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March 22

Bach chorales

Some questions for J.S. B. buffs about the SATB chorale harmonizations, leaving out any example not for SATB or not in four parts, such as Welt, ade! ich bin dein müde, found in several collections, which is not even by Bach.

Highest and lowest notes of S, A, T and B, respectively
Maximum range of the voices, i.e. distance between highest and lowest note, within a chorale, of S, A, T and B
Maximum distance, within a chorale, between adjacent voices, namely B to T, T to A, and A to S
Maximum distance, within a chorale, between outer voices, namely B to S
Maximum total range, i.e. distance, within a chorale, between lowest note of B and highest note of S
Places where two voices cross ~~or are in unison~~ (i.e. a lower one goes above a higher one)
Parallel unisons, 5ths and 8ves (whether by parallel motion or otherwise)
Know of any MIDI recording of the collection or at least a substantial part of it? At IMSLP, I've checked, there's nothing but a paltry four, so it would have to be some place else if you know or can think of one.
How on earth did successive editions since the beginning of the 20th c. (Terry, Czarnecki, Dahn, etc.) manage to increase the traditional number of around 370 by up to 50? Were they overlooked by earlier editors since the 18th c.? Or were they from newly discovered lost works?

Thanks Basemetal 10:27, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Answering all these questions would require a great deal of time spent looking through the chorales! The traditional collection of 371 (Breitkopf edition) is available on IMSLP and should provide a good starting point: for example, the lowest bass note I can see is C2 (e.g. No. 34, Erbarm' dich mein, o Herre Gott), and the highest is E♭4 (e.g. No. 179, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme). I'd have answered for the other three parts but ran out of time; I suspect the problem with such questions is that they necessitate going through all 371 and are not all too enlightening on Bach's actual practice (which I would imagine is closer to "allow all those rules to be broken if it makes for something more musically effective" rather than "expand the rules to allow notes to be x distance apart but no farther"; just because I cannot find an E4 for bass in there doesn't mean he might not have considered writing one if it was effective). #6 is incidentally very common, as even a cursory look through the Breitkopf edition will show. A good candidate for #2 for bass is No. 24 (Valet will ich dir geben) with a two-octave leap in the bass directly from D2 to D4. Double sharp (talk) 13:52, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh no, I was never asking anyone to actually go and look for all those things just for my sake. It's just that some people are remarkably good at remembering what they've read (especially in music for some reason). And since that collection is very popular with many who've studied harmony, lots of people must have looked thru it. Regarding #6 do you mean the old #6 where I included unisons (so two voices just touching) or the new #6 where I excluded unisons? Are voice crossings that common? ~~I'll take another look but from memory the first chorale in the Riemenschneider collection where I remember soprano and alto crossing is around number 20 at least if not higher.~~ Would you say crossings between inner voices may be more common that tenor going below bass or (especially) alto going above soprano? If tenor goes below bass would the tenor then become the bass harmonically including chords figured from it? And if alto goes above soprano, would the roles of the alto and soprano be switched with the alto being given the chorale melody? Or would the soprano be always keeping the chorale melody with just the harmonization (the "accompaniment") going above it? Basemetal 16:09, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

PS: The first crossings between soprano and alto I've noticed in the Riemenschneider collection are both by oblique motion. One at 20 (Ein' feste Burg is unser Gott) where the soprano stays put on a quarter on D4 while the alto goes D4 to E4 in eighths (such a crossing can be "eliminated" by changing the soprano quarter into an eighth plus an eighth rest). Another at 21 (Herzlich tut mich verlangen) where the alto hits two quarters in a row on G4 while the soprano goes B4 to E4. I'd say oblique motion crossings are heard less clearly as crossings than ones by contrary motion. (There's also in principle direct motion crossings but I don't even know what to think of them.) Basemetal 18:10, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

To answer your last question, that's relatively easy. New finds of music from Baroque composers happen periodically, whether from estates, out-of-the-way corners of libraries, or "Hey, I found this stuff jammed into the wall when we were renovating our London townhouse, it looks really old." Beyond that, how many times has the attribution of a piece been changed or clarified? Ravenswing 22:21, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If that wasn't a rhetorical question, check out Category:Compositions with a spurious or doubtful attribution for starters. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:24, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Parenthetical comment. The claim one has been hearing like a mantra ad nauseam for tens of years that Bach (or whoever) broke rules or did something unexpected simply because they thought that was the right time to do it because there it happened to be musically "effective" is a superficially profound (how is that for an oxymoron?) but in fact a meaningless and vacuous statement. For one it is completely circular. Why did they do this? Because they thought it was musically "effective". And how do we know it was musically "effective" and more effective than any other option? Why, because they did it, and they wouldn't have done it otherwise. Furthermore it defies credibility that a musical style (or, for that matter, any artistic style) would be both full of rules but that it would turn out that in fact the only supreme and final rule is to supposedly do what is most "effective". There is obviously a subtle dialectic in this sort of style between following the rule, breaking the rule, stretching the rule, breaking the spirit of the rule but following its letter or vice versa, and so on and so forth, that the vacuous claim that what was done was done because it was the most "effective" thing to do at the time, doesn't even begin to account for. Finally there are pragmatic considerations of course. There is the physical world to take into consideration. Voices have ranges for example. No one will write a C7 for an contralto even if they thought it was the most "effective" thing to do. I don't know who said "Art thrives on its limitations". It's often attributed to Orson Welles but I doubt it was him. There's no such thing as the most "effective" thing to do. It's much more complicated than that. Basemetal 18:25, 28 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- @Basemetal: If you like, you can read what I mean by "more effective" as "breaking the letter of the rule but adhering to its spirit" for things like parallel fifths or voice crossings. There are a lot of exceptions, but the exceptions are almost consistent enough to be rules – along with their own exceptions. The adherence to the spirit of the rule and its roots in the style are the reason why these things are more effective but don't sound out of place. As for voice ranges: certainly I'm not aware of anyone writing an obligatory C7 for soprano either. But a few extra notes, on either end, do not seem to be terribly problematic. We can certainly say that Bach might have written an E♭4 for bass, because he did; we can say with a good deal of confidence that he would never have written a C5; but for some notes in the middle, it is not quite out of the question (though getting progressively less likely) that he might have written an E4, F4, or F♯4 if the situation had made that the best solution from his perspective. To see what I am getting at about ranges: just because Haydn never wrote a G♯6 for the piano does not mean he would never have, as he obviously had the note on his keyboard in his last works (he writes a G6 and an A6 in the late C major sonata, and it would look very silly to have a keyboard with those two notes and not the black key in between). As long as a note is actually playable or singable, it might be asked for, even if it so happens that it wasn't. Double sharp (talk) 00:37, 29 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What music played on SNL March 10?

I'm just going to start over and ask a whole new question. The music was in this clip. I asked but those who answered told me to use Shazam on my phone. My phone makes and receives calls. I wouldn't know how to get Shazam or what to do if I had it.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 14:14, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Getting a response could be a longshot, but you might try asking NBC or SNL's publicists. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:45, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Are you talking about the three chords played near the beginning: G A# C? While G A C is extremely common in 3-chord rock, G A# C is used more often in hard rock or heavy metal. A very famous version of it is Iron Man. There is no reason to assume that the three chords come from a specific song because SNL has a house band. If you told a house band to play something that sounds like rock, they would likely pound out G A# C. It would sound familiar because so many songs begin like that. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 11:39, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The music plays throughout the clip.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:00, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Living_in_the_Past_(TV_series)

Might any of you know where on the internet I may be able to access the original full episodes of this series? I have already checked and emailed the library of congress without any luck. The British Film Institute didn't respond to my inquiry. Archive.org has nothing and youtube only has a few follow up documentary interview things from years after. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.236.27.248 (talk) 19:23, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

BFI Screenline, as per the reference, includes a link to one full episode (of Living in the Past (TV series)} - though you have to be registered to watch it. It may be that once you are registered, other episodes will become accessible. Wymspen (talk) 21:14, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Someone also tried in 2010 without luck [1]. Likewise in 2013 [2]. It seems some excepts are available here [3] but that's all else I can find. Nil Einne (talk) 06:42, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]