
Quaver or eighth-note?
======================


To: rosegarden@lists.bath.ac.uk
Subject: 'quaver' or 'hemidemisemiquaver' ?
From: "Michael Gerdau" <m.gerdau@elmshorn.netsurf.de>
Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 17:34:39 +0200

[...]

What actually is 'quaver' or 'hemidemisemiquaver' ?
(living in Germany and never came across that one; at
least not under that name)

I always thought this is some slang :-)

Could someone please explain this in 1/2, 1/4, etc. ?

Best,
Michael



To: rosegarden@lists.bath.ac.uk
Subject: Re: 'quaver' or 'hemidemisemiquaver' ?
From: Chris Cannam <chrisc@msi-uk.com>
Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 17:01:05 +0100

Michael Gerdau wrote:
> > What actually is 'quaver' or 'hemidemisemiquaver' ?

Well I guess that's one more country that doesn't use them, then.
What are the notes called in German?  And French, and Swedish and
any other languages of countries that people on this list live in?

As far as I know, this system originally started with the "long"
and the "breve" which were the equivalent of four and two whole
notes respectively.  (Rosegarden 2.1 offers the breve as its
longest note.)  As the usual demands for high-performance high-
speed music percolated through from the masses, the music companies
were forced to introduce the semibreve (whole note), minim (half
note), crotchet (quarter), quaver (eighth), semiquaver (sixteenth),
demisemiquaver, hemidemisemiquaver, semihemidemisemiquaver and so
on, with only the reassuring lengths of the names compensating for
the shortness of the notes.  (This cycle of increasingly rabid
fast-music madness was only halted by the discovery of Bruckner.)

I may as well add that these are the only note names that I was
ever taught, and I still have to do a bit of mental arithmetic to
comprehend the American quarter-, eighth- and so on.  (Are they
American?  I always assumed so.)  Needless to say, the use of the
proper names leads one inevitably to perform refined English music,
whereas the use of degenerate colonial names leads to dissonance,
meaningless arhythm, and finally absolute incomprehensible chaos.


Chris



To: cannam@all-day-breakfast.com
Subject: Re: 'quaver' or 'hemidemisemiquaver' ?
From: Eric Brunet <ebrunet@clipper.ens.fr>
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 18:57:12 +0200
Cc: rosegarden@lists.bath.ac.uk

[...]

Ok, french lesson :-)

Here, the notes are named according to what they look like:

semibreve (whole note)	 Ronde 	(because it is a little circle)
minim (half note)	 Blanche 	(because it is white)
crotchet (quarter)	 Noire 	(because it is black)
quaver (eighth)		 Croche 	(very confusing with crotchet...
					 a  crochet  is something to
					 which you hang something, and
					 the little flag on the note
					 looks just like that.)
semiquaver (sixteenth)	 Double croche  (there are two little flags...)
demisemiquaver		 Triple croche  (three little flags.)
hemidemisemiquaver	 Quadruple croche  (guess... Yes ! four little flags)
 ....
					     
     ric Brunet



To: rosegarden@lists.bath.ac.uk
Subject: Re: 'quaver' or 'hemidemisemiquaver' ?
From: "Michael Gerdau" <m.gerdau@elmshorn.netsurf.de>
Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 18:58:07 +0200

>Well I guess that's one more country that doesn't use them, then.
>What are the notes called in German?

I'm not sure about equivalents for long (never actually came across
such a note in notation) or breve (at least know how to write them :-)

The others are (in german):
breve = 2 Ganze (Noten; usually omitted)
semibreve = Ganze (Note; usually omitted)
minim = Halbe (Note; usually omitted)
crotchet = Viertel (...)
quaver = Achtel (...)
semiquaver = Sechzehntel
demisemiquaver = Zweiunddreissigstel
hemidemisemiquaver = Vierundsechzigstel
etc.

The german words are direkt translations of 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc.

We also have dotted (punktiert), doubledotted (zweifach punktiert),
tripledotted (dreifach punktiert) etc. as a prefix to any of the above.

[...]

>whereas the use of degenerate colonial names leads to dissonance,
>meaningless arhythm, and finally absolute incomprehensible chaos.

Now I understand. I'll immediately start learning proper names.

Best,
Michael



To: Chris Cannam <chrisc@msi-uk.com>
Subject: Re: 'quaver' or 'hemidemisemiquaver' ?
From: Simon Kagedal <simon@sdf.se>
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 19:14:26 +0200
Cc: rosegarden@lists.bath.ac.uk

[...]

Swedish: Just like Michael Gerdau just posted about German, but
in Swedish. Ie 1/4 = "fjrdedelsnot" = "quarter note", or something.
Very simple, just like the meter system. :)

--
Simon Kgedal <simon@sdf.se> - Homepage: http://www.sdf.se/~simon/



To: rosegarden@lists.bath.AC.UK
Subject: Re: 'quaver' or 'hemidemisemiquaver' ?
From: jpff@maths.bath.ac.uk
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 98 13:50:16 BST

The Crotchet is so named as the sign was like a hook or crook.  The
word is French.  It all goes to show how music degenerated when the
breve was introduced into plainchant; I agree fully with Chris.
  While we are at it, a Minim was so called as it was the smallest
note (minimum length). Quaver relates to the wobble in a voice and
hence the length of time one holds a pitch when wobbling.  So you lot
who use that strange 16th note are splitting wobbles.  Like Chris I
need a translation table for this fraction thing.  1/8 sounds to me
like a weird time signature as found in Dohnanyi.

==John

