Re: Beam positions and time signature spacing

[Phil Holmes]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Urs Liska" <address@hidden>
To: <address@hidden>
Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: Beam positions and time signature spacing


Am 11.11.2013 15:34, schrieb Phil Holmes:
> ===========================================
>
> Not sure which practice you hate: slurs or beams?  For myself, a singer 
> who sings for 10s of hours a week, I like slurs to indicate melisma and 
> think beaming for the same purpose is irritating in the extreme.

It's the slurs.
I have over and over made the experience that slura indicating melismas
make singers read them as phrasings. As said I have worked with lots of
singers, from students who want to become school teachers up to
international level opera/concert singers. And I've hardly met anyone
having a clear picture of this notational situation. They just _see_ it
and _feel_ it. And in this case their feeling is wrong.

So I stand to it that slurs as melismas 'actively' give a false
impression and therefore make it harder (if not impossible) to correctly
read the score. It's on a very subtle level so one hardly notices the
difference. But that doesn't make it less problematic.

Urs

============================================

I disagree.  But my question is: is you don't use slurs to indicate melisma, 
how do you indicate it - especially with crochets, minims and semi-breves?

--
Phil Holmes