From: Bill Long Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 12:12:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: 5th notes
>Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 08:59:53 -0800 (PST) >From: John Santana >Subject: RE: What's 2/5 > >So I'll be able to play in 2/5 once someone invents a *5th note*.
Hey John and other fellow harpers, 5th notes already exist...no need to re-invent them. In fact I can envision at least three or four varieties of 5th notes. The first would be written like quarter notes with a bracket spanning over the top of the group with the number 5 in the middle of the bracket. These would be played as 5 notes in the space of 4 beats. The second type would be written looking like eight notes, with the same sort of bracket overhead, and would be played as 5 notes spanning the space (or is that time) of 2 beats. The third type would be written looking like 16th notes and be played as 5 notes within a single beat. I've even seen "32nd note 5ths" where 5 notes take up half a beat and may be followed by 2 16ths or an 8th, all within the same beat! Notice that 16ths, 8ths, 1/4s, 1/2s, etc. are still called the same even if they do NOT occur in 4/4 time. It would be way too confusing to call 16th notes 12ths if they happened to be in a 3/4 measure. Reading music is complicated enough without muddying the issue with these minor inconsistencies. I read treble clef just fine when I'm playing my trumpet, but if I'm playing guitar orharp I don't really "read" music real-time...it takes too long for me to translate the note on the page to which hole to play blow or draw on the harp...so I rely on my ears a lot more (and my knowledge of music theory). Of course, all this is an aside to the original question. What the guitar player meant probably had more to do with the chord progression than with note values. In a lot of blues you'll see the standard I I I I IV IV I I V IV I I progression for part of the tune and then they'll switch to more ornamented progressions where you might see something like I IV I I IV iv I vi ii V I V or something even more complicated during instrumental solos. You can even extend the 12 bar form into 16 bars by reapeating the last 4 measures...and it's possible that the guitar player was calling for something like this. The only way we'll really know the answer is if the poster of the original question can remember what they actually heard being played during the performance...or if they seek out the guit player and just ask them outright. Don't be shy...sometimes we learn the most when we're not afraid to let other folks know that we just don't understand what the hay they're talking about!
Bill Long >-- StarGazer --< N2LAG ;'''; Laboratory Mechanician long~plava.cc.plattsburgh.edu 6 "L" 9 Arts & Science Machine Shop (137.142.18.1) ( \_/ ) 017 Hudson Hall long~nyplava.bitnet \___/ SUNY at Plattsburgh, NY
