[PD] list issue

[Matt Barber]

>
> Unless you happen to be listening to Carter, Cowell, Ferneyhough, Johnston, Nancarrow, or anyone who has ever happened to use a quintuplet (Chopin, Elvin Jones, maybe Al Pacino in "Heat")
>
> -Jonathan
>

Or Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky Wagner, Mahler, Strauss,
Bartok, Schoenberg, Berg, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Ravel, Debussy, etc.,
not to mention the more "temporally advanced" folks you mentioned.
Plenty of jazz, and decent metal splits beats into fives, and you
can't play in a drum corps without perfect subdivision chops...
sometimes quintuplets are called "20th notes."

But if you want pieces that make heavy use of quintuplets, you would
want to check out Carter (start with the string quartets, for
instance).  Tuplets are often used to allow several people to play
music in different tempi while each attending to a "master pulse."  I
just played a recorder motet where the the low voice was in 3/2, the
middle voice in 2/2, and the upper voice in the equivalent of 5/10
time.  Or, in Carter, often the old quintuplet becomes the new 16th
note and the music proceeds at a faster tempo.

There are plenty of composers who do the same simply using time
signatures.  I've conducted pieces which go fluidly from one meter to
the next -- 3/4 5/6 2/4 3/8 31/32 5/4 19/10 etc.  It's not that hard
once you get the hang of it, but it is hard to get the hang of.

I believe that most competent musicians should be able to handle
rhythmic notation at least up to subdivisions of 6.  Not that they can
usually; but I believe it should be the case -- one can practice
rhythm anywhere.

In addition you can check out Stockhausen, Babbitt, Boulez, Wuorinen,
or most anyone who structures rhythm parametrically.  (pun)  Or, for
an extremely rich but different orientation, check out Carnatic (South
Indian) classical music -- look up "Korvai" for instance.


Matt