widow is still keeping the
> scores pretty tightly under wrap.

Wow — you sure know a lot of people who make extreme choices.

Kieren.