Re: On the Grammar of Music (Alexandra Hettergott )


Subject: Re: On the Grammar of Music
From:    Alexandra Hettergott  <a.hettergott(at)WANADOO.FR>
Date:    Sun, 29 Apr 2001 22:23:08 +0200

John Croft replied : >Certainly; but if musical stylistic variation is analogous to stylistic >variation within a language, then is there any plausible candidate for >the analogue of grammatical differences *between* languages? Isn't this also sort of a (national / regional / epochal) *stylistic* variation ...? Anyhow, (musical) idiom / style / (particular) grammar use should be interrelated, and as stated already, I wouldn't necessarily look for 1:1-(speech) analogies here. Something like a local dialect might most closely correspond to the adequate (traditional) folk music style ; so if you focus on aspects like different (traditional) instrumentation / rhythmization, you might find a lot of examples as for idiomatic / stylistic particularities. Imagine, for instance, the tune of the 'Blue Danube' (J. Strauss jr.) rendered by the following music ensembles : a Trinidad Steel Band, a Balinese Gamelan, a New Orleans Dixieland Band, a Viennese Heurigen Ensemble ... Or in the (individual) style / musical idiom of Franz Liszt (piano), Ravi Shankar (sitar), Jimmy Rodgers (vocal), Fritz Kreisler (violin) ... Or in choral (canon) / symphonic (sonata) / Lied (strophic) form, all with the respective (genre-specific) cast ... :ah


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