Re: Re: oddly enough....beethoven


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Posted by Klaus on January 03, 2003 at 01:38:13:

In Reply to: Re: oddly enough....beethoven posted by GoodAmateurArranger on January 03, 2003 at 00:59:22:

One of the parameters to watch, when one researches vocal and instrumental solo repertory, that has to be transposed downwards into the tuba range, is the relation between the solo-tuba-line and the bass line. And that no matter whether it is carried by the piano, strings, woodwinds, or another tuba.

The basic rule in any transcription of tonal music is, that the melody line must never descend below the bass line.

This have many reasons, explanations, and implications.

A main problem is, that in most multi-part tonal music the bass-line forms its own contrapuntal melody line. And that goes even if the bass line consists only of a note on every second beat.

Another main problem is that the progression vertical structure (the chord layout) is a very significant stylistic trait in almost all tonal music.

One implication can be illustrated by a sample:

A very knowledgeable contributor to this board, with whom I exchange diverse sorts of musical material, sent me the layout, in form of a MIDI-file, for a transcription of a bel canto aria for contrabass tuba and piano and/or diverse ensembles.

The solo part fitted the low tuba marvellously, but the arrangement still sounded wrong. Upon closer analysis I narrowed the problem down:

The composer in question used a very significant bass-line progression during his extended harmonic cadenzas. But the soloist very often went so low, that it descended the characteristic bass-lines on several points. Thereby making the transcription sound like it never could have been written by the composer in question. Sadly this implicated, that this very good idea for a transcription could not be carried through.

Klaus


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