I’ve studied computer science and then gone on to study the recorder and I’m currently busying myself with making the recorder able to control the computer. I love the combination, but wondered a bit about if I’ve chosen a favourable tradeoff. I’m happy so I guess I’m not doing to bad. But, when I started reading “On playing the Flute” by Johann Joachim Quantz (the book I’m referring to is the 2nd edition of the English translation by Edward R. Reilly published through Faber & Faber) I found that he had something to say on the issue. In chapter 1 (page 24) he writes:

“Furthermore, a musician must not occupy himself with too many other things. Almost every science requires the whole man. My meaning here, however, is by no means that it is impossible to excel in more than one science at the same time, but that this requires a quite extraordinary talent, of a kind that nature seldom produces.”

Ouch! But later in the same paragraph: “Yet if someone who gives himself to academic studies has sufficient talent for music, and devotes just as much industry to it as to the former, he not only has an advantage over other musicians, but also can be of greater service to music in general than others, as can be demonstrated with many examples. Whoever is aware of how much influence mathematics and other related sciences, such as philosophy, poetry, and oratory, have upon music, will have to own not only that music has a greater compass than many imagine, but also that the evident lack of knowledge about the above-mentioned sciences among the majority of professional musicians is a great obstacle to their further advancement, and the reason why music has not yet been brought to a more perfect state.”

So, apparently, nature seldom produces people that can do two things well, but there are many examples if the two things are music and academic studies. Of course, a good question is what Quantz recognizes as academic studies. Is what he writes considered academic by his contemporaries?

PS, happy new year!

When Quantz writes “On playing the flute”, the flute is just emerging from a time of much change, and we know that the flute changed much until it became the flute we know today. The recorder is in a similar situation today where the recorders that are made are often very different from what they were only fifteen year ago, and through my correspondence with inventors and recorder builders I have no reason to believe that the recorder is done developing now.

What I have found is that recorders made by good recorder players are in general better than those made by instrument makers who are not good recorder players. And I was happy to find support for this finding in Quantz’ book. He writes this for the traverso, but I see no reason why this should be different for the recorder if we replace the word embouchure with breathing technique. He writes:

“Pure intonation from one note to another depends upon a firm and secure embouchure, a good musical ear, and upon a good understanding of the proportions of the notes. Whoever possesses this knowledge and also plays well is in a position to make a good, accurately tuned flute. But since the majority of flute makers are not able to do so it is difficult not only to get hold of a good flute, but also to acquire a good ear, even with frequent playing.”

Quantz then goes on to advocate that flute players should know much on flute making. I disagree with this since I don’t think we have the time for it, but I would strongly suggest only buying recorders from makers who are good recorder players themselves.

In this first post I’d like to talk about Pierre Philidor’s notation of ornaments and what this might mean. The ornament in question is the grace note leading up to the second quarternote in the third bar:

Seeing just the upper voice and that second bar, I’d think this is inégal. However, as this is french late baroque music, we would assume that inégal would be written in quavers like the fourth bar in the bass line. But if we can expect a regular inégal, why would Philidor then in the next system write the dotted figure seen in the upper voice first bar and bass second bar in the following example?

It seems like Philidor likes to play with the sharpness of the inégal. But if this is the case, we still haven’t decided what the second bar in the first excerpt means. My personal take on this is to see what Vivaldi is doing at the same time. Shame on me for thinking about italians when working with french music, but hey, Philidor and his fellow french composers were more influenced by italians than the previous generation composers would have allowed. Vivaldi uses such grace notes as dissonances in front of the harmonically correct notes, and since we know that they should have at least half the length of the note, they become great dissoances while it’s easy to read where we’re going harmonically. So I tried playing it lombardic, but I’m not sure that this would be a great solution either.

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